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What I'm Reading (Nov. 2)

VUCA? Race in science Pass the ammo Sushi and lateral transmission

Curiosity is the insatiable hunger for knowledge and understanding that fuels our exploration of the world. Each of us has curiosity to varying degrees, often for one topic more than another. Curiosity, as with many of our biological drives, has a dynamic quality: waxing and waning. Some researchers were curious.

Check it out: Our Life with Self-checkout Short, fat, juicy ones Regulating guns Want to make some money? Consider horror films

Not content with content Is the Rat Czar necessary? Food, Glorious, Food John Oliver weighs in on Food Safety

Did they die from an asteroid or climate? Fill it up or charge it, please The untimely and unwarranted death of bees Woke science

Today, there is simply too much known in far too many diverse fields for any person to hold it all in their brain. This means that, no matter how smart one might be, there are times when we have to push the “I believe” button and simply accept the statements of others. The problem is that these others are too often wrong, the topic is too often very important, and the statements made are too wildly disparate. We feel we must choose, yet we don’t know how.

Let’s play Unintended consequences Reassessing the Luddites Aging and Martin Scorsese Lie, mistruth, or editing?

Spy vs. Spy The real Uncle Tom Education File this under unintended consequences of regulations

I was always an early riser, but having to be at the hospital by 5 or so AM refined that predisposition. A new study of sleep shows that when we go to bed, how long it takes to fall asleep, and countless other measures of our biological need to sleep are part genetic and part cultural.

The honest answer to our shortage of primary care physicians Musical scoring of Indiana Jones Are our perceptions top-down or bottom-up? Rules for Readers

As an inveterate number cruncher, I couldn’t resist playing with a set of state-level data on prison populations that came my way. It has often been noted that the U.S. has among the highest rates of incarceration in the world. However, most of us feel that we enjoy a basically fair, just, and healthy society even though we are far from leading the world regarding life expectancies.

Peer-reviewed research is the gold standard for science. We rely on that system to weed out the discoveries from the detritus. However, growing concerns over how the peer-review system operates are forcing the academic community to take a long, hard look at the process and ask, “How can we improve this?”