My picks - 1st January 2012

Not Exactly Rocket Science is  a science blog I read almost daily. It is written by Ed Yong. Every week he posts a collection of links (like this) that interested him in the past week.

Shamelessly copying from him, I too felt that I can list some links every week so that those interested can read them. There are many advantages to this. First, it will hopefully be a useful resource to readers who have free time and wondering what to read on the internet. Second, it helps me keep a record of the interesting links that I have read so that I can come back to them if I need them. The final reason is this. My wife keeps asking me if anybody bothers to read this blog. Just in case, you are one of those who don’t want to read what I write, you might at least want to read what I read. So this is for you.

Here are this week’s links.

• Orangutans are doing much better than me. I am yet to lay my hands on an iPad.
• Ethical Hacking is not new. It is more than a century old.
• How did Syphilis become an epidemic in Europe? Blame it on Columbus.
• Sean Carroll Explains why Agnosticism is not a great position to hold on the issue of soul that survives our death. That argument is true for the question on the existence of God too. I have written about something similar before, but coming from a particle physicist it is on a much firmer footing. Not a new article, but was highlighted in his “Best of 2011” lists.
• Want to work with Stephen Hawking? Here is an opportunity.
• Brian Cox explains why atoms are mostly empty. A nice demonstration of some complicated Physics.
• We all want to be unique don’t we? Here are some experiments did ages ago telling us something fundamental about ourselves. This video of the experiment is hilarious.
• A very interesting post on our vision. I asked a couple of questions and got answers too.
• A free chapter from Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science. Read it to know why evidence based medicine is important…
• …and once convinced, read this free e-book on evaluating evidence in medicine.

To end this post, here is a nice quote from Richard Feynman about physics, that I came across this week.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.