NYTimes Science Times: “Oink” does not mean “I’m stupid”; Johnny Appleseeds gain stature ; Trash afloat ; Dutch health care v. US; Cold dome doomed? ;
The Tracker handled the lead item, on solar sailing, a few posts down.
There is plenty more, plenty of it is worth a read, but the most refreshing and eye-opening, to these eyes, is well inside. Gardiner Harris has a terrific Q&A with Holland’s Minister of Health, a man who has taken more than a casual look at the US health system and provides a needed, outside, fairly friendly but nonetheless critical look at what Americans get from US doctors and hospitals and how that stacks up against other nations. It cuts across the grain – it won’t sit so well with all those worrying about Obamacare as a path toward socialized tyranny, nor with those who say a public option is utterly necessary to corral the greed of capitalists in a noncompetitive, seller’s market. Every Hollander gets insurance, it’s all private (albeit in a heavily structured, regulated environment), and there is more choice than here. Not perfect, but in this (yes, self-serving) telling, it’s a kind of universal health care that should scare nobody who’s not making lots of money from the system we have right now.
Running short on time, so: Other notable headlines:
- Natalie Angier – Basics/ Pigs Prove to Be Smart, if Not Vain ; The stylistic roller coaster we expect from Angier, riffing off a new study showing that pigs are smart (as many already regard them) but catch on unusually fast to what a mirror does, and have amazing memories for life’s lessons and the location of food.
- Henry Fountain: Stateside Home Is Proposed for South Pole Dome ; The old South Pole Station geodesic is obsolete, due for demolition (except for its top, to be a SeaBee souvenir), but some Old Antarctic Hands hope to bring the whole thing back stateside.
- Perri Klass, M.D.: Fearing a Flu Vaccine, and Wanting More of It: Fine inside essay on the contrary emotions of the US public ;
- Anne Raver: A Hunt for Seeds to Save Species, Perhaps by Helping Them Move ;
- Lindsey Hoshaw: Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash ; Many reporters covered a recent expedition to sample the Pacific garbage patch. Ms. Hoshaw spent a month on board. Of interest – she’s a freelancer whose travel costs were paid, not or at least not entirely by NYTimes (as divulged in a note with the sotry), but by a public donation-fueled program called Spot.Us. Some of that program’s money came recently from the Knight Foundation, which also celebrates that the story landed in the NYTimes. This piece is illustration of the ferment in news delivery – a story in a traditional, big paper by a freelancer reliant in part on grants to do the reporting. The article is not particularly long or sweeping . One suspects Hoshaw will be writing more on the expedition.
- LATE ADDENDUM TO PREVIOUS BULLET: I have just learned, as this day’s track ends, that NYT’s Andrew C. Revkin at his DotEarth has more to say about this sample of what he calls “cloud funded: journalism.
- Charlie Petit
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