Conservation Spotlight

Getting there: The rush to turn the Amazon into a soy transport corridor

The Amazon’s rivers once were sufficient for commerce; now international commodities traders want to build roads, railways and industrial waterways thru the Amazon’s heart. By Sue Branford and Maurício Torres Top photo by Mauricio Torres: The Bunge commodities terminal in Miritituba on the Tapajós River. Tapajós basin fishermen have complained that the Miritituba port has polluted […]

Climate Change Science and Culture

What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?

Article by John Cook, George Mason University Image: Pardon me while I blow this out of proportion. Blowfish image via www.shutterstock.com. A famous psychology experiment instructed participants to watch a short video, counting the number of times players in white shirts passed the ball. If you haven’t seen it before, I encourage you to give the following […]

Science and Culture

Allison Davis: Forgotten black scholar studied – and faced – structural racism in 1940s America

Article by David Varel, Case Western Reserve University Photo: Allison Davis, circa 1965. Courtesy of the Davis family. When black historian Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926 (expanded to Black History Month in 1976), the prevailing sentiment was that black people had no history. They were little more than the hewers of wood and […]