Best of Suggested Readings from 2019

January 1, 2020 8:31 AM

Well-researched stories about the forest economy, eavesdropping squirrels, and more that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
posted by Mrs Potato (4 comments total)

Hey, these look great!

I initially thought it was a REALLY long list but it's only about ... 16 or so items? All kinds of topics, and I only remember seeing one of these previously in the past year, so lots that are new to me.

It'll take a while to get to read all these, but it's a terrific list - and it's the annual culmination of a series" "Each Tuesday, we find the five best research-backed stories from around the web."

Very cool post, Mrs Potato - thank you!
posted by kristi at 12:32 PM on January 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Second that.

Among these examples are a child born without a hand because his mother was frightened by a beggar without a hand during her pregnancy

I am surprised this was still believed by (some) doctors in the 19th century. Sounds like pre-renaissance folklore.
posted by mark k at 2:43 PM on January 1, 2020

Fr? This is reasonably common in the United States well into the 20th century. If you read memoir & autobiographical fiction by ppl like eastern Kentucky writer Jesse Stuart, forex, you’ll see pregnant women in desperate straits with a dental abscess afraid to have the tooth pulled until after the baby is born for fear that the child will be born with a cleft palate.
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:39 PM on January 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Doctors publishing books saying visual stimuli like this could make a child not develop a hand is just not something I would have pegged any time after about 1750.

It's a history of science failure on my part, not a folklore failure.
posted by mark k at 8:47 AM on January 2, 2020