Stop Underestimating Chickens

By: | January 23, 2017

One of my favorite things about my usual writing beat (living things) is that we humans never stop learning new things about animals. We’re even still discovering species that are new to science. (Check out the glorious ruby sea dragon, previously known only from beach corpses, and Hoolock tianxing, a gibbon just determined to be its own species that, sadly, comes into its own already labeled endangered.)

While “new” is good, I get most jazzed over discoveries about species we already know, or think we know. A few recent bits in the news: Dogs really do get the meaning of words, not just of the tone of voice that accompanies them (which is also cool). Macaques understand the limits of their own memory. Bats’ endless cave chatter is complex and full of bickering.

And sometimes the findings flip long-held assumptions on their heads. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | January 21, 2017

January 16-20, 2017

On Martin Luther King day we posted one of the civil right’s leader’s speeches, The other America, delivered at Stanford in 1967. Along with a song from Billie Holiday. “Racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.”

Helen’s life has been punctuated by experiences involving tea, the common thread in an otherwise nomadic and varied existence. Her take on the research: “If you’re a rat, I’m telling you, you should be drinking lots of tea.”

Liver is sickening, writes Cassie, and not just because it tastes disgusting. Polar bear livers, in particular, can give you an overdose of Vitamin A. “Three of them became ‘exceeding sicke,’ de Veer writes. ‘All their skins came of from the foote to the head.’”

Rose doesn’t want to hear you brag about New Year’s resolution you’ll probably break anyway. If you really want to make it public, how about announcing it at the end of the year when you’ve kept your resolution? “You don’t need a website or a hashtag. You can just do the thing. And I’m here to encourage you to do the thing, privately.”

The job of a science advisor is a subtle dance of humility and patience. In the post-truth world, that is especially the case. The Chief Science Advisor to New Zealand’s Prime Minister has some advice for the advisors. “Scientists are good at problem definition, but not generally as good at finding workable, scalable and meaningful solutions.”

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons here.

 

 

Sharing science in the halls of power

By: | January 20, 2017

Today’s ceremonies likely mark the beginning of a new level of discord between scientific evidence and American policy. I’ve written here about the dark days of Canada’s own war on science under Stephen Harper, which mercifully have ended, though the work that was damaged has by no means recovered. Now, under the Trudeau government we are establishing a new role of Chief Science Advisor and actively recruiting candidates.

Science advisors share some of their challenges with other science communicators like journalists and university public relations writers, in that they attempt to make technical and complex research accessible to non-scientists. But their role is subtly different because of their placement inside the policy-making circles.

A science advisor can do more than inject the scientific consensus into a policy discussion—as the broader academy can do from the outside at a single point in the process through deliberative reports. They also have the privilege of guarding the integrity of this input throughout the discussion, making sure the science doesn’t get distorted or misused, right until the moment a decision is made.

Continue reading →

In Defense of Private Projects

By: | January 19, 2017

It’s January, which means we’re still in the throes of people announcing and performing their resolutions. In a few weeks many of those resolutions will likely slip into guilty obscurity. By March people will mercifully stop asking you about that resolution. And by June you’ll be blissfully free of any memory of the resolution in the first place.

But in the past few years I’ve noticed my friends doing a thing with their resolutions. One friend started a newsletter to track her progress. Another made a website. Another created a Tumblr. A fourth made a Twitter account to keep tabs on her status. They turned their resolutions into projects. Projects with accountability and brands and logos.

It’s great that you want to read a book a week, or only read books written by women, or run a marathon. I hope you succeed, and grow, and learn something from it. But I’m here to tell you that you don’t actually have to turn every thing you might want to try into a public project. You don’t need a newsletter to keep your fans up on which book written by women of color you’re reading. You don’t need a website or a hashtag. You can just do the thing.

And I’m here to encourage you to do the thing, privately.

Continue reading →

The Telltale Liver

By: | January 18, 2017

“You haven’t been eating anything weird, have you?” my doctor asked. “Like, really weird?” I was feeling crappy, and a routine panel of lab tests showed that my liver was sending out a mild distress signal. Now we were trying to figure out why.

I didn’t think I had been eating anything weird, but I asked for clarification anyway. You never know if your normal might be someone else’s weird. “You’re not eating polar bear livers, right?” she continued. I shook my head. I have never eaten a polar bear liver. I don’t even like regular cow livers. I once had to eat a piece of liver to be polite and it nearly gagged me.

But the doctor’s question intrigued me. Who is eating polar bear livers? And why would they make you sick? I dove into the deep end of the Internet to find out. Continue reading →

Tea: An Appreciation

By: | January 17, 2017
overhead view of teacups and girl scout cookies against a UK flag
2011: Black tea with milk and Thin Mints

1991 or so: An overnight field trip to Wallops Island, Virginia.

The tap water is hot. I convince myself it’s hot enough to make tea, and make tea in my Nalgene. Why did I even have teabags with me? I think I wanted to be the kind of person who is prepared to make tea at all times. I also told everyone about the tea from the tap water. Because I was a teenager and it wasn’t enough to have tea, I also needed everyone else to know that this was the kind of person I was.

1998: Ski trip in Norway (less exotic than it sounds—I lived in Norway at the time) Continue reading →