Human Nature Hot Topics

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Web commentary on science and tech.

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Below is today’s selection of the most interesting science analysis and commentary on the Web. For straight news reports, check out the news page. For Human Nature’s takes on some of these topics, visit the blog. (I generally post the link first and write the blog entry later, so check back.) To add your own take, open or join a discussion thread in the Fray—and please link to the original story so others can participate intelligently in the conversation.

April 9

Lethal injection method allowed for people but not animals
(Mark Sherman, Associated Press)

Paying 50 percent extra to build ambulances for fat people
(Katie Zezima, New York Times)

April 7

Does blogging kill?
(Matt Richtel, New York Times)

The silly new creationist movie
(Benjamin Radford, LiveScience)

The McCain family’s beer fortune
(Sharon Theimer, Associated Press)

The rise of natural-orifice surgery
(Tina Peng, Newsweek)

Emotional relationships between humans and robots
(Paul Marks, New Scientist)

U.S. military ponders the rules of cyber-war
(Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press)

British nutrition expert scorns the organic food craze
(Jo Revill, Observer)

April 3

Can police secretly sample your DNA?
(Amy Harmon, New York Times)

The Dairy Council’s case for chocolate milk
(Edelman Public Relations)

Does wearing possum fur help the environment?
(Christina Binkley, Wall Street Journal) ($)

Does fear of seeming racist make whites avoid blacks?
(Jennifer Richeson and Sophie Trawalter, Psychological Science)

April 2

Is the pregnant “man” a hoax?
(Benjamin Radford, LiveScience)

Autonomous killing robots are here. Should we ban them?
(Paul Marks, New Scientist)

Viagra’s 10 years old. Where’s the female version?
(Lindsay Lyon, U.S. News)

Holding cops to “ maximum body-fat allowances
(Susan Saulny, New York Times)

The logic of sports doping
(Michael Shermer, Scientific American)

The case for performance-enhancing drugs
(Art Caplan, Science Progress)

How genes can skew dope tests
(Tina Saey, Science News)

Curing addiction with drugs
(Jeneen Interlandi, Newsweek)

Should insurance cover mental illness like physical illness?
(Sarah Kershaw, New York Times)

Christianity vs. environmentalism
(S. M. Hutchens, The New Atlantis)

Adequate resources could abolish war
(John Horgan, Discover)

Then why doesn’t poverty correlate with terrorism?
(Alberto Abadie, Harvard / National Science Foundation)

The dawn of the pet rental business
(Vincent Mallozzi, New York Times)

Can dogs be dyed like “fashion accessories”?
(DeeDee Correll, Los Angeles Times)

Vaccines cause autism
(John McCain, various)

No, they don’t
(The New Atlantis)

The biological basis of male adultery
(Mary Carmichael, Newsweek)

Why men are clueless at reading women
(Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience)

What’s wrong with female sexual disinterest?
(Interview with Lenore Tiefer, U.S. News)

How men, not just women, can endanger fetal health
(Tina Saey, Science News)

Hillary Clinton’s bogus science
(Yuval Levin, The New Atlantis)

The irrationality of soccer goalies
(Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post)

Is “terminal sedation” the new euthanasia?
(Kathleen Kingsbury, Time)

The overhyped insomnia “ epidemic
(Bruno Maddox, Discover)

The technology and ethics of brain enhancement
(Andrew Pratt, Science Progress)

McCain should adopt Bush’s stem-cell policy
(The New Atlantis)

The merits of spanking
(Claudia Kalb, Newsweek)