This week’s Filtrate features a slice of violent history from Asia, ancient tools, intoxicated tentacle porn, sick penguins, and more.

Most of us can’t do anything about the horrible stuff that’s happening in the world right now. But when the news is intolerable, we don’t have to immerse ourselves in it first thing in the morning.

In the Plague Year of 2020, I started posting a weekly update of selected science news, which I called ‘The Filtrate.’ Now I’m starting it up again. Welcome to this week’s collection of stories about science and science communication, plus maybe a few bits that were too weird not to include.

A pandemic. Global supply chains grind to a halt. Millions die. History splits into ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Sound familiar? Having lived that story myself, I’m in no hurry to revisit it. I have little interest in re-reading news from 2020, and the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic - and the appalling mismanagement that made it so much worse - solidified my longstanding aversion to post-apocalyptic fiction. Good books are good books, though, and even for a confirmed non-fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, is a great read.

Dickson Despommier, PhD, died February 7. He was a great teacher, an excellent scientist, and a wonderful friend. I miss him.

About half of all humans have ovaries, which are the fastest-aging organs. Inspired by her own experience, one researcher made a midlife change to figure out how that happens. The answers she’s finding will help us all.

Many writers set out to create nonfiction, but go astray somewhere along the way. That’s because when you look long into a story, the story also looks into you.

In a world literally on fire, I was burning large quantities of gasoline for my own entertainment. I don’t do that anymore, and don’t encourage anyone else to, either.

Stories don’t just tell our history, they shape it. Scientists need to start telling better ones.

Whether you’re a radio club, a university, or a biome, you can’t afford monoculture.

We’re throwing billions of dollars’ worth of research on a digital compost heap. This needs to stop.

Two books explore the alluring but pathological business of game development.