Let’s start below the fold on the section front page where, for a change, John Tierney in his column Findings does not write a column. He writes a news feature free of explanation of why he agrees of disagrees with this or that idea, or analyzes some proposition that defies conventional wisdom. But in doing so he may have missed a bet: I am left wondering why in the world, starting with the high stratosphere working down, does a man named Felix Baumgartner want to go supersonic toward the Earth’s core (while wearing a spacesuit)? Why does he jump off so many things – with his sights now on a double world record: highest balloon jump (120,000 feet is the plan) and fastest plummet (690 mph, supersonic at about the 100,000-foot mark)?Maybe there was just no room for such soft and non-technical matters. ’tis true that I have questions on those, too – such as, regarding worry of supersonic shock’s effect on a falling spacesuit with a man inside, does the low density of air so high ameliorate those concerns a bit? I’d also have liked to see what the man looked like while practicing his “delta formation” head down with arms straight and angled back, like those related thrill seekers who skim down cliffs and through mountain passes in wing suits, eventually open their ‘chutes, land, and do it again. Such people have such strange courage, such marvelous adventures. Me, I’ll be content to watch the video.

Tierney apparently was on hand during a vertically oriented wind-tunnel test. Mr. Baumgartner found he could manage skydiving maneuvers in a bulky pressure suit and heavy helmet. The details of how this former Austrian special forces soldier, and accomplished dare devil who jumps off anything really high if it draws an audience, it seems, plans with corporate backing to break the skydiving altitude and velocity records are quite vividly sketched out. But other than one robotic quote from the adrenaline loving jumper, and that special forces background and list of things he’s departed vertically downward, no hint to his motivations, the rewards, the fears. This time, I’d like a little more of Tierney’s penchant for unusual personalities and ways of thinking.   Grist for This Mill: Fearless Felix ;  Red Bull Stratos Project ; Project Media Center ;

The section’s lead is more information – but no more real explanation than the last time they were in the news – on the mysterious European-looking, desert-dried mummies found a few years ago in northwest China. They are buried under upturned boats at grave site now utterly arid. Nicholas Wade chooses the correct angle: the graves appear, from the tall poles and vaguely vulvic standards that mark them, plus the wooden phalluses in graves of women, to reflect a 4,000-year-gone culture more openly focused on fertility and sex than most. But who the people were and where they migrated in from, other than new DNA evidence indicating a genetic mix of East and West, remains baffling. Their dress was interesting,  heavy felt capes and such over delicate string skirts and minimal woolen loin cloths. What moves the ball forward are the wonderful photos.

Other Headlines to Note:

• Carl Zimmer: Answers Begin to Emerge on How Thalidomide Caused Defects ; Few people are better at pure explanation than Zimmer. It turns out that quite a bit of work recently has begun explaining the dreadful birth defects left by this sleeping pill decades ago, and also illuminating its new, legitimate clinical uses.
• Harriet Brown: For Obese People, Prejudice in Plain Sight ; A salutory essay on the open, unembarrassed bigotry that fat people face. I for one, however, do not understand why Michelle Obama’s statement quoted in the lede, or efforts to blunt childhood obesity, are unwise or unwarranted. The piece could have used more insight into legitimate motives that lie behind some of instances of  regrettable callousness by those who support programs to improve US nutrition.

Three Stories touching on Cancer must be grouped together:

• Jane Brody : When the Only Hope Is a Peaceful Ending; Brody’s husband recently died of lung cancer. She often writes in the first person. This one is extraordinarily skillfully done – explaining how her Richard, after 43 years of marriage, abruptly learned he was very sick and very terminal. She explains calmly and clearly the measures she and he took to make the departure as comfortable as it could be – and why it is good to have a plan beforehand.
• Roni Caryn Rabin: In Cancer Fight, Teenagers Don’t Fit In ;  Vignette lede grabs readers into thinking why, sick or well, teens are teens and need to be treated as such.
• Dan Jennings: With Cancer, Let’s Face It: Words Are Inadequate ; After a bout with prostate cancer, Jennings wonders why the verbs and nouns most often employed about the disease are such things as “fight” and “victim.” It is hard, he writes, to be both a fighter and the battlefield.

Plus, one from Saturday’s NYTimes, Northern California pages:

• Sabin Russell: Rays of Hope in Battling an Agonizing Disease ; An old pal of mine from days at the SF Chronicle, Russell has been among the freelancers on the Times list of potential contributors to this regional insert. It’s local but not so much a  Bay Area special as a heavily-reported medical story with appeal to readers anywhere. The topic is a dreadful inherited skin disease, we meet one teen age girl living rather pluckily with it and, most important, Russell describes several lines of research that may lead to an effective gene therapy.

As usual, lots more. Whole Section ;

- Charlie Petit

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