Science blogging, elephantine brains edition


Caution: convergent evolution. Photo by Adam Foster | Codefor.

For the week before your midwinter holiday of choice.

  • Bacteria can make plastics. (Lab Rat)
  • Genes regulating brain development show signs of convergent evolution in humans and elephants. (Ecographica) Which discovery matches nicely with
  • A type of neuron once thought unique to great apes has evolved independently in cetaceans and elephants. (Neurocritic)
  • Hollow artificial red blood cells could be used in transfusions, or to deliver drugs. (io9)
  • Good news: lobsters can check the climate-change-driven spread of the long-spined sea urchin. Bad news: lobsters are delicious. (Conservation Maven)
  • Two competing strains of parasites are less damaging to a host than one. (The EEB & flow)