Morning dip: reading, writing, merit pay, musical spouses, swine flu, and fire towers

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photo: U.S. Forest Service

Notables of the day:

John Hawks ponders the (bad) art of citing papers you've never read.

Clive Thompson ponders the new literacy spawned of engagement with many keyboards.

A poll on public education shows how much opinion depends on framing, context -- and who else thinks an idea is good. In this case, people liked the idea of merit pay more if told Obama likes it.

Mind Hacks works the placebo circuit.

And Effect Measure weighs in on the weird contrasts and (limited) parallels between swine flu and avian flu.

And for fun, fire lookout towers, from BLDGBLOG. You can climb one. You can adopt one.

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