Ecology
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On romantic failure.
If only those low-status seals –or our low-status president –- calmed their desires with some Auden.
A Naked Singularity, Andrew Bromfield, anemone, BBC Earth, dating, Donald Trump, erotic literature, fur seals, inter-species sex, king penguins, macaque, Matt Walker, monkey having sex with deer, orangutans, President Trump, rape culture, relationships, romance, science, seal sex with penguins, seals having sex with penguins, Sergio De La Pava, sexual assault, sika deer, The Clay Machine Gun, The Platonic Blow, Victor Pelevin, Virginia Morell, W. H. Auden
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On post-apocalyptic historical fiction (and Neanderthals).
Neanderthals were human, and now they are gone. How did the last survivor feel?
apocalypse, cannibalism, Collapse, cross-species mating, depression, DNA sequencing, extinction, food taboos, homelessness, Homo sapiens, human evolution, human extinction, Moore’s law, Neandertal, Neandertal DNA, Neandertal genes, Neandertal religion, Neanderthal, Neanderthal DNA, Neanderthal genes, Neanderthal religion, Paul Kingsnorth, post-apocalyptic historical fiction, religion, symbolic behavior, The Wake
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On human uniqueness and invasive species.
On evolutionary timescales, we are a slow-moving meaty wrecking ball. And our spread, apparently, resembles that of any other invasive species.
Adolph Lyons, animal cognition, animal teaching, Black Lives Matter, brain size, cooked food, excessive force, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, homogenizing brains, human evolution, human extinctions, human migration, human migratory patterns, invasive species, Lyons v. Los Angeles, McCleskey v. Kemp, Neanderthal, neural circuitry, number of neurons in human brain, origin of knowledge, overcrowding, overpopulation, police chokeholds, quintet of hate machines, r-type population growth, racial injustice, sexual dimorphism, Stanford Graduate School of Education, starfish evolution, starvation, supreme court nomination, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, the plow brings misogyny, Trump supreme court appointment, u.s. supreme court
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On fish (and their similarities to us).
We so often denigrate the capacities of presumed others. It’s much harder to exploit those whom you know feel.
animal cognition, animal learning, animal models of human psychiatric disorders, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are, brain science, Descartes was wrong, differences between life in water and on land, dogs, fish, fish feel pain, Frans de Waal, Jonathan Balcombe, leopard gecko, mistreatment of animals, neural plasticity, Project Prakash, racism, Sean Carroll, The Big Picture, the evolution of intelligence, the suffering of others, What a Fish Knows
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On AIDS and drought in Malawi.
It’s hard to save the forests for some nebulous future when you might die of AIDS (or even rabies!) within the year.
a history of violence, AIDS, charcoal, climate change, deforestation, drought, health care, health insurance, HIV, HIV epidemic, illegal charcoal production, inequality, infectious disease, Malawi, medical care, Peace Corps, poverty, rabies, rabies vaccine, reparations, the historical roots of inequality, wealth begets wealth, zero-parent households
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On deer, wolves, and Sean Carroll’s ‘The Serengeti Rules.’
Monoculture — whether it’s a body churning out cancer cells, an environment churning out deer, or a world churning out Starbucks — is an illness.
apex predators, Beyond Words, Bloomington, Carl Safina, climate change, college kids need more fear, deer, ecological diversity, elk, environmentalism, gardening, gas tax, Hope Jahren, keystone species, Lab Girl, overbreeding, overpopulation, planting trees, population regulation, predation, Robert Paine, Sean Carroll, starfish, starvation, The Serengeti Rules, we need wilderness, wolves, Yellowstone
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On free-market capitalism, political spending, and Jane Mayer’s ‘Dark Money.’
Everybody knew that politicians could be bought… well, academics can be, too.
campaign finance, climate change, Dark Money, David Koch, economic policy, environmental regulations, Evicted, fiscal policy, free markets, global warming, government intervention, Jane Mayer, Koch brothers, libertarianism, Matthew Desmond, negative externalities, political spending, progressive taxation, Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism, subsidies for the rich, tax, tragedy of the commons
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On bistability.
When small changes lead to bigger change, it’s tricky to predict what will happen… that’s why climate change is scary.
alcoholism, animal emissions, bistability, Bloomington, carbon emisions, climate change, climate simulation, contribution of animal agriculture to global climate change, eat more vegetables!, expansion of empty space, feedback loops, global warming, how much warming can our planet safely tolerate?, it takes money to make money, lightswitch rave, positive feedback, switch-like behavior, the rich get richer, underwater currents, United Nations conference on climate change, weather
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On GM foods.
I thought Mark Lynas‘s New York Times editorial about genetically-modified foods was quite good. Well worth a read, if you have a minute. And it inspired me to jot down something that I’ve been meaning to write for a while: I wish the concepts “grown without pesticides” and “not genetically modified” weren’t so intertwined in this…
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On the origins of war.
Recently someone suggested Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Blood Rites” as a companion piece to read alongside Karen Armstrong’s “Fields of Blood” (see a recent post inspired by the latter here). Which seemed reasonable enough; both works attempt to explain war and where it comes from. And although I hadn’t expected to be overly fond of Armstrong’s work…
Frank Brown Cloud 