Best Of MetaFilter

Magpie female by Jean and Fred Hort, via Flickr

8-year-old Emma had a question about Australian magpies. 30,000 people (not a typo) responded. Oh the results are interesting, in this community science centered post created by sciatrix!

I hope I'm the only sideshow-school casualty out there. I spent a month or so in the hospital after my own act went horribly awry... in sword-swallowing, everyone gets hurt eventually. Transmissions From Vrillon shares first-person experience in the post on Sword Swallowing And Its Side Effects.

This week, we’re moving on to themes and topics around social justice, government, policy and research. You’ll learn more about advocacy and activism — and how you can have your voice heard on issues that matter to you!

Itsy frog will make you feel positively competent: moonmilk offers a post that asks Why Is This Tiny Frog So Awful At Jumping?, an interesting discussion ensues, and the primroses were over observes, who among us has not been so bad at something that our sheer incompetence has become a matter of scientific inquiry? Excellent point.

uBiome - Microbiome Sequencing Gut Bacteria Sample Kit by Tony Webster (cc by)

In an interesting thread about "rethinking healthy eating in light of the gut microbiome," ASF Tod und Schwerkraft shares some enlightening commentary on why the results of microbiome research is always much more complicated and less definitive than science reporting makes it sound.

Hands in the sky by ohhhbetty (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, I'm writing a short story where the main character uses a signed language that developed on a space station: A very interesting question and some great answers on signal's request for cultural and linguistic introduction to signed languages for background.

Wild grain by ibm4381 (cc by)

clew's post Stones speak and ashes live explores recent archeological research and evidence that "shred the long-standing idea that early people subsisted mainly on meat."

ADHD by PracticalCures (cc by)

brainwane has a couple of great posts up about ADHD: The World Federation of ADHD's International Consensus Statement of 208 Evidence-based conclusions about the disorder, and "this was like discovering DNA", about David Cain's (Raptitude) ADHD diagnosis.

ποντίκι / μυς, mouse (Mus musculus) by George Shuklin by dullhunk (cc by)

... this is cool, important, and well done research. But as in most cases, we should be cautious in making assumptions about how broadly it applies

biogeo offers an outstanding, detailed backgrounder in the Turning off intergenerational trauma in mice thread.

Deer Tick! by www.FrankBonilla.art (cc by-nc-nd)

Blasdelb offers a fantastic explainer in Too-Ticky's thread on "weaponized ticks."

A cat is posed seated on a chair in front of another cat operating a camera. by Beverly & Pack (cc by)

Mefites imagine results as a text-based cat adventure game in the thread for not_on_display's "researchers study cats wearing cameras" post, plus some Mefelines' 24-hr diaries transcribed, and we are introduced to tula's tiny-camera enabled narrative_cat Instagram (!): She's the artist, I curate.

Kunes Camp Trail (17) by Nicholas_T (cc by)

Plant pathologist here: hey, we're working on it! acrasis explains some of the challenges of working with forest tree diseases in Fizz's post on the struggle to fight the catastrophic decimation of the American Chestnut Tree.

Sir crow's New Estate by SPDP (cc by)

Teaching capitalism to corvids with the open source Crowbox experimentation platform

“Eddie Kang: In the middle of, 2013 (mixed media on canvas)” / Gallery Ihn / Art Basel Hong Kong 2013 / SML.20130523.6D.13996.SQ by See-ming Lee (SML) (cc by-nc)

Don't forget to remember to check out Wolfdog's fascinating post on augmenting long-term memory, featuring an essay on personal memory systems by Michael Nielsen.