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Washington Monthly digs into the omnipresent US News & World Report College Rankings, turning them inside-out and upside-down and everything. WM re-orders the list based on things like national service, research grants & student aid, and so forth. Unsurprisingly, US News & WR’s list is flip-flopped a bit, with some top-ranked schools sinking to the bottom (w/, for instance, national universities, only 2 of US News & WR’s top 10 make it to Washington Monthly’s top 10) and some underdogs rising to the top (like the previously unranked South Carolina State University).

Sure, a list can only tell you so much. But they are fun, lists are.

A Chicago Tribune correspondent embarks on a mission to trace the oil from a service station back to its sources; the results are quite remarkable–enlightening and frightening and such–and are conveyed through a written article and an online video documentary (which, before you go, “aw, shucks,” has pretty remarkable production values).

(Also, the documentary uses some well-placed Philip Glass music from Koyaanisqatsi, which is a plus.)

(via Grist)

I sure do, I know that much. The IHT has an interesting article (and accompanying slide-show, which you can catch in the upper right-hand corner of the article page) on a scientific expedition in Indonesia which uncovered newly discovered species in an isolated chunk of jungle. The phrase “lost world” gets tossed around, but, you know.

A snippet:

The December 2005 expedition to Papua Province on the western side of New Guinea island was organized by the U.S.-based environmental organization Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

“There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there,” said Beehler, adding that two headmen from the Kwerba and Papasena tribes, the customary landowners of the Foja Mountains, accompanied the expedition.

…

The scientists said they had discovered 20 frog species, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14 millimeters, or a little more than a half-inch, long, four new butterfly species, and at least five new types of palms.

Their findings, however, will have to be published and then reviewed by peers before the new species are officially classified, a process that could take six months to several years.

…

One of the most remarkable discoveries was the Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo, an arboreal jungle-dweller previously thought to have been hunted to near extinction, and a new honeyeater bird, which has a bright orange face-patch with a pendant wattle under each eye, Beehler said. The scientists also took the first known photographs of Berlepsch’s Six-Wired Bird of Paradise, described by hunters in New Guinea in the 19th century.

It’s true, real life affords much more maneuverability, and sensory input and everything. But, still.

(Panoramas from Z360)

They came and asked questions, asked before the paint was even dry. Which, it was oil-based and as such taking like decades to dry itself out, but nonetheless: it wasn’t like they had to ask the questions.

The painting was large and gruesome, veiled after-the-fact in some thick nondescript curtain of rough material. It sat in the center of an empty room, what could have been a living room, or sitting room, or whatever you’d prefer to call it. The room surrounded the painting, saluted it. Hundreds of square feet of empty space stared blankly at the painting and, when it was covered, at the sheet.

The claim was that people don’t simply disappear, which was quite obviously a lie, flat and outright.

I told them, magicians do it all the time.

The evocativeness of dust-jacket photos is why publishers put them on the cover. They’re selling tools, part of the book’s packaging, like the packaging on a bar of soap. Yet in the work of some photographers, the author’s photo can aspire to the level of high art.

A curious little article on the pros & cons of dust-jacket author photographs.

It’s a selling point, something to get the customer to pick up the book. Something to give a curious reader insight into the mind of the author, via the face?

Some publishers apparently bank on the photo; others could care less—Chronicle Books, for instance—and tend to use, e.g., passport photos and such. Or no photos at all. That’s cool.

Sometimes you just don’t want the photo, the author’s actual appearance conflicting too much with expectation. Or something.

Good fun, all around.

(Article originally spotted in the Chicago Tribune, but up & vanished, rediscovered over at the Southern Illinoisan)