10 favourite science stories for 2024

Hello, friends!

I hope the year is winding down nicely and that you have some lovely things planned for the last week of 2024.

As unis and learned societies across the land have shut up shop until January, instead of your usual talks and lectures I’ve assembled a list of my favourite science (and science-adjacent) stories from 2024. In no particular order, let’s go!

💡 10 favourite science stories ☕

Abracadabra! How magic can help us understand animal minds, Betsy Mason, Knowable Magazine: What can avian responses to magic tricks tell us about birds’ cognition? “A lot of the deceptive techniques that the jays use to protect their caches are things that magicians do in their performances,” says researcher Nicky Clayton, who studies the problem-solving abilities of different animals.

Pooping on the Moon is a messy business, Becky Ferreira, WIRED: “Wherever humans go, we bring our shit with us,” writes Ferreira, reflecting on the 96 bags of waste scattered across six lunar landing sites. Before heading back to our celestial neighbour, what legal, ethical, and practical considerations must be made when it comes to extraterrestrial waste management?

How the human brain contends with the strangeness of zero, Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta: Is zero just another number on a number line, or a mathematical symbol of absence? Or something else? A look at how researchers are working out how the brain deals with what one neuroscientist describes as the “eccentric uncle in the family of numbers”.

Why go imperial in a world gone metric?, Mike Sowden, Everything is Amazing: A gloriously illustrated romp through the history of the metric system and all the ups and downs that come when human beings try to agree on extremely specific things.

AI’s bullshitting obscures who’s to blame for its mistakes, Joe Slater, James Humphries and Michael Townsen Hicks, Scientific American: Words are important. In this piece, the writers present an argument for calling AI’s mistakes what they believe they are – not “hallucinations”, but straight up bullshit.

Why do people persecute city pigeons?, Zaria Gorvett, BBC Future: Londoners share their city – often begrudgingly – with about three million pigeons, many of which have been disfigured by urban life. We made feral pigeons what they are. Why do we hate them so much?

Why small annoyances can harm us more than big disruptions, Shayla Love, Psyche: How an idea from psychology, the region-beta paradox, explains why we often choose to live with mild discomfort (such as a damp flat), when it could do us more damage in the long run than a more intense event (the ceiling crashing down).

Dogged dark matter hunters find new hiding places to check, Lyndie Chiou, Quanta: Dark matter is thought to make up 85% of the Universe’s total mass, and while we can detect its influence, we’ve never directly observed it. This piece looks at new experiments seeking to find the super-lightweight particles dark matter might be made of.

When I became a birder, almost everything else fell into place, Ed Yong, New York Times: An ode to noticing, which I read as an invitation to an endlessly fulfilling pursuit. Yong writes: “It’s easy to think of birding as an escape from reality. Instead, I see it as immersion in the true reality.”

How a plan to make the world’s largest snowflake was humbled by nature, Madeleine Cuff, New Scientist: A joyful account of what happened when a crack team got together to create a giant snowflake. Physics may have had other ideas, but we made some great friends along the way.

What did I miss? Let me know what articles you read and loved in 2024 🐧

💫 we need answers

Last week I asked:

The creatures described are, in order, a quagga, a maggot, and a puggle. If they had a weakness for wordplay, they might just play the word game that has the double-g each of their names possess… Boggle.

🤔 until next time…

It’s another rerun from 2023:

I’ve been used to deliver drugs, clean surfaces, and hold speech. I’m associated with rapidly rising prices, echo chambers, and West Ham United. Millions of me can be found at the pub, travelling in roughly the same direction. What am I?

Answer comes in the new year. Have a glorious festive break, however you spend it, and see you in 2025! x