Greetings, fellow hominids! I normally take a single week off following the final issue of a CREATURE FEATURE volume (there are 12 issues in each, and you may have noticed that the newsletter changes a bit in between each volume.) I’ll be starting vol. 4 with next week’s issue—need a little extra time to prepare and to catch up on my other work.
For now, please enjoy these links to other people’s frankly *amazing* work and to my own efforts in the name of science journalism.
My favorite meme, whose original author is lost to the internet. Don’t spray owlets unless you’re a trained professional and for the love of god don’t keep owls as pets.
Stuff other people wrote (most in October):
Mizoram has a wild animal that’s rarer than the tiger but is thriving (The Print, Adam Saprinsanga)
Animal rights activists sue biggest US foie gras distributor (Associated Press)
Animal rescuers are still finding dozens of pets left abandoned by Hurricane Dorian (Brianna Sacks, Buzzfeed)
Research and rescue: Saving species from ourselves (Longreads, Ashley Braun)
Turn and live with animals: The slaughterhouse ethic of Soviet and American whalers tells us we must look beyond communism and capitalism to survive (Aeon, Bathsheba Demuth)
What’s the best way to welcome bats to the neighborhood? The Goldlocks approach (The Revelator, Cori Lausen)
Let me tell you about my pet: Patricia Lockwood on Miette (The Cut, Kelly Conaboy, from August but eternally relevant)
The symbolic seashell: Collecting seashells is as old as humanity. What we do with them can reveal who we are, where we’re from and what we believe (Hakai Magazine, Krista Langlois)
It’s only $4.99. But Costco’s rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price (CNN Business, Nathaniel Meyersohn)
Writing this newsletter, while often the best part of my week, is shockingly time-consuming! If you want to support my efforts to explore how we live and die with this planet’s other sentient beings, please consider sharing this newsletter on your social media feeds, buying me a coffee or even becoming a paying subscriber ($5USD/month, $50USD/year).
Stuff I wrote (since last issue):
The only detox you need is sleep–but it’s not totally clear why
A controversial new study claims Botswana may be the origin of modern humanity
A 500-year dormant fault in California just shook our view of how earthquakes form
We may finally know why we can’t regrow limbs like newts and toads do
Researchers may finally know what’s causing the mysterious polio-like illness in kids
Questions? Comments? Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at my email or on Twitter. If you enjoy this newsletter and would like to tip me, I am on Ko-fi.
All images in CREATURE FEATURE are used under Creative Commons licensing. Efforts have been made to ensure that photographs of living animals or natural scenes have been taken ethically, in responsible pet ownership conditions, at AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums or under safe, non-damaging conditions in the wild. If you see an issue with any image we share, please notify me.