I've got your missing links right here (1 December 2012)

Top picks This slow-motion video of a cheetah running is the most incredible thing I’ve seen all…. Well, it’s incredible. Note how freakishly steady the head is! And focus on one foot – watch how much distance the animal covers between the foot lifting off and coming down again! And do NOT miss the end, where you see how it looks in real-time. The closest planet to the sun has loads of ice! Amazing news about Mercury! Human Evolution [Is Going Through] an Exciting New Phase – excellent piece by Brandon Keim Stunningly good read about a man’s journey from earache to brain tumour to coma, and the ensuing end-of-life court battle. The Lying Disease: Why do some people fake cancer online? An incredible piece on “Munchausen’s by Internet”. Every single sentence in Time's description of the Higgs boson is wrong. The man whose brain ignores one half of his world Top photo: the one on the right is a sponge; the one on the left is a frogfish. Just astounding Great interview at TheAtlantic with Uri Simonsohn "the data vigilante" who has exposed fraud in psychology This is how Pompeii died, and it's not quite how most people think. Great piece by Dana Hunter. Beautiful photo series of the sublime slime mould Dictyostelium, by Alex Wild How do porcupines mate? The standard punchline is correct, but doesn't even begin to cover it Bugs! Antarctica! Lake! Life abounds in really very extreme conditions. Two years with cancer - XKCD A Tale of Two Scales: Big Rhinos and Giant Rhinos; a lovely evocative post from John Hutchinson Experiments that run longer than the life of the researcher! (With Richard Lenski, who is still alive and still awesome) Science/news/writing Jack Gilbert will take ALL of your sh*t. Just send it to him in the post. Interesting project to crowdsource 10k gut microbiomes from around the US Every wondered what the time is in Antarctica? It's more complicated than you might think Crocodile head scales result from cracking An RCT of (false)-balanced reporting on the autism-vaccine story on beliefs about vaccines Is everything we eat associated with cancer – study uses cookbooks to review the gigantic mess that is nutritional epidemiology. Fantastic critique of the NYT’s oversold “immortal jellyfish” story, by Paul Raeburn. This is not a Rubik's cube Solid response from SciCurious to bizarre, ill-advised idea of getting a PhD to BECOME a science writer The Integrative Palaeontologist – what promises to be a great new blog about dinosaursJournal retracts fraudster's papers, then publishes NEW paper from same guy that cites retracted papers & hides Lovely bit of unfolding natural history: a tale of whelks and unfortunate clams Italian team take picture of DNA with electron microscopeSiamese fighting fish gulp air to keep on fighting Can we predict what proportion of scientific studies will replicate? One project's gonna try Ignore the lamentable Susan Greenfield & watch Daphne Bavelier on video games improving cognitionNASA backpedals on misreported claim about Mars findings. Report on Diederik Stapel – psychology fraudster – blames the absence of a critical scientific culture at academic institutions. Meanwhile, Stapel is so sorry and ashamed that he’s writing a book about it Does the world seem steadier if you're a chicken? New species of skinny, bug-eyed snake discovered in Ecuador Fear Factor: Spider silk reduces plant damage Amazon deforestation drops to record low 10,000 Hrs of Practice Won't Make You An Expert: 10 Facts That Really Aren't Facts Barrel roll! A blue whale’s size doesn’t stop it performing underwater acrobatics to attack prey Some… “scientists” claimed to have sequenced Bigfoot DNA. Next: chupacabra FMRI! SciCurious is starting a guest-post series, for scientists who want to try their hand at science writing On the need for robot ethics: "Your driverless car is about to hit a bus; should it veer off a bridge?" Scientists say they can track early human movements over 7,000 years ago by analysing molecules in ancient poo. SpaceX founder unveils plan to send 80,000 people to Mars. Which reminds me of this. New fossil reveals hangingfly that might have hid among Jurassic ginkgo trees Brain's 'reading centres' are culturally universal Should scientists, particularly climate scientists, be bolder in public? By Alice Bell Stressing out really does make severe depression worse Wonderful, compassionate article by Vaughan Bell on the many varied ways people grieve Can a scientific fraudster be rehabilitated? Why would we even bother? From Charles Darwin's pigeons to moon rock, London's Natural History Museum celebrates its most prized items. Great NYT interactive on the extent to which rising seas will submerge U.S. cities Living cells enclosed in nanopyramids, interacting with others in neighbouring pyramids Ten Amazon cities doubled in population in last 10yrs, swallowing the rainforest No, smallpox virus has NOT been detected in 300-year-old Siberian mummy… just gene fragments "Faked research is endemic in China." Shi-Min Fang [exposed] 1000+ cases of science fraud "This “scientist as monk” meme is hurtful and deserves to die a flaming death." The new coronavirus that emerged in Mideast before the hajj & then seemed to disappear has now sickened an entire familyHeh/wow/huh Jaw meet floor: Gorgeous images from National Geographic Photo Contest. Some days, I feel like this sealion The first law of thermodynamics is... One for the editors. Note: irony. The Philosopher Shaming Tumblr is great. Twitter will give me CONSTANT opportunities to use this one. NOM Chomsky The Nile from space'I Am A Brand,' Pathetic Man Says 170-foot trampoline installed in Russian forest. Some bears are gonna be pretty confused... "With Apple's new "Letters", we can write words like "cease" and "desist"." Work hard, kids: After his Nobel win, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual beer supply, piped into his house Incredible Time-Lapse Video Shows Stars and Clouds Over Volcanic Island Brilliant blue tree tarantula w/ yellow banding Journalism/internet/society Massive congratulations to Suzi Gage and David Colquhoun for winning the first UK Science Blog Prize. The big news in journalism this week is the publication of the Leveson report. Here’s a take from Emily Bell arguing why it’s already irrelevant, and another good take from the Economist. And the Daily Mash: "The thing where everyone gets their news has promised to find out what a ‘Leveson’ is." Syria cut itself off from the internet, killed cell service-not good. Pentagon: autonomous robots won’t be allowed to kill you, but they can spy on you and hack you. YAYSES! Onion's 'sexy' North Korea story fools Chinese media 1st answer is AMAZING: If every US state declared war against each other, which would win? Amazing economics article from XKCD How a fake press release on a Google acquisition fooled the media Astonishing, depressing photo of an ant-like queue of people on the side of Everest. And the perspective of Ralf Dujmovits, who took the photo. A new blog on science journalism from for great young journalists, in advance of next year’s conference in Helsinki Well played, humanity. Buying coffee for the next person in line - Pay-it-forward in action! How Google put work into Spanner—the story of the world’s largest database “What is needed is the bravery to construct a horrible journalistic sentence which is nonetheless precise” When everyone is a publisher, everyone can be sued – the Economist on Twitter Macy's parade: 'Shredded police papers in confetti.’ Shredded *horizontally*?!? Why does Superman wear red underwear over his costume? Actually interesting These professors who cracked an ancient 250-year-old code and found a secret society