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Neuron Culture

David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.

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dobbspic I write articles 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, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. My previous books include Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.

You're encouraged to subscribe to Neuron Culture by email; see more of my workat my main website; or check out my catch-all-streams Tumblr log.

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    Sports:

    Gleanings - storms, vegetables, violence, grace, and a correction

    As alert reader Alex Witze pointed out , these photos were taken by stormchaser Mike Hollingshead in Nebraska and Kansas in 2002 and 2004, and have passed around the net in other guises ever since. ... He has some doozies.    You may be shocked but not surprised to hear that Insurance Company Dropped Customers With HIV .

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    Charlie Houston, mountaineer, doctor, scientist, ends a great life at 96

    Category: Culture of science

    He walked away from it cold, and went on to live a rich, fulfilling life. He and Moyers talk about something else for a bit. And then Moyers returns to the climb, "I know you did so much else, but I want want to return to that K2 climb again...," says Moyer. And Houston says, "The best thing I ever did."

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    Crushed that pitch: Announcer goes yard with pre-game homer prediction

    Category: Brains and minds

    Mariners announcer Mike Blowers, asked before the game for his prediction of the game, predicted a rookie player would hit a homer into the second deck in left-center in his second at-bat on a 3-1 fastball. Man did it.

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    Crowd dynamics, music, and magic at Fenway

    Category: Brains and minds

    Good times never seemed so good, indeed. I would never have imagined what an impossibly infectious, joyful thing that could be. It was the most incredible large-group social event I've ever been a part of.

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    Curveball deception & Koufax as god, cont'd

    Category: Sports

    The curveball further explained; Koufax Ks Mantle; and how even Koufax was better than his peerless stuff.

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    How the curveball fools you: Illusion of the Year

    Category: Sports

    The good curves do that: Even when you have that millisecond of curveball detection beforehand, they still seem to take a bend sharply and suddenly late in their path, as if some invisible hand gave them an extra tap. Here's how they (appear to) do that.

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    Brandon Keim on The Language of Horses

    Category: Art

    In a few slender leg bones and fragments of milk-stained pottery, archaeologists recently found evidence of one of the more important developments in human history: the domestication of horses. Unearthed from a windswept plain in Kazakhstan, the remains were about 5500 years old, and suggested that a nomadic people now called the Botai had learned to ride a creature that had captured mankind's imagination thousands of years earlier.

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    Two-Wheeled Parkour

    Category: Nota Bene

    Oh I could do that. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z19zFlPah-o&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z19zFlPah-o&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

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    Sleepwalking party invitations and other delights

    Category: Science policy

    "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4 p.m. Bring wine and caviar only.". Woman emails party invitations while asleep. Hat tip: BoingBoing

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    Your brain on football - it's not pretty

    Category: Medicine

    CNN has a fascinating and rather frightening story about the toll football (or the concussions acquired playing it) take on...

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