I’m a little delayed this week, because I’m at a science conference in San Francisco and, surprisingly, internet access is somewhat scarce. Nevertheless, here are this week’s selections:

• Were the Maya noble savages? Everyone knows that the Mayan civilization collapsed around 700 AD, but people are still not sure why. The most popular explanation is that the Mayans wrecked their own ecosystem through deforestation, but were they really that careless? Thomas Kluyver at Thomas’ Plant-Related Blog considers the cons of the explanation.
• Dark Materials. From Brian Koberlein at Upon Reflection, we get a nice discussion of the idea of dark matter and the evidence for its existence — including in our own galaxy.
• Can science be artistic? Finally, nuclear.kelly at Miss Atomic Bomb describes a challenge in science communication given to her graduate students: write a fictional story about your research! She illustrates the challenge with her own story.

Check back next Monday for more miscellaneous selections!