At the NYTimes Andrew C. Revkin can’t get over the Arctic’s just-ended icemelt season, on which he already has written extensively. For the SciTimes’s art-filled lead he reports from a recent meeting that a lot of the experts feel the same way. It’s a most useful piece. It tells readers that the the recent, new Arctic is not just the old one warmer. A broad reorganization is underway without all the causes easily apparent. Global warming may be the gorilla but a lot of chimps seem to be running around making their own mischief. Maybe they’re a team, maybe not. One source foresees an ice-free, late-summer Arctic within six years. Good illus, too. (The Tracker may not be alone in needing further explanation how high pressure at the pole draws warm air from the south.) This piece links to a series that Revkin and other Times writers did just two years ago, “The Big Melt.” What’s this now – the Whopper Melt?
Biggest conversation starter in SciTimes may be Tara Parker-Pope‘s report on how wives and husbands argue, and which one’s health suffers as a result. One question: If men seem to get fewer ill effects from bottling up things they could say but don’t, how come we’re the ones who keel over so much with heart attacks? With links to Parker-Pope’s “Well” blogs.
-CP
Other notables include:
Larry Rohter : Scientists Are Making Brazil’s Savannah Bloom – Brazil’s agricultural amazements extend far beyond sugar cane and ethanol. Striking is that Norman Borlaug, Mr. Green Revolution of nearly half a century ago, is still out there, at age 93, available for cogent quotes;
Claudia Dreifus: A Conversation With Hany Farid/Proving That Seeing Shouldn’t Always Be Believing – All about the enhancement, and faking, of digital imagery, a topic of particular interest to honest editing. Nothing here however about the high art practiced at NASA, and elsewhere, of transforming murky radio, UV, X-ray, IR data etc. into stunning poster-ready “photos” of nigh-invisible things.
Nicholas Wade: Fossil DNA Expands Neanderthal Range – Or, how to write a multi-faceted story colorfully but short.
Nicholas Bakalar: Doctor’s Gender May Be Factor in Heart Diagnoses – some surprises here in a study of the statistical differences between male and female doctors as they assess the same patients (but yes, women do tend to see emotional states better).
Jane E. Brody: A Vaccine as an Option to Keep Shingles at Bay – She does it often, and this is another example of how to write consumer medical advice simply, clearly.
Much more. Whole section here.
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