PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
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Serene, Beautiful — and Deadly: Flamingos Create Water Tornados to Trap Prey (Maria)
The author writes, “Flamingos standing serenely in a shallow alkaline lake with heads submerged may seem to be placidly feeding, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. Through studies of Chilean flamingos in the Nashville Zoo and analysis of 3D printed models of their feet and L-shaped bills, researchers have documented how the birds use their feet, heads and beaks to create a storm of swirling tornados, or vortices, in the water to efficiently concentrate and slurp up their prey.”
Pope Leo XIV’s Religious Order Still Mired in Secrecy Over Child Sex Abuse (Laura)
From the Chicago Sun-Times: “The new pope, Chicago area native Robert Prevost, has faced criticism for not doing more to encourage his religious order, the Augustinians, to embrace transparency over the decades-long sex abuse crisis.”
Let Them Die Alone, and Hungry (Gerry)
From Common Dreams: “Having gotten away with so many atrocities while the international community looks away, Israel just unveiled the latest escalation of its illegal collective punishment of Gazans by finally declaring out loud, ‘We are occupying Gaza to stay.’”
Will the Next Big War Be Nuclear or Chemical? Guess Again, Says Former FDA Official (Mili)
The author writes, “The next big world war won’t be a nuclear war, or a chemical war — it will be a war with bioweapons, said John Norris, JD, MBA, at the Population Health Colloquium sponsored by Thomas Jefferson University. Preventing the spread of infectious diseases ‘is the last frontier of healthcare,’ said Norris, who is founder and executive chairman of Safely2Prosperity, a company that advises employers on how to minimize the risk posed by infectious diseases such as COVID-19. ‘COVID killed 1.9 million Americans and 7 million people around the world, I believe that maybe 40% of those we could have helped prevent. Why did they die avoidably? And the answer is, we were using 1918 tools to solve 20th [sic] century problems.’”
The Guerrilla Marketing Campaign Against Elon Musk (Dana)
The author writes, “As Tesla’s profits drop, a group called Everyone Hates Elon is going viral for plastering London with fake advertisements for the company, infiltrating a car showroom, and inviting the public to trash a Model S.”
Diane Foley, Mother of Slain Journalist James Foley, Urges Marquette Grads to Live With ‘Moral Courage’ (Al)
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Even in death, Diane Foley told Marquette University graduates, her late son challenges her on how to live. ‘No matter what we choose to do, each of us has the choice every day to speak out instead of being silent, to hope instead of giving up, to show mercy instead of resentment,’ she said at Marquette’s 144th undergraduate commencement ceremony on May 10, held at Fiserv Forum. Her son, slain journalist James Foley, was a 1996 graduate of Marquette University and a combat journalist who was kidnapped in 2012 while covering the Syrian Civil War.”
Biology, Not Physics, Holds the Key to Reality (Sean)
The author writes, “Three centuries after Newton framed reality in fixed laws and deterministic equations, science has reached a radically new frontier, argue biochemist and complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist Andrea Roli. The biosphere — life’s evolving web — is not a clockwork mechanism but a self-creating, unpredictable system. Organisms constantly repurpose their worlds in ways that cannot, even in principle, be foreseen or captured in a mathematical framework. Science must now confront a bold idea: reality is not fully governed by any law — and biology, not physics, holds the key to its deeper mysteries.”
