How 'how we know' is changing

Good review by Michael Massing of books and blogs dealing with
The News About the Internet - The New York Review of Books

It's worth reading the whole piece, but if you don't want to take the time, the essence is in this quote from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism's 2009 "State of the News Media" report:

Power is shifting to the individual journalist and away, by degrees, from journalistic institutions.... Through search, e-mail, blogs, social media and more, consumers are gravitating to the work of individual writers and voices, and away somewhat from institutional brand. Journalists who have left legacy news organizations are attracting funding to create their own websites.... Experiments like GlobalPost are testing whether individual journalists can become independent contractors offering reporting to various sites, in much the way photographers have operated for years at magazines.

News from the ancient past: Ethnicide, ethnogenesis & us

Who Killed the Men of England? | Harvard Magazine July-August 2009 Fascinating new findings. The social construction of the "Anglo Saxons", whether Neanderthals were vegans, and a whole lot of sex in Medellín, among other issues being clarified by new genetic and archaeological techniques.

Bitter chocolate

In Venezuela, Plantations of Cacao Stir Bitterness - NYTimes.com

How Language Shapes Thoughts

I'm delighted to see that Lera Boroditsky is getting empirical proof of something that any of us who speak more than one language already know (but may find hard to prove):
Why Language May Shape Our Thoughts | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com: "Lera Boroditsky"

See also my old article, Mermaids and Other Fetishes: Images of Latin America, from Translation Perspectives.

Night Train - Weekly Feature - Murray Dunlap

A very good story, close to home.
Night Train - Weekly Feature - Murray Dunlap

How The NYT Book Review Selects

This is reassuring -- it confirms that the process is tough but about as fair as could be, except that a not-so-good book by an established author will probably take precedence over a pretty good book by a newcomer. I count myself very lucky for having had a book selected and reviewed there once.
Book Publishing News: The New York Times Book Review Selection Process Revealed by Scott Lorenz

Oh, God, not again!

Sam Harris is perhaps too generous with this purveyor of ignorance garbed in a lab coat.
Op-Ed Contributor - Science Is in the Details - NYTimes.com