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On Legislating Our Bodies

If you’ve ever said “never again” or quoted that poem that starts, “first they came for,” you should be looking with deep concern at the recent decisions about Caster Semenya (a woman who can run really fast). She was told that if she wants to be called a woman, she needs to harm herself with…

Quick hit: How America Uses Its Land

Bloomburg created a fascinating graphic explorating how America uses the land within its borders. Definitely worth a look. Overview (but this really doesn’t do it justice): Type Acreage (millions) Percentage Pasture/range 654M 35% Forest 539M 28% Cropland 392M 21% Special Use 169M 9% Urban 69M 4% Miscellaneous 69M 4% And 80% of the American population…

Genetics as information

This is ridiculously fascinating. I mean, just the basic premise is astonishing: no two cells in anybody’s brain have the same genetic code. We are not made up of a single genetic encoding; our bodies carry around literally billions of unique combinations of our genetic code. That’s a bit world-altering, at least for me. Also,…