KQED The Lowdown “Rot and Rubbish: The Rancid Truth About How Much Food We Waste“
A Minor Post, Composting, Ethics, Food, Information Design, Political Science, Pollution, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, WebI am always on the lookout for great popular science articles to assign to my students. What makes a popular science article great? Well, to start with it should address concepts that are core to my classes (admittedly, this definition of “greatness” is highly relative to what I decide is important to teach). Concept density Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Coevolution, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Experiments (General), Extinction, Habitat Destruction, Interactions, Macroevolution, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pollution, Resilience, Sustainability, TerrestrialThe cover story of November’s National Geographic is about the death of storm chaser Tim Samaras, who was killed along with two of his collaborators (including one of his sons) during a monster tornado outside Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Samaras is one of many “explorers” supported by National Geographic, an organization that seems to be the Read More
A Major Post, Articles, Genetics, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Human Uniqueness, Play, Risk & UncertaintyThe New York Times “Skull Fossil Suggests Simpler Human Lineage” It is interesting how terrible fossils are: generally, they represent only a part of one individual who was part of one population in one place at one point in time. Not the best data ever! So when some predator(s) on hominids dumps five carcasses in the Read More
A Minor Post, Data Limitation, Homo species, Human EvolutionThe Economist “Science’s Sokal Moment” Science “Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?” The correct term for the kinds of journals that publish open-access work that is poorly reviewed is “predatory”. Like unaccredited “universities”, they prey on scientists whose work is not high enough in quality or significance to publish in the larger, mainstream journals by offering Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Ethics, Periodicals, Publication, Scientific Fraud, WebDynamic Ecology “Follow the money – what really matters when choosing a journal” There are so many great ideas to be found in this post. Here are some of my favorites: There is no “innovation” or “risk” being taken by investors in academic publishing: those with money are simply extracting value from both the producers Read More
A Major Post, Ecology, Economics, Ethics, Evolution, Grants & Funding, Periodicals, Professional Societies, Public Policy, Publication, WebNPR Shots “Gut Bacteria We Pick Up As Kids Stick With Us For Decades” NPR Shots “Staying Healthy May Mean Learning To Love Our Microbiomes” NPR Shots “Diverse Gut Microbes, A Trim Waistline And Health Go Together” NPR Shots “How A Change In Gut Microbes Can Affect Weight” What I find interesting here is the Read More
A Minor Post, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Health & Medicine, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Mutualism, Radio & PodcastsThere has been additional coverage of the paper showing that “zero determinant” strategies in the Prisoner’s Dilemma are not evolutionarily robust: Phys.org “Generosity leads to evolutionary success, biologists show” Popular Science “Evolution Punishes Selfish People, Game Theory Study Says” Here’s the original paper: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA “From extortion to generosity, evolution Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Cooperation, Game Theory, Modeling (General), System Stability, WebJournal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation “The Evolutionary Dominance of Ethnocentric Cooperation” Human beings are not always (or completely) engulfed in a war of tribe against tribe. In other words, we are not strictly “ethnocentric” in our cooperation: we are willing to cooperate with those not directly identified as our “in group”. This modeling Read More
A Minor Post, Cooperation, Individual-based Models, Kin SelectionWNYC The Leonard Lopate Show “The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments” This great feature uncovers two major sources of scientific distortion: Milgram himself selectively reported his results in order to tell a more sensational story; and Media depictions, fueled by popular preconceptions, further filtered and distorted the meanings of Milgram’s scientific results. Both Read More
A Minor Post, Altruism, Behavior, Emotion, Empathy, Ethics, Human Nature, Methods, Psychology, Radio & Podcasts, Scientific Fraud, Social Norms