metabolism
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In dispraise of efficiency.
Contemporary economic interests seek greater & greater efficiency, but the most meaningful moments in our lives are the inefficient tasks to which we devote our time.
assembly line, beautiful ones, behavioral sink, biology, Capital, capital gains, capitalism, cell biology, cell division, chores, communication, comparative advantage, economics, efficiency, factory model, function of earth, function of life, health, Henry Ford, immortality, in the belly of my brother, John Calhoun, last universal common ancestor, Mary Oliver, metabolism, mitochondria, mouse dystopia, mouse utopia, opportunity cost, philosophy, photon scattering, quotidian time, Robin Wall Kimmerer, science, slow fire, specialization, store my food in the belly of my brother, The Serviceberry, wild and precious life
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On the toothy origins of our inner fire.
With one weird trick, morganucodon kept our kind from being killed by saprophytic fungi.
ancestor worship, ancient fossils, biology, blight, chewing, Chicago, climate change, cooking, decline of reptiles, dinosaur, dinosaurs, Emily Monosson, evolution, fall of dinosaurs, Fire, fire myths, first mammal, fossils, fungal epidemics, fungal infections, fungal pandemics, fungi, global warming, inner fire, mass extinction, mastication, metabolism, morganucodon, nature, proto-mammal, protomammal, rise of mammals, saprophytic fungi, science, Steve Brussate, teeth, The Field Museum, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals, tooth, warm blood, warm bloodedness, wildlife
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On naked mole-rats.
Naked mole-rats shrug off pain, & cancer, & even time itself… but can they withstand the curiosity of Homo sapiens?
age-related diseases, age-related mortality, aging, animal cognition, animal research, animal welfare, anoxia, anoxia resistance, apoxia resistance, breeding, caloric restriction, cancer, cancer immunity, cancer resistance, cancer susceptibility, carbon dioxide poisoning, chemotherapy, Christopher Byrd, civil war, compassion, cooperation, cooperative childcare, Creep, cruelty, David Stipp, death curve, Eliot Weinberger, environmentalism, eusocial, eusocial mammals, eusociality, evolution, evolution of eusociality, food insecurity, fructose, Fructose-driven glycolysis, glucose, good stewardship, high-molecular-mass hyaluronan, hit single, hyaluronan, hypoxia, immortality, jail poetry, Jennifer Jarvis, Karmic Traces, lab mice, Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, laboratory animals, laboratory research, lifespan, lifespan elongation, limited senescence, longevity, mating habits, metabolism, mutation, Naked Mole-Rats, naked molerats, New Yorker, Norman Dubie, observation, opiates, Orange and Peanuts for Sale, Oranges and Peanuts for Sale, oxidation, oxidative stress, oxygen deprivation, pain, painkillers, Park et al., poetry, prison poetry, Radiohead, recycling, research animals, Richard Alexander, Selective Inflammatory Pain Insensitivity, Stalin, starvation, stroke, The Biology of Naked Mole-Rats, The Ghosts of Birds, The Marshall Cloud, Thomas Park, Tian et al., tumor, tumor resistance, tumorogenesis, What Happened Here, Xiao Tian
Frank Brown Cloud 