What Rebecca’s Reading

• What Rebecca's Reading

  • 'Serpent-Handling' West Virginia Pastor Dies From Snake Bite A “serpent-handling” West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before.
  • A Dispute Over Who Owns a Twitter Account Goes to Court How much is a tweet worth? And how much does a Twitter follower cost?
  • A dollar badly spent: New facts on processed food in school lunches In a collaboration between The New York Times and the Investigative Fund, reporter Lucy Komisar delved into the billion-dollar business of the national school lunch program and found some unsettling news.
  • A New Twist in the Sad Saga of Little Albert A famous experiment in which researchers taught an infant to fear may have been more sinister than it seemed.
  • A second life for Vietnam's bile bears As a hangover “cure,” they don’t come more brutally disturbing than bear bile.
  • A trip to the gym alters DNA A bout of exercise sees methyl groups removed from metabolic genes.
  • Asking Questions in Small-Town America Can Be Dangerous ‘I knew we’d get a backlash for our reporting, which was far more aggressive than most small-town papers are willing to stomach. But the news media’s role as watchdog is vital in communities with a long-standing culture of corruption.’
  • Beyond Mile-High Grub: Can Airline Food Be Tasty? The science of airline food: “step aboard a modern airliner and the sense of taste loses its bearings”.
  • Breaking: HBO Responds to Racing Show Luck’s Real-Life Horse Fatalities Two horses killed filming Luck. HBO and American Humane Association developing safeguards/strengthened guidelines.
  • California considers DNA privacy law California lawmakers are weighing a bill aimed at protecting their state’s citizens from surreptitious genetic testing but scientists are voicing their growing concerns that, if passed, such a law would have a costly and damaging effect on research.
  • Con artists are 'targeting dementia sufferers' Con artists are dealing “another body blow” to the most vulnerable in society who need more protection, according to a charity.
  • Confronting the story of bones discarded in an old MCV well The old bones unearthed in a well at the Medical College of Virginia 17 years ago are rising again. Their story will be told in a new documentary by a Virginia Commonwealth University professor who said he wants to find a way to memorialize the bones.
  • Disconnect: Ex-Googlers Raise Funding To Stop Google, Facebook & More From Tracking Your Data
  • Dog Food Linked to Salmonella Infections in 14 People Contaminated dog food has been linked to 14 human illnesses in the U.S.
  • Europe Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S.
  • Ex-judge defends ordering an abortion for woman Ex-judge defends ordering abortion and sterilization for a mentally ill woman against her will.
  • Exclusive: Leaked Details of How Facebook Plans To Sell Your Timeline to Advertisers This is a guest post from a former CTO who now does tech consulting for other start-up ventures and was briefed on Facebook’s advertising strategy.
  • Failings exposed at India’s drug regulator Inadequate testing and insufficient staffing plague the granting of pharmaceutical licences.
  • Finding Nemo Isn’t Easy: Film’s Stars Threatened with Extinction One in every six species related to characters in the movie Finding Nemo is threatened by extinction, according to a study.
  • Finding the Editor Within Useful essay by Luc Sante in the WSJ on self-editing for writers.
  • Geek Love Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities.
  • Good Things about Twitter Twitter is sort of a self-cleaning oven, where the wisdom of the crowd can work out the kinks.
  • Government fights court decision that says bone marrow donors may be paid The Obama administration has asked a San Francisco appeals court to overturn a recent decision that said bone marrow donors can be paid for what their bodies produce.
  • How Crossword Puzzles Unlocked An Artist's Memory “How Crossword Puzzles Unlocked an Artist’s Memory” after she suffered brain damage.
  • How Doctors Die It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be
  • How Knitting Behind Bars Transformed Maryland Convicts Love this: Zwerling and her associates have taught more than 100 prisoners to knit, while dozens more are on a waiting list to take her weekly class.
  • Ice age horse painters really did see spots, scientists say Genetic analysis could settle speculation over whether cave art in France represented reality or had some other significance.
  • In India, oversight lacking in outsourced drug trials Desperate people from India’s slums and across the world, are signing up to be human guinea pigs in drug trials for foreign pharmaceutical companies.
  • James Wolcott: 'Lucking Out' In 1970s New York James Wolcott, who dubbed creative nonfiction “naval gazing” & predicted the death of the memoir in ’97 Vanity Fair article, just published a memoir.
  • Japanese airbag protects homes from earthquakes Video
  • Judge rules Tribune does not have to release notes of jailhouse interview with man charged in 1957 death of girl Man held in Sycamore cold-case killing was interviewed in Washington state jail.
  • Judge Signs Off on Settlement for Black Farmers A federal judge in Washington has granted final approval for a $1.25 billion settlement by the Agriculture Department for African-American farmers’ longstanding claims of racial discrimination.
  • Licked to Death by a Pit Bull And other tales of a faithful family dog.
  • Lost and found: How great nonfiction writers discover great ideas There are whole books on interviewing, and whole books on structure, but finding ideas remains one of the most mysterious and frustrating parts of journalism.
  • Lull in Ship Noise After Sept. 11 Attacks Eased Stress On Right Whales A new study offers the first evidence that exposure to low-frequency ship noise may be associated with chronic stress in whales.
  • Melting down hips and knees: The afterlife of implants Afterlife of Implants: recycling implants from cremated bodies: steel pins, titanium hip, chrome knees
  • Moon Bears in Distress, All for the Love of Bile Across China and Vietnam, thousands of endangered moon bears live locked up behind bars, where ‘farmers’ regularly drain their gall bladders for a prized liquid.
  • Mortuary officials disciplined for mishandling troops' remains The Air Force takes action against three at Dover Air Force Base, where body parts of troops killed in Afghanistan went missing. The Office of Special Counsel questions whether the punishment is tough enough.
  • Navigating Love and Autism Love on the Spectrum: Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two college students living in Greenfield, Mass., discuss how autism affects their lives and relationship.
  • News: FDA Won’t Act Against Ag Antibiotic Use The US Food and Drug Administration has reneged on its long-stated intention to compel large-scale agriculture to curb over-use of agricultural antibiotics.
  • Nokia Patents Vibrating Tattoos One of the strangest U.S. patent applications in quite a while
  • Not Exactly Rocket Science The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages.
  • Orphans Story by Steve Silberman.
  • Our Microbiomes, Ourselves IMAGINE a scientist gently swabs your left nostril with a Q-tip and makes a million dollar scientific discovery. Do you deserve a cut of the profits?
  • Parents hire own researchers to tackle rare, fatal disease When it comes to advocating against her 8-year-old son’s serious illness, Gelse Tkalec is on a much lonelier path than those strewn with pink ribbons and yellow bracelets. There are only 25 to 30 children worldwide known to have giant axonal neuropathy,
  • Pattern of Illegality Is Cited at News of the World As a government-commissioned inquiry into Britain’s journalistic practices opened on Monday, its chief lawyer delivered a series of bombshell revelations about what he called a “thriving cottage industry” of illegality at the defunct News of the World.
  • Pet Lovers, Pathologized
  • Poison Centers Facing Greater Risks All Around The network of poison centers is threatened by state and federal budget cuts. That could be bad news for both families and pediatricians: 51 percent of the more than two million calls the centers handled in 2010 involved children younger than 6.
  • Promising HIV Preventative Failed, It Turns Out, Because Patients Were Not Taking It Researchers announced at an AIDS research conference in Seattle that of the women who got infected, only a quarter of them had any Truvada at all in their blood.
  • Rescuing the Birds Many Hate Pigeon rescue groups: Saving the birds many hate.
  • Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving story of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from orphaned puppy to movie star and international icon.
  • Stray dog becomes a sensation in China after following cyclists for more than 1,000 miles over 20 days When a group of Chinese cyclists threw a stray dog a bone, little did they know that they were the start of an epic journey that makes Lassie Come Home look like a walk in the park.
  • Superbug Totally Drug-Resistant TB: A Patient Is Missing
  • Taking good notes: Tricks and tools The OPENNotebook Editor David Grimm offers a trove of advice on note-taking.
  • The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet In The Comments Sections Of Year-End Lists Humorous article for anyone who’s ever written (or read) online Year-End Lists.
  • The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith Alan Lightman on science’s crisis of faith, the possibility of the multiverse, & fish intelligence.
  • The Ag Gag Laws: Hiding Factory Farm Abuses From Public Scrutiny HF 589, better known as the “Ag Gag” law, criminalizes investigative journalists and animal protection advocates who take entry-level jobs at factory farms in order to document the rampant food safety and animal welfare abuses within.
  • The Frog of War When biologist Tyrone Hayes discovered that a top-selling herbicide messes with sex hormones, its manufacturer went into battle mode. Thus began one of the weirdest feuds in the history of science.
  • The Hidden Toll of Traffic Jams Scientists Increasingly Link Vehicle Exhaust With Brain-Cell Damage, Higher Rates of Autism.
  • The HSUS Files False Advertising Complaint over Fur Garments Eleven retailers face potential civil and criminal penalties for real fur sold as faux.
  • The NY Times: In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5 How Paid Fake Reviews Populate Amazon And Other Websites.
  • The Rise of Facebook Nation The social network has become as big and powerful as a country — and it’s time its citizens got a constitution.
  • The Silver Fox Experiment: How Dogs Became Dogs Half a century of Siberian science, or why your furry best friend is really a developmentally stunted wolf.
  • The Virtual Nurse Will See You Now In the hectic world of a hospital, a computer-simulated nurse can be surprisingly comforting.
  • Tight Ties, Killer Heels: Clothes Make the Fashion Victims Clothes Health
  • Toxic roulette Firemaster 550, touted as safe, is the latest in a long line of flame retardants allowed onto the market without thorough study of health risks
  • Turkey: Sandblasting Jeans for ‘Distressed’ Look Proved Harmful for Textile Workers Sandblasting new blue jeans to make them look “distressed” killed a number of young Turkish textile workers before the practice was outlawed, a new study has found.
  • Twitter Is All in Good Fun, Until It Isn’t A funny thing happens when you report – things get more complicated & less tweetable.
  • Vogue Italia: Natural Hair A Trend On The Runways According to Vogue Italia’s recent profile of the natural hair movement, black models with natural hair is the new trend at the forefront of high fashion catwalks.
  • What If There Were Rules for Science Journalism? No false balance, no miracle cures, no opaque statistics …
  • What Is Your Dog Thinking? Brain Scans Unleash Canine Secrets When your dog gazes up at you adoringly, what does it see? A best friend? A pack leader? A can opener? Many dog lovers make all kinds of inferences about how their pets feel about them, but no one has captured images of actual canine thought processes —
  • What's the McRib made of, anyway? The popular McDonald’s sandwich is back. Find out what’s inside — if you dare.
  • When journalists become authors: a few cautionary tips There’s long-form narrative, and then there’s book-length narrative. Both are “long,” but a story that’s 300 pages long is a different proposition, for both writer and reader, from one that’s 3,000 words.
  • Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.
  • Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.
  • Why Jonathan Lethem Loves Meta-Nonfiction and Hates Superhero Flicks Jonathan Lethem on loving meta-nonfiction, myth of journalistic objectivity, hating super hero movies.
  • World War I spies caught by woman who read invisible ink Mabel Beatrice Elliott, who died in 1944, uncovered secret messages written in invisible ink between the lines of letters she inspected while working as a deputy assistant censor for the British War Office.

Named by more than 60 critics as one of the best books of 2010

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