I'm posting a reading list after a long interval. Hope you like this selection.
1) Secular Evolution of Continents and Earth Systems. The earth's outer shell has evolved and changed in its chemical and mechanical properties over time. This long term evolution has had profound consequences for geological and biological processes. Peter A. Cawood and colleagues have written an informative article in Reviews in Geophysics on the geologic history of the continental crust and its value as an archive for earth processes. The paper is open access, and there is also a shorter Q &A with lead author Peter Cawood which I have linked to in the title.
2) Carbon dioxide removal is not a current climate solution. What is the best approach to limiting global warming? Do geoengineering methods which remove CO2 from the atmosphere offer a way out? David T. Ho, using a simple and effective explanation, refutes that notion and argues convincingly that drastic emission cuts is the only way to slow down temperature rise.
3) Rosalind Franklin's contribution to the discovery of DNA's structure. 1953 was a standout year in our understanding of life with the publication of papers proposing a structure for DNA. Rosalind Franklin's role in this story has been either sidelined or misunderstood until recently. The authors of the linked essay, Matthew Cobb and Nathaniel Comfort, are writing biographies of Francis Crick and James Watson respectively. They recently went through Rosalind Franklin's notes and some other unpublished documents which helped them piece together a different account of the discovery of the structure of DNA and Rosalind Franklin's key insights.
This essay goes beyond the popular eureka moment narrative which held sway over people's imagination for a long time. Instead, we find collaboration between the teams working on this problem and many twists and turns before Watson and Crick came up with the solution. The article also raises important issues of ethics and sexism in science.
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