The FREAKest Links

Are there more people living on Earth today than at all other times combined? Nope.

The British Medical Journal is very critical of the international publishing company Reed Elsevier: “While promoting world health through its publications, including the Lancet, Reed Elsevier also organises international trade fairs for the arms industry. By facilitating the sale of armaments, Reed Elsevier is directly implicated in causing untold damage to health.”

John Tierney’s new science blog at the N.Y. Times is very, very good, although I risk your ridicule by saying so, since you may think I’m saying this because a) Tierney is a friend; and/or b) I am a friend of the Times. But the blog is good enough that I am happy to take the ridicule. And if you’re a college student, you can’t even complain anymore that Tierney is behind the Times‘s paywall.