Barnacles. Photo by Minette Layne.

• Personal genomics should be “entertainment,” not a “medical test.” The personal genotyping service by 23andMe got smacked down by the U.S. FDA; but it probably won’t slow down the rush to consumer genomics.
• Freaky, but cool. How to cure cancer using altered HIV particles.
• Chemotherapy with a side of probiotics? The effectiveness of some anti-cancer drugs may depend on your gut bacteria.
• “… the reasoning employed here is primitive, at best.” Ow. Yet another evolutionary psychology study mistakes the modern university campus for the prehistoric savannah.

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Is it cold in here? Photo by Ikayama.

• This week at the Molecular Ecologist: Making the jump from postdoc to faculty, part one, and part two.
• Privilege check. An attempt to joke about sexism in science fails badly, and prompts some good discussion about what, exactly, it means to be an ally. Also, one pretty clever new metaphor.
• And blames the students. Classy! One of the earliest champions of online college courses admits they don’t really work.
• How the early air-mail planes crossed the U.S. Guided by lighthouses.
• Broad-minded, our ancestors. Analysis of early human genomes suggest interbreeding with a previously unknown proto-human species.
• Serving in Starfleet is basically a high-prestige hobby. How economics might work in the United Federation of Planets.
• “No, he has no family. He’s perfect!” On the infamous two-body problem.
• No, seriously. Thousands of studies on lab mice might be confounded by chilled mice.
• The “red edge”. How we might detect life on another planet using only light.
• For the umpteenth time. That welt on your leg is probably not a brown recluse bite.
• Oh, Florida. Green anacondas, which can grow to be 20 feet long, seem to be settling right into the Everglades.
• No one can cite you if no one can find you. The calculus of journal prestige for authors who need to get noticed.
• Antibiotics! U.S. states with higher rates of antibiotic prescription have more obesity. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria could dramatically restrict modern medicine. Here’s what working physicians are doing to prevent that.

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Photo by dreamingyakker.

• This week, at the Molecular Ecologist: Build a version-controlled workflow with GitHub and RStudio.
• And at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! A new fossil find illuminates the history of hummingbird flight, and it turns out that Little Red Riding Hood has a phylogeny.
• It involves my new favorite German word. How we learned that birds migrate.
• With great visualizations. A brief simulation study of genetic ancestry.
• No, but really. Here is a picture of a fruit fly with pictures of ants on its wings.
• Even with on-site comments, Twitter, PubMed Commons … On the difficulties of calling attention to potentially serious flaws in a published scientific paper.
• Ugh. A new Republican bill to revise science funding practice looks exactly as dodgy as you’d expect.
• Meanwhile … A survey of U.S. research universities shows that sequestration is already hurting science.
• Well, that’s a new one. Is it possible that Archaeopteryx was in the process of losing the ability to fly?
• Sure, why the hell not? Are these high-altitude grasslands in Venezuela the fastest-evolving communities on Earth?
• Sort of a filter for critical thinkers. The “Ark Experience” creationist theme park is going to be financed as a nonprofit, by selling junk bonds.
• Yum? Bamboo-eating beetles soften up their host plants by giving them yeast infections.
• Of course, how many protein shakes do they encounter in the wild? If it’s protein, ants assume they need to chew it.

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Photo by mjsmith01.

• This week, at The Molecular Ecologist: I reviewed Craig Venter’s new book.
• And, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! Stressful conditions make mutualism stronger.
• Now available for free. An award-winning report on fracking.
• The “gore king.” A new species of tyrannosaur sounds like a character in “Game of Thrones.”
• In, of all places, the abortion debate. How Nazi-era anatomy work haunts us to this day.
• Listen up! Oyster larvae identify good places to put down roots based on sound.
• Too good to be true is still too good to be true. In this case, meaning $10,000 college degrees.
• Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a venture capitalist. A new X-prize seeks prototypes for a medical tricorder.
• Depends what you mean by “life.” Is there life after graduate school?
• Love everlasting. The oldest-known fossils of insects in copula.

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Christ, what an asshole. Photo by K Schneider.

• This week at The Molecular Ecologist: An interview with Ruth Shaw.
• Humans are actually pretty monogamous? That’s what a comparison of Y-chromosomes and paternal names suggests.
• Advice for grad students. Mostly, take care of yourself.
• Which spent 100 times as long in review as the original. A rebuttal of bad science on genetic prediction of autism.
• Meanwhile. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is getting more ambitious.
• Glibness isn’t a victimless crime? In which Malcolm Gladwell’s loose hand on the facts isn’t doing any good for people with dyslexia.
• Your semi-annual reminder. Cute animals aren’t really very cute to each other.
• Plus ça change. Even as human geneticists are beginning to realize genetics is a lot messier than they thought, and there are good reasons to think that mathematical ability is more in your confidence than your genes, the developer of the Ion Torrent sequencing system is about to drop about a million bucks on a study of mathematicians’ genetics.
• And in other long-shot projects: Should we send a DNA sequencer to Mars?

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Rhubarb. Delicious but toxic. Photo by Heather Quintal.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! Lizards that adjust their development for their habitat based on the temperature outside their eggs.
• You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hopefully learn a little about harassment and how to stop it. Hope Jahren sure can write.
• Color me not surprised, still unhappy to see it. There’s a gender gap in citation counts.
• Plants versus everyone else. The not-so-hidden chemical warfare agents of the vegetable aisle.
• “Use the left lane for passing, Mr. Sulu.” What an Alcubierre warp-drive spacecraft would look like on its way past.
• Hmm. Should peer reviewers review methods even before the experiments are done?
• Welcome to the hominid family! On that new, impressively complete skull of an early Homo species.
• Bookmarking for (hopefully not too much) later. How life as a professor isn’t like anything you’ve done before.

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