I've got your missing links right here (9 June 2012)

Top picks This is really important: a new technique deduces a foetus' genome... from its parents' DNA. Good coverage by Alison Motluk. Thrilling story, spanning 1.75 billion yrs, about how an undersea eruption created an American town. By Dana Hunter. Important, for anyone covering evolution. If platypuses wrote the biology textbooks, by T. Ryan Gregory. Guy creates music based on animals. He has good taste. Dugong! Tardigrade! Honey badger! By Veronique Greenwood We can now watch a fruit fly developing, cell by cell, in real time, by Lauren Gravitz "BP has subpoenaed the private emails of scientists who studied Deepwater Horizon.” Keep it classy folks. By Brandon Keim. Humboldt squid are absolutely terrifying. Thankfully they don't hunt in coordinated pac... OH &%£$. By Craig McClain. Child considers manatee. Manatee considers child. Stunning photo We aren't possibly lucky enough to get a *second* epic Robert Krulwich commencement speech, right? Wait, we ARE! Ferris Jabr on the sophisticated social network of hermit crabs. The only human social network involving crabs is Chatroulette. Guns don't kill people, video game players do. Righteous fury by Martin Robbins. David Biello’s morning cup of coffee is killing monkeys. They probably had it coming, he said, bitterly nursing his espresso. “This fish-autism-antidepressants story has the feel of a ticking time-bomb.” Correct, Tom Chivers. Watch as Neuroskeptic absolutely annihilates it, but so-called journalists don’t even bother to ask around for comment. SERIOUSLY? With the crapstorm of misinformation that already surrounds autism, how could any self-respecting hack write this paper up without doing due diligence? What. The. $%&£? News/science/writing Weak arguments by tobacco industry to block measures to reduce smoking-related death in California. Surreal and beautiful. The flight of a dragonfly visualised in smoke. "It's time to stop the legal sale of illegally exported fossils," says Dave Hone. The mycobiome? Micromycome? Micromycobiome? The fungi that live inside us. Gangs of killer spiders are not attacking people in India. Why Puppycam is going to make the internet a whole lot better at Photoshop Aw congratulations! It's a manta ray! Lovely set of gill rakers. Have you picked a name? Big herds attract lots of parasites... but there's a twist. Well sure, if you make kids drink bleach, they won't have autism any more. Or life. S p a c i n g o u t l e t t e r s helps dyslexics read Carl Zimmer meets the scientists trying to draw a tree of life with every twig Why you can't kill a mosquito with a raindrop Barry Marshall doesn't even rank in this list of 10 very upsetting things scientists have done to themselves Joe Palca at NPR has nice story on Scott O'Neill's quest to use Wolbachia to defeat DengueWonders of Geology: Getting High On Mountains – a review by Veronique Greenwood. Funny: the horrifying transformation of a strawberry flowerOut of Asia, then Africa? Curious route for primate evolution. Dude. Look. Down. Mark Auliya wants tougher rules for the amphibian trade Stem cell scientists take hope from upcoming human trials, but see long road ahead Confirmation that US/Israel created Stuxnet to target Iran's nuclear facilities & lost control of it WTF? South Korea to remove examples of evolution from high-school textbooks. Strangest moment in science writing for years: Chuck Norris plagiarises Carl Zimmer. Excellent post by SciCurious on science outreach and why something's gotta give Heh/wow/huh Heh. LinkedIn hack ‘an anti-prick hate crime’ How to limit the risk of your patients catching fire in the operating room "When the cat was killed by a car, Jansen turned it into a helicopter." Amusing ad juxtapositionDull and Boring news Lost wormhole. "At flexible sigmoidoscopy, combustible levels of hydrogen & methane were measured in 3 of 30 patients." Internet/journalism/society Found after 147 years, doctor's report of Lincoln's assassination (Spoiler: he died) A great story about a person who faked the online life of a family... for 11 yrs Incredible. Nook version of War & Peace changed all instances of 'kindle'/'kindled' to 'Nook'/'Nookd' Married actor tries to sleaze on woman next to him on flight, and she live-tweets the whole thing Was CBS News right or wrong to bring on scientist from The Nature Conservancy on as a contributor? The secret to writing. At the end of reporting, how do you organize a mess of notes? Interesting. Will free online courses from elite unis cause problems for sci courses at others?