Cultured Neuron

I write on science, nature, and culture for the New York Times, National Geographic, Slate, Aeon, and other publications; I've also written three books and am at work on a fourth. More on all that is at daviddobbs.net. For blog posts tied closely tied to those interests, see my...

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Hand Transplant Transparency Nightmares

Hand Transplant Transparency Nightmares

    This February WIRED published my investigative story “The Devastating Allure of Medical Miracles,” which pulls aside the operating room curtain to reveal an experimental field with serious lapses in transparency, ethics, and patient care, and astounding levels of patient suffering that have gone unreported. The abundant glowing press and publicity about these experimental transplants over…

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What does it mean when a clinical trial fails? Probably not what you think.

Illustration © Eleanor Shakespeare, used by permission, all rights protected.

Today I published a story I’ve been working on, off and on, for exactly two years. “What Can We Learn When a Clinical Trial is Stopped” now online at both Mosaic and, as “Why a ‘Lifesaving’ Depression Treatment Didn’t Pass Clinical Trials“, at The Atlantic, looks at what a given clinical trial can and cannot tell us,…

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“The Touch of Madness,” published online today in Pacific Standard magazine, is probably the most important article I’ve ever written.

In the fall of 2007, an incandescently brilliant young scholar named Nev Jones — a force and intellect such as few of us ever encounter — arrived at DePaul University to begin her PhD program in philosophy. Two years later she was out of the program, deeply…

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The privacy implications of using digital habits to track mental health.

The privacy implications of using digital habits to track mental health.

At Slate today I examine the potential privacy nightmare posed by the emerging healthcare sector that wants to use data gathered from smartphone use to spot mental-health crises early and intervene before they get bad. The idea has huge potential for good — and for privacy disasters that could make the recent Equifax leaks look minor.

“You fucking dungeon!” the man, well behind us now, yelled one…

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Should fitness share the stage with beauty? My review Prum's "Evolution of Beauty"

Should fitness share the stage with beauty? My review Prum’s “Evolution of Beauty”

Charles Darwin, 1883, by John Collier. National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Times Sunday Book Review, six days ahead of the Sunday paper, published today my review of Richard Prum’s “The Evolution of Beauty” (and a few other titles). I found Prum’s book “a delicious read, both seductive and mutinous” — mutinous in particular against those he feels have entrapped evolutionary biology in…

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Big ol ass millipede pedding down the Carriage Road at the old Marsh place like it owned it. I didn't argue. #vermont #outsideeveryday #autumn #twitter (at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park)

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A good birding hour to start the day, guided by the unstumpable Chip Darmstadt of North Branch Nature Center. Migrants coming through with the cool front. Hits included: blue-headed vireo Red-eyed vireo Chestnut-sided warbler Blackpoll warbler Black and white warbler Tennessee warbler Redstarts Bay-breasted warbler And lots of phoebes, downy woodpeckers, Chickadees, song sparrows, and the ever-welcome goofy catbird. #birds #outsideeveryday #NBNC #Vermont #autumn #migration #morningwalk #twitter (at North Branch Nature Center)

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Hubbard Park's new music stage seems to have special powers in fog. This is as close as I'd get. #morningwalk #morningfog #vermont #summer #twitter (at Hubbard Park)

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Happens every year, folks: Some favorites from the Stowe Auto Show. Mostly Jags. #instagram (at Stowe, Vermont)

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#latergram My stepmom's flower and a of her dad's football team almost a century ago. He was one of the fastest sprinter in the US and just missed making the 1936 Olympic team with Jesse Owens. (at Houston, Texas)

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My stepson's house: a blossom, and in the background, a photo of her father's high school football team in early 1930s. Her father was the fourth fastest sprinter in the US in 1936 - which meant he didn't quite make the Olympic team with Jesse Owens, who raced to triumph in Berlin in 1936.

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Travel light - or not. Concrete suitcase and book, Kathy Hall's house, Houston. #OMDEm5 #latergram #twitter

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Does autism happen the way we think it does?

Illustration Kouzuo Sakai, courtesy Spectrum Magazine

My latest story, about how autism starts, starts like this:

One of the oldest ideas in autism — as old as the naming of the condition itself — is that it comes in two forms: one present from birth, and one that abruptly emerges in toddlerhood. The latter type, or so the idea goes, announces itself through a rapid loss of skills.

In this…

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On John McCain’s False Heroism My latest at Slate went up a couple days ago, after John McCain performed a weeklong drama in which he first revived the Kill Obamacare movement and then, telling reporters, "Watch the show,"  helped bring it to a halt.

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North Branch Nature Center even more beautiful than usual today. #vermont #birds #landscape #morninglight #morningwalk #twitter (at North Branch Nature Center)

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The milkweed is ready for its close-up. #July #summer #vermont #morningwalk #twitter (at North Branch Nature Center)

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Small shroom brightening the forest path this #morningwalk #vermont #instagram #twitter