Darwin's Notes and Thoughts Go Online

via NPR Topics: Books on 4/24/08

Studying Charles Darwin's documents has evolved from visiting the library at Cambridge University to visiting a Web site. The British university has just made a trove of about 20,000 papers from Darwin's life and studies accessible online.

Man Trapped in Elevator for 41 Hours, Ruins Life

If it was fiction, it would read somewhere between Colson Whitehead's dreamy "The Intuitionist" and Don DeLillo's "Falling Man."

The security camera video is tough to watch, and makes you wonder: what, exactly, are security cameras for?

Towards a Gentler Atheism

I've really been enjoying Chad Orzel's posts on his moderate form of atheism. He points out that the mythological aspects of religion are really only part of its popularity, and that morality and community are at least as important. It's easy to criticize the mythology, but angry atheists really have nothing to offer people who value the community or moral aspects of religion, and end up putting theists on the defensive about the whole shebang. Seems better to talk about the morality of atheists, and to do what we can to build secular communities. Orzel's posts are scattered and linked around, but he says it very well.

Too busy for beauty?

Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour?

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone

Having no kids myself, I can't imagine how protective, or overprotective, I might be of my own offspring. But it certainly seems, in recent years, more and more acceptable to take overprotectiveness to (what used to be) the extreme. Of course, as with many trends, there seems to be a backlash, or at least a vocal minority who are quite okay with letting their kids lose and then find themselves.

Alien Conspiracy at DIA?

Sure, Denver can be bland, but we have our own creepy conspiracies here, too. Or do we?

How's Your News?

I first heard the story of the "How's Your News" team on This American Life, and had to see the DVD. It's a documentary made by a group of mentally and/or physically disabled adults and their caretakers as they travel across the nation in a van, interviewing people they meet along the way. Some can't talk, some can't walk, but all of them are excited about the opportunity to travel and to make their documentary. It's a little uncomfortable to watch, at first, because we've sort of been trained to pity these people, not to watch them, and this could've gone horribly wrong if there was any hint that the "How's Your News" group was being exploited for our entertainment. But the filmakers are obviously great friends with the news crew, and everyone seems to have a great time.

Of course, the reactions of the interviewees are varied and fascinating as well. Some avoid eye contact, some make excuses and sidle by, but most people are open to conversations and a few even join in song with the interviewers. My favorite interviewers were Ronnie Simonsen and Susan Harrington, whose creative questions and enthusiastic singing keep the cross country tour joyful and, frankly, very funny.

March of the Breeders

I didn't see "March of the Penguins" when it first came out; my rate of new-movie viewing has slowed to a crawl as life has grown more complicated. By the time I finally got to see it, it was on the small screen, a pan-and-scan "Network Television Premiere." This took away much of the grandeur of the Antarctic vistas, and left only the grueling facts: these penguins were barely making it, barely holding on in the most unforgiving environment in the world.

At the same time, I've been very much enjoying Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling On Happiness, which quotes study after study exploding the myth that "Having children makes you happy."

So with Gilbert's reality check in my head, and the miserable icy slog of the penguins in front of me, I realized: the one and only thing that makes these penguins' lives so hard is that they have offspring. If, through some miracle, a penguin decided, no thanks, I'll skip it, he or she could just waddle over to the feeding grounds and live there. No seventy-mile marches, no near-starvation. All you can eat, a penguin's garden of Eden.

Of course, penguins can't make that sort of choice, to the best of my knowledge. Can any animal make this choice? Are homo sapiens alone in this respect? Is this one of the few things that makes us special, our ability to choose a life without children? Hmmm.

Sense and Prejudice

Jonah Lehrer over at The Frontal Cortex tells of a new study in the Journal of Marketing, suggesting that foods that we think of as "healthy" don't taste as good, no matter what our senses tell us.

Subjects were given a mango lassi, a yogurt drink, and subjects who were told it was unhealthy liked the drink significantly more than those who were told it was healthy.

Apparently, I've always thought it was unhealthy, 'cause I love the stuff.