Ed Yong
Science writer at The Atlantic. Author of I CONTAIN MULTITUDES, a New York Times bestseller on animal-microbe partnerships. edyong.me
Thought Leader
| #464 | The New Center |
Last synced from Twitter 14m ago
This may be the ocean’s most horrifying monster (and you’ve probably never heard of it)
When I first learned about rhizocephalan barnacles I lost my appetite. I was taking a parasitology course, and even though I’d developed a thick skin, something about this insidious creature…
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Ed Yong
"Just when it seems it couldn’t be worse, your abdomen explodes. You’re now sterile, and her gonads are erupting out from where your genitals used to be."
12h
One Volcanic Simulation, 40 Scientists and a Whole Lotta Pingpong Balls | NPR
Studying active volcanoes can be dangerous, which is why a group of scientists from around the world came together to simulate volcanic blasts. What they're ...
Ed Yong
This is just delightful: @maddie_sofia, interviewing volcanologists, blowing shit up, being hilarious.
13h
Abortion Bans Create a Public Health Nightmare
Making abortion mostly illegal will kick off an unintentional, vast experiment in public health—one where the outcomes are sick or dying women and children.
How a Bunch of Songbirds Ended Up Inside the Stomachs of Sharks
Spoiler: Migration is hard.
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Ed Yong
Marcus Drymon wasn’t expecting a baby tiger shark to barf up a ball of feathers onto his boat.
And he really wasn't expecting to discover that the feathers belonged to a brown thrasher--a land-based songbird.
15h
Ed Yong
Animal migrations are so often portrayed as epic journeys that it's easy to forget how hard they are--and how often individuals don't make it.
Which is also how forest songbirds repeatedly end up in the stomachs of oceanic sharks.
14h
Why Protesters Keep Hurling Milkshakes at British Politicians
“Milkshaking” is only the latest trend in Britain’s tradition of edible projectiles as protest.
Celebrity biohacker Josiah Zayner is under investigation for practicing medicine without a license
He taunted the health authorities. Now he stands accused of pretending to be one.
No evidence for a bilingual executive function advantage in the nationally representative ABCD study
By analysing data from more than 4,500 9- to 10-year-olds, Dick et al. found no evidence that bilingual children have an advantage in executive functions, the cognitive abilities that are central to the voluntary control of thoughts and behaviours.
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Ed Yong
New study w/ large, representative US sample finds no evidence that bilingualism improves executive function (advanced mental abilities that allow us to control our thoughts & behavior) nature.com/articles/s4156…
My piece on this from 3 yrs ago --> theatlantic.com/science/archiv… pic.twitter.com/7YeMQYRDZE
39h
The Bitter Fight Over the Benefits of Bilingualism
For decades, some psychologists have claimed that bilinguals have better mental control. Their work is now being called into question.
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Ed Yong
New study w/ large, representative US sample finds no evidence that bilingualism improves executive function (advanced mental abilities that allow us to control our thoughts & behavior) nature.com/articles/s4156…
My piece on this from 3 yrs ago --> theatlantic.com/science/archiv… pic.twitter.com/7YeMQYRDZE
39h
Bonobo Mothers Are Very Concerned About Their Sons’ Sex Lives
They’ll fight off other males who try to interfere.
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Ed Yong
Bonobo mothers triple their sons' chances of fathering offspring. Among other things, they'll fight off other males who try to interfere with their sons' sexual encounters.
40h
The Ins and Outs of Knit Theory
For physicist Elisabetta Matsumoto, “knitting is coding,” and yarn is a programmable material.
The Real Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones
It's not just bad storytelling—it’s because the storytelling style changed from sociological to psychological
What to Do When You’re a Country in Crisis
In “Upheaval,” Jared Diamond asks whether countries can draw lessons from how individuals confront personal difficulties.
Harper Lee’s Unwritten True-Crime Book
Casey Cep discusses “Furious Hours,” and Eliza Griswold talks about “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America.”
Researchers seek answers to gray whale deaths after 57 are stranded this year
Scientists are seeking answers to the spike in whale deaths, the most in nearly 20 years, and whether climate change could be playing a role.
A Waste of 1,000 Research Papers
Decades of early research on the genetics of depression were built on non-existent foundations. How did that happen?
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Ed Yong
“This should be a real cautionary tale. How on earth could we have spent 20 years and hundreds of millions of dollars studying pure noise?”
5d
A Nazi Controversy Deep in the Solar System
Scientists gave a mysterious object a nickname with a dark history. Now they have to decide whether to let it stick.
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Ed Yong
1) This is a great Marina Koren piece.
2) Some of the justifications being offered are really 😒
5d
The Story My Male Editors Kept Killing
While women have made strides in media and publishing, it seems we’re still often subject to the whims of men
The Standard Model
We were descending through the strata of clouds that hovered above the Cartesian plots of northern Ohio. I was watching ...
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Ed Yong
I cannot say enough good things about this @joshua_roebke essay. It is beautiful, haunting, important.
6d
Banning Abortion Doesn't Actually Reduce Abortion Rates at All
If you want to reduce the number of terminations, the answer isn't banning abortion. It's embracing it.
Abortion restrictions don't lower rates, report says
Laws that seek to limit abortions around the world may not lower the rate of abortions but could make them less safe, according to a new report.