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A photo essay from Tommy Trenchard explores efforts to protect the fragile ecosystems of oases in Chad

Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte's The Story of Birds offers an excellent and sometimes startling account of bird evolution, finds Michael Marshall

Feedback is alarmed by a study that explored how funny people think they are, and discovered certain traits in those who rate themselves the most humorous

Europe’s largest land animal, the bison, is thought to be relatively unthreatened by predators, but footage from Białowieża Primaeval Forest in Poland shows it does face attacks from wolves

I came upon this list while lost in the depths of Wikipedia; it’s an entry for “Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” a list that has been revised several times. And of course I had to read the article (which gives only the top ten assessed at various times) and comment.

Here’s how it was made:

“The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine Rolling Stone. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time“. In 2010, Rolling Stone published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s.[2]

Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and did not factor in the surveys conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists, and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and Rolling Stone tabulated the results.[3] In 2024, a revised version of the list was published, with the addition of songs from the 2020s.

For some reason they’ve combined the 2004 with the 2010 revision, and also the 2021 and 2024 revisions. Here are the top ten songs from the two lists:

Well of course I have my opinion, which is subjective, but I’ll give it anyway.

On the first list, if you’re going to mention a Dylan song as #1, “Like a Rolling Stone” is a good choice. However, in my view the best rock song in history was “Layla”, minus the slow piano part. Right behind it is the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” Neither of these songs are on either list. I’m not a big Rolling Stones fan, but many are, so I won’t comment on “Satisfaction”.  “Imagine” is a very good song, but there are many Beatles songs I like better. I’ve mentioned one but there’s “Yesterday,” “Blackbird,” the medley on the second side of “Abbey Road,” and so on. Of all of Marvin Gaye’s songs, I’d put “What’s Going On” on the list, as it is, but if you’re talking about soul songs, there are many better, especially “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke, which I see as the greatest soul song of all time.  But if you aren’t wedded to political songs, I think “Ooo Baby Baby” is better than “What’s Going On,” though it’s simpler. And then you get into the great soul songs like “Try a Little Tenderness” (which I prefer over “Dock of the Bay”), “Ask the Lonely”, “I Was Made to Love Her” (or, in the Wonder genre, “Isn’t She Lovely”), “Since I Lost My Baby,” and so on.

Aretha’s “Respect” is a great song, but is it the fifth best (popular) song ever recorded? You tell me. In fact, I prefer her version of the Carole King song “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” (mind you, I haven’t looked at the rest of the list; I’m judging only the top ten).

The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” is an excellent song, but the placement here is a clunker: clearly their best song is “God Only Knows”, and its omission is a scandal. It’s their best song and clearly better than “Good Vibrations.”  Paul McCartney judged “God Only Knows” as one of the best songs of all time, and he didn’t mention “Good Vibrations”.  Chuck Berry was a real innovator, and belongs on the list, but I like “Maybelline” better than “Johnny B. Good”. Again, remember that this is a matter of taste.

As for the Beatles, yes, “Hey Jude” is a great song, but I can think of many Beatles songs that should rank higher, and have named three above.  Let me add “In My Life” to make it an even four.

I have listened to Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” many times, trying to find out what so many people see in it.  I see little of value, but many people like Nirvana’s style. At any rate, my list would not include that song at all.  And for crying out loud, how could they pass up Ray Charles’s “Georgia On My Mind,” a sad and heartbreaking ballad, in favor of “What’d I Say”? Oy gewalt!

I have little to say about the second list save the necessary inclusion of “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (listen to it here.) I see it as not only the best soul song, but the best civil rights song with the possible exception of “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Public Enemy’s song, along with those of Outkast and Missy Elliott, are not worthy of mention in the top 200, much less the top ten.  And I’d replace the Fleetwood Mac song with “Rhiannon” or (my favorite) “Landslide”.  All in all, both lists seem to me deficient, though they have flashes of good taste.

A few more things from the article:

• The Beatles are the most represented musical act, with 23 songs on the list. John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison are also represented as solo artists. Lennon is the only artist to appear twice in the top 10, as a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist. The Beatles are followed by the Rolling Stones (14); Bob Dylan (13);[7] Elvis Presley (11); U2 (8); the Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix (7); Led Zeppelin, Prince, Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, and Chuck Berry (6); Elton John, Ray Charles, the Clash, the Drifters, Buddy Holly, and the Who (5).
• The album with the most entries on the list (excluding compilation albums) is Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience with four songs on the list: “Purple Haze” (number 17), “Foxy Lady” (number 152), “Hey Joe” (number 198) and “The Wind Cries Mary” (number 37

It is, as Karen Blixen might have said “fit and decorous” that the Beatles have nearly twice as many songs as any other group or artist. And although “Are You Experienced” is a world-class album, the Beatles’ “Revolver” (to my mind their best album, has at least five songs that should be on the list.  To each their own.

Finally, here are the songs on the 2004 list given by decade, proving that my teenage and college years encompassed the best rock and pop music (the numbers vary by list,  but on all the lists the Sixties and Seventies lead the pack for having the best songs. I conclude that, yes, my adolescence and young manhood happened to occur when the best music was being made, so it’s not just that we all think the best music is the music made during our youth.

Researchers diving 7 kilometres deep in a crewed submersible have discovered a vast collection of whale bones, including fossils up to 5 million years old and species new to science

The outer solar system once seemed like a quiet backwater. But a glut of tiny, strange moons with unruly orbits are coming into view, revealing hints of a surprising past – and the origin of Saturn's rings

The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called “Ta da!”, came with this caption, “Ta da! It’s a new J&M on an old theme.”

Wikipedia in fact has a whole article on “Criminal charges against Joseph Smith”. Here’s a summary:

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was the subject of approximately twenty-one documented criminal cases between 1826 and 1844 across New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.

In New York, Smith was repeatedly charged with being a “disorderly person”, a misdemeanor related to his activities as “seer”. These cases resulted in one disputed outcome followed by two acquittals.

Charges in Ohio included assault, battery, and conspiracy to murder. Smith was acquitted of the assault charge, while the conspiracy charge was dismissed in a preliminary hearing.

Following the 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, Smith was indicted for treason, a capital offense. He was incarcerated in Liberty Jail for several months before escaping custody during a transfer to a different county. Smith successfully used the writ of habeas corpus to quash multiple extradition attempts to Missouri from Illinois.

In 1844, he was charged with adultery for his practice of polygamy. After Smith ordered the destruction of a critical newspaper, he was charged with inciting a riot. Rather than submit to arrest, Smith declared martial law and mobilized the Nauvoo Legion. In response, the Governor mobilized the state militia. Smith surrendered to authorities, expecting to be released on bail. Instead, Smith was charged with treason against Illinois for calling out the Legion. Because treason was a capital crime, Smith was held without bail in Carthage Jail, where he was killed by a mob on June 27, 1844, leaving several indictments legally unresolved.

Oy! What a record, and not all the charges were connected with the religion he founded!  Would you embrace a religion founded by this guy after  peering at the so-called golden tablets using a “peepstone” in his hat? Well, there are nearly 18 million Mormons in the world, and I guess most of them believe this stuff.

At any rate, in this strip, Mo is hoist with his own petard:

I got two new batches of photos!  So hooray for the readers! Today’s photos come from Ephraim Heller, whose captions and IDs are indented. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Little St. Simons Island is an 11,000-acre barrier island on the coast of Georgia. Much of it is salt marsh, with a few islands in freshwater ponds for wading bird rookeries. I was lucky to spend a week there in April, during the nesting season. This post focuses on the wading birds, and my next post will focus on other species.

I got up before sunrise every day to bicycle to the rookery:

Like flamingos, roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) cannot synthesize pink pigments on their own. Instead, the carotenoid pigments accumulated from shrimp, crayfish, and other invertebrates eaten over a lifetime are deposited directly into growing feathers. Young birds have pale, nearly white plumage; the color deepens progressively with age, so a deep magenta spoonbill is also an older one.

The distinctive, flattened, spatulate bill is a swept laterally through shallow water with the mandibles slightly open, detecting prey by touch rather than sight, necessary in turbid water.

During courtship, male and female spoonbills initially interact with some aggression, then settle into ritualized exchanges: perching close together, presenting sticks to each other, and clasping bills.

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga) lack waterproofed outer plumage that repels water. While enabling the birds to pursue fish underwater, they must subsequently dry their feathers before they can fly efficiently. Hence, the familiar spread-winged posture seen on sunny perches. Wing-spreading also serves thermoregulatory functions, helping the birds warm up after a cold swim.

Stick-carrying by the male is pair bonding behavior: the male begins nest construction before he has a mate, placing large sticks in tree forks, and continues to supply material while the female does most of the actual building.

During breeding, the bill of the tricolored heron (Egretta tricolor) shifts to a brilliant blue with a black tip, the loral skin becomes cobalt blue, and the iris turns scarlet red. The individuals I saw must not yet have been in their breeding plumage.

The prehistoric-looking wood stork (Mycteria americana) is the only stork species that breeds in North America. The species was listed as federally endangered in 1984 after its population dropped more than 75% from 1930s levels, primarily due to habitat alteration in the Florida Everglades. It was downlisted to threatened in 2014 following population expansion northward into Georgia and the Carolinas. Georgia is now a stronghold. In 2026, the federal government removed the species from the threatened list, reflecting a breeding population estimated at 10,000–14,000 nesting pairs across roughly 100 colonies.

Wood storks require falling water levels at foraging sites. As water recedes, prey concentrates in shrinking pools, providing the density of fish that a nesting pair needs to raise chicks. A pair with active nestlings requires approximately 400 pounds of fish over a breeding season.

The great egret’s (Ardea alba) breeding plumage almost drove the species to extinction. In spring, the loral skin shifts from yellow to a vivid lime green, and long, filamentous plumes (aigrettes, from the French for egret) grow from the shoulder region, trailing over the back. Each aigrette consists of approximately 35 strands of slim feathers. These plumes develop for the breeding season and are shed afterward.

In the late 19th century, the aigrettes for the millinery (hat-making) trade commanded prices per ounce that were twice that of gold, and hunters shot entire breeding colonies in a single event. The resulting public backlash was instrumental in forming the early conservation movement in the United States. In 1896, Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall organized Boston society women into a boycott of feathered hats, which led directly to the founding of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and eventually the National Audubon Society. The Massachusetts Audubon Society, in turn, helped pass the 1897 Massachusetts law prohibiting the feather trade, the 1900 Lacey Act, and eventually the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The great egret is now the symbol of the National Audubon Society.

10-12. In the colony, the male selects a nest territory and then displays: calling, performing circular flights, and stretching the neck upward with the bill pointed skyward. Males bring sticks to females sitting on nests for pair-bond reinforcement.

The aigrettes of the snowy egret (Egretta thula) were even more valuable to plume hunters than those of the great egret, and by around 1900 scientists estimated that as few as 250 snowy egrets remained in North America. Numbers recovered rapidly once hunting stopped, but habitat loss remains an issue. In these photos you can see that the loral skin of some birds is yellow (non-breeding plumage) and in other birds it is pink (breeding plumage).

Climate models suggest a small nuclear war in the tropics would do even more damage to the ozone layer than a larger nuclear war in more northerly latitudes, increasing exposure to dangerous ultraviolet radiation all over the world

A debate has been raging amongst planetary scientists for over a decade - why are there so few exoplanets with a radius of about 1.8 times that of the Earth? Exoplanets are currently largely grouped into two distinct groups - “super Earth” are below that size and have rocky interiors, whereas “Sub-Neptunes” are above that size limit and appear “puffier.” But we don’t really understand what about the path of planetary evolution forces this bifurcation. A new mission proposal, called the Early eVolution Explorer (EVE) wants to find out, and a draft of its concept can be found in pre-print form on arXiv.

A senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry told New Scientist that a test took place two years ago involving fully autonomous drones set to destroy anything in a given area, with confirmed casualties

We have had to endure a great deal of interference from government in the conduct of institutions that should be governed by science and evidence. I’m sorry to report – here is one more. Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) have recently introduced a bill that would limit the FDA’s ability to regulate the blatant pseudoscience of homeopathy. This […]

The post The Baloney Protection Act first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

MIT researchers have shown that one fuel can power both chemical and electric spacecraft thrusters, potentially transforming what small satellites can do. The approach combines quick bursts of speed with highly efficient long-range propulsion in a single compact system. A NASA-supported CubeSat mission will soon test the technology in orbit.

MIT researchers have shown that one fuel can power both chemical and electric spacecraft thrusters, potentially transforming what small satellites can do. The approach combines quick bursts of speed with highly efficient long-range propulsion in a single compact system. A NASA-supported CubeSat mission will soon test the technology in orbit.

Researchers gave top AI models a classic attention test used in psychology and found a major flaw. While the models could correctly name colors in short lists, their performance deteriorated sharply as the task became longer and more complex. Some leading systems fell from over 90% accuracy to nearly complete failure.

When we scan the skies for signs of alien civilisations, where exactly should we be looking and perhaps more importantly, where should we not? A high school student from Ankara has just published a remarkably sophisticated answer to that question, building a filtering system that sifts nearly 1.75 million stars and identifies which ones are genuinely worth our attention. The result is a publicly available catalogue that could transform how the search for extraterrestrial intelligence allocates its most precious resource - time.

A near miss with a Waymo while cycling through London hasn't changed my optimistic stance on driverless cars, but we can't ever let our guard down, says Matthew Sparkes

We've walked on the Moon, driven rovers across its surface, and analysed every gram of rock the Apollo astronauts brought home, yet we still don't have a complete picture of what the Moon is actually made of. Now a team of researchers in Japan think they've found the answer, a compact X-ray telescope, small enough to sit on a single satellite, that could map the entire lunar surface in just two years. It's an elegant solution to one of planetary science's most stubborn problems and the implications for understanding where the Moon came from could be revolutionary.

The space between stars may seem like a barren desert, but over the past few decades scientists have been finding all sorts of interesting chemicals in it. From the precursors to proteins to the building blocks of cell membranes, there has been discovery after discovery of new molecules in the giant gas clouds between the stars. Now, a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv details the discovery of the first ever four-carbon sugar in the Interstellar Medium (ISM), and it is another brick on the path to understanding how life on Earth first developed.