May 24, 2013

Khalil's Picks (24 May 2013)

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

The Oklahoma tornado disaster was chilling in terms of sheer power and devastation caused. In this week’s picks, I highlight two articles about tornadoes. The first one, by Douglas Main, examines the underlying causes of such destructive tornadoes and the second one, by Adam Kucharski, looks at the challenge in forecasting seemingly unpredictable tornadoes.

On a more joyous note, this week’s picks comprises numerous blog posts from Scitable blogs, which just relaunched this week [full disclosure: I am the Community Manager of Scitable blogs]. The blog posts span a variety of topics including physics, cosmology, evolution, psychology, geology, oceanography among others. Scitable bloggers highlighted this week are: Thomas Nguyen, James Keen, Sedeer el-Showk, Jon Tennant, Jane Robb, Sara Mynott, Bruce Braun, Dana Smith and Kate Whittington.

The other great up-and-coming science writers highlighted in this week’s picks are: Lily Hay Newman, Kate Yandell, Rebecca Burton, Cristy Gelling, Allie Wilkinson and Nadia Drake.

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(You will notice that this week’s Picks breaks away from tradition. I’m experimenting with Spundge in an attempt to better curate great writings from up-and-coming science writers. Feedback appreciated in the comments!)

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