There’s a reason you have to make small talk with your barber. Photo by Dave Fayram.

If you’re gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or straight and supportive, and you have an even slightly science-related blog, why haven’t you submitted a post for the Diversity in Science Carnival? Go, do it now—you can read these great science articles afterward.

• Literal nitpicking. Language may have originally evolved so we could gossip while we groomed each other.
• You get a niche, and you get a niche … Experimental evidence that variable environments support more species.
• Not so super, really. When someone already infected with HIV becomes infected by a second strain of the virus, it’s a superinfection.
• Only seven papers, but six are in Sc’Nature. Ed Yong profiles the man who solved the 3-D structure of DNA and invented “culturomics.”
• Apt. The functions of the facial nerve, illustrated only with pictures of facial expressions.
• Smarts win, except in Australia. Amphibian species with bigger brains tend to be better at invading new habitats.
• Me, I’m in it for the lab coat.* Why it’s cool to be a scientist

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* I do not, in fact, wear a lab coat.