I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find Hits of the week:
Savage Minds (with a spiffy website redesign) asks Why is there no Anthropology Journalism?
Jerry Coyne takes sharp exception to both a paper and a SciAm Mind Matters article by Paul Andrews and Andy Thomson arguing that depression might be an evolutionary adaptation. Dr. Pangloss punches back. (NB: 1. I was founding editor of Mind Matters, but no longer edit it, did not edit the Andrews/Thomson piece, and don’t know any of these people. 2. While my recent Atlantic article presented an argument for how a gene associated with depression (the so-called SERT gene) might be adaptive, this is not the same argument, at all, that Andrews and Thomson make — though it’s compatible with theirs.)
In a splendidly wrought post titled “A ‘Severe’ Warning for Psychiatry,” Neuroskeptic shows how the expansion of the depression diagnosis — which many argue was driven by pharma’s eagerness to expand the market for antidepressants — may have led to recent findings that antidepressants appear to work mainly for the more severe cases. Irony lives (though at great expense).
A while back I came close to writing a story on how the U.S. is in danger of falling behind both the EU and China in scientific productivity. Mooney & Kirshenbaum have a nice post — and an alarming graph — showing how rapidly China is gaining.
The Atlantic examines What Makes a Great Teacher, while John Hawks gapes at how hard it can be to fire even a really bad one. We don’t figure this out, we watch China and the EU pass us sooner rather than later.
Journalism.co.uk, a site run by the City University London Grad School of Journalism, reports on the attack of the killer snails — that is, the slow-moving changes in media that are now suddenly destroying the industry, sort of. (As I noted on Twitter, this reminded me of one of my favorite jokes: A turtle is mugged by snails. Finds a cop. Cop asks What happened. Turtle says, “I’m not really sure. It all happened so fast.”)
Holy smoke post of the week: Ed Yong, Echolocation in bats and whales based on same changes to same gene
How ‘bout that story of the week: Carl Zimmer looks at all the pretty dinosaur colors. He also has a nice interview with the ever-interesting primatologist Frans de Waal.
“Something smells funny” story/post of the week: Brain scan diagnoses misunderstanding of diagnosis Vaughn Bell points out the deep flaws in a paper that claims to use brain scans to diagnose PTSD. Only problem: The scans don’t discriminate between PTSD and other mental problems that might be mistaken for PTSD. A huge problem.
Book of the week: I’m 2/3 of the way through but feel safe in saying Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a remarkable book about a truly, wildly remarkable story.
Tweet of the week: @stevesilberman “”Surely no women were involved in naming it the iPad” - online commenter.
Runner-up: @Mark_Changizi: Orchids punch back and hard. http://bit.ly/dC09x5
Brain & Behavior
Humanities & Social Science
