Lady condors can do what, now? (Gizmodo)
by Isaac Schultz
When scientists surveyed the genetics of endangered California Condors, they found something odd: two female birds had produced offspring, neither of them with any male involvement. How is that even possible?

Global life in the smartphone age (Sapiens)
by Laura Haapio-Kirk and Georgiana Murariu
Smartphones are changing how we communicate, but exactly what that change looks like is different depending on who and where you are. With the help of a comics artist, a team of anthropologists explores a range of experiences.

Learning to talk with the whales (Hakai Magazine)
by Christoph Droesser
A new project is trying to use machine learning to open up a click-based dialogue with sperm whales. That raises a lot of questions, like whether whales have a language at all, and whether they’d have anything interesting to say.

China and African democracy (The Washington Post)
by Carolyn Logan and Josephine Appiah-Nyamekye Sanny
Is China’s growing influence hampering democracy in African countries? What do Africans think about the relative merits of the world’s current superpowers? And how hopeful are they about self-governance? Social scientists have answers.

Life stories and mental illness (Psyche)
by Henry R Cowan
When many people tell their life stories, they hinge on events in their early adulthood. That’s also the time when some people begin seeing signs of schizophrenia. For them, a part of recovery can be creating new narratives.

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