NYTimes Science Times: Big crazy-fast sailboats; the mensch running Glaxo; NASA’s flirtation with a perilous sanity; turkey birds descent ; and the lure of science news…
Last first, in the list above of topics plucked from Science Times. In his Findings column, John Tierney talks about science reporters and the stories they tell. They are big hits in the most e-mailed lists that the newspaper as a whole puts together. Tierney credits it to the love by many readers of awe – and their desire to share it. Yes, scientists come upon awesome ideas and discoveries. The Tracker thinks science stories get their hooks in for another reason – they tend to be that rare thing on the day’s news budget, which is good news about smart people who did something well and found something new, really new. But whether it’s the awe in the stories, or their break from crime, corruption, and catastrophe (not to mention celebrity canoodling), it’s nice reading that the colleagues at the NYTimes are moving product.
I also want to salute Henry Fountain‘s lead article on the five hulls, employed by two boats, competing for this year’s America’s Cup off the fickle-winded wintertime coast of Valencia. I used to sail a lot. I know a vang from a preventer, and know what to do with a sheet to fix a luff. But I cannot be the only one who has read of the rigid, yet movable, wing that Larry Ellison’s huge Oracle Racing trimaran has and had little idea what that thing is. Fountain provides just enough detail to explain it, to share with readers the incredible fragility and power of both competitors, and to make us feel more comfortable watching this on TV (even though it’s live in the middle of the night, and that the first race was postponed for lack of suitably steady wind.).
Other headlines of note:
- John Noble Wilford: News Analysis / For Human Spaceflight, Can Measured Beat Bold? ; Wilford, now retired and presumably writing on piece-contract, provides a knowing, long view of the US space program to complement Ken Chang’s extensive coverage recently of the new marching orders at NASA.
- Sue Eisenfeld: CASES – A Walking Magnet for Odd, Minor Ills; All writing, no real news – but a story for sure. Sometimes a topic just falls in your lap (or grows inside you, or on your eyebrows). Exemplary first person account.
- Donald G. McNeil Jr. : Ally for the Poor in an Unlikely Corner ; Writing against type and against trite trope (as in profit-mad drugmaker), McNeil finds a guy in big pharma that we all might like.
- Henry Fountain: A Complicated History For the Humble Turkey ; A shorty from the Observatory grab bag. I’d heard that our domestic turkeys are descended from Mexican, not eastern North American, turkeys. I’d also heard that the word, derived from “Turkey bird” and supposedly mistakenly lifted from a European guinea hen, might reflect arrival of Mexican turkeys in the Eastern Med before the American colonies were established. That’d be an irony. Dunno why I’m bringing it up here. Fountain doesn’t get that deep into the bird’s genealogy.
And Finally, beyond the ScienceTimes section, out on Page One:
- Elizabeth Rosenthal: Skeptics Find Fault With U.N. Climate Panel ; press around the world has been buzzing continuously with word of scandal and rumors of scandal within the IPCC. US press has generally one-offed the news (write it once, and move on). I’ll check tomorrow to see if other US outlets are perking up to this story of shaded-truth and shortcuts at the UN’s climate panel. In the meantime, here’s one blogger-columnists condemnation of US press’s inaction on such news: Columbia Journalism Review – Curtis Brainard: Criticism of IPCC Continues/ American media still missing in action ;
- Charlie Petit
