Alumni blogs: Microfossils, the cons of coupon clipping, and more

The following highlights are drawn from sites listed on our directory of alumni blogs. If you know of blogs by Princetonians that are not listed, please contact us.

In an Aug. 22 item on The Washington Post’s “Achenblog,” Joel Achenbach ’82 examines a fascinating new finding of “ancient squiggly critters” in Western Australia that may be the planet’s oldest fossils. As Achenbach notes, “We don’t know how nonlife became life, whether it was in a small, warm pond, or at the edge of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, or in the back of someone’s refrigerator,” and we may never know. But the new microfossils appear to indicate that there was life on Earth not long after the planet became habitable, Achenbach writes. Whether these are indeed Earth’s oldest remnants of life remains open to dispute. Click here to read the full explanation.

In other posts this week, “Feministing” blogger Chloe Angyal ’09 interviews actress and director Vera Farmiga. … On “HuffPost Tech,” Bianca Bosker ’08 takes a look at Facebook’s new privacy settings. … Rick Klein ’98 of ABC News’ “The Note” debunks hall-of-shame misstatements from Democrats and Republicans with PolitiFact.com editor Bill Adair. … Is coupon clipping anti-feminist? Laura Vanderkam ’01 argues that it may be on her “168 hours” blog. … And finally, “Serious Eats” blogger Maggie Hoffman ’04 has the enviable job of reviewing a bottle of wine each day for the site’s Summer of Riesling.