Taking a long, hard look at bird guts
By M. Farbman
Also in today's links: political corruption, transcription errors, and medical oddities.
- What is "snarge"? Exactly what it sounds like -- the goop that remains of a bird after it collides with an airplane. And there are some fascinating folks at the Smithsonian Institution whose job it is to analyze this snarge and help the aviation industry by telling them just what kind of goose they've cooked.
- Money, political power, lobbying, tainted science: This look into how and by whom the effects of bisphenol A has been studied, as well as the billions of dollars being made from the product, might turn up as the next generation "Erin Brockovich" or "The Insider."
- Researchers have determined that lines of distinctively colored pigs occurred because of human intervention, rather than nature. Which, given what we do to dogs nowadays (see: labradoodle, shitz-a-poo), shouldn't be too surprising.
- How hard is it to accurately replicate DNA? Luckily, somewhat easier than transcribing the name of a lake in Massachusetts.
- The medical oddities at a museum in Philadelphia includes the skeleton of conjoined twins and a wax model of a woman who had a nearly 10-inch horn grow out of the middle of her forehead. If you can't get to Philly, some of the pictures are online.