Waiting for the next one to drop? Photo by KhayaL.

What? You still haven’t told Facebook you like Denim and Tweed? But then how else will it know to send you ads for, um, obligate pollination mutualism?

• Gotta start somewhere. The simplest possible biological eye—and the starting point for the evolution of more complex models—may have been found in brachiopod larvae.
• Look out below! In Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, introduced coconut palms are literally bombing the natives into extinction.
• In case you missed it. The Carnival of Evolution is out at Genome Engineering.
• Herpetologist porn. Anolis osa has just been differentiated from Anolis polylepis based on what a leading Anole scholar calls their “man parts.”
• Big cats, but no longer the top dogs. With population declines of more than 90 percent since 1960, lions are in danger of extinction in the wild.
• But wait, there’s more. It’s not looking so great for every other known species, either.

Yeah, I’d domesticate these guys before wolves. Photo by law_kevin.

Let’s just take my passive-aggressive hint to like Denim and Tweed on Facebook as read this week, shall we?

• Science blogging gets interdisciplinary. Scicurious and Kate Clancey evaluate the neurology and endocrinology behind a study of pre-menustrual dysphoric disorder.
• Belyaev’s domesticated foxes are back, with minks and rats. The “domestication syndrome” of animals selected to live with people may have the same genetic origins in many mammal species.
• They are mighty cuddly. A new archaeological find suggests that there was at least one pet fox in a Pleistocene human settlement.
• Only one possible name for that illusion. With the right visual cues and some careful tactile stimulus, it’s possible to convince people they have a third hand.
• Fresh country air has lots of germs. Children raised in the diverse bacterial communities found on farms are less likely to develop asthma.
• It’s a tricky bugger. Curing HIV isn’t going to be easy, but there are some new lines of attack that look promising.
• In case you missed it. I wrote a guest post for Scientific American!

A human head louse. Photo by Giles San Martin.

You like D&T, you like it not …

• Three species, no less! Shake the dirty laundry of human history, and you’ll find a lot of lice.
• Ow. What do you do if your (flatworm!) mate’s genitals prevent you from inseminating her eggs? Go in through the skin.
• Lesson: don’t ask scientists how to get a date. Jason Goldman rounds up scientifically supported strategies for successful romance.
• Maybe they talked about glowing scorpions? Scientists with the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center went on the road to celebrate Darwin Day in rural schools.
• … on that you can rely. Krystal D’Costa builds a taxonomy of flirting.
• A bit like “curing” a stain by re-upholstering your entire couch. It’s possible to cure HIV infection with a bone marrow stem cell transplant, but not exactly practical.
• Because non-scientific activism is ubiquitous. Why scientific activism is often vital.
• Get a burrow, you lot. Prairie dogs in a zoo enclosure are more affectionate with each other when people are watching.
• Maybe not so much with the drinking, though. After declining in credibility, anthropology’s future may lie in imitating Don Draper.

Beep-beep. Photo by jafro77.

So, um … have you “liked” Denim and Tweed on Facebook yet? I’m sure you meant to. I bet you were just busy with other stuff, earlier.

• Run, run, as fast as you can … For small ground birds like ptarmigans, the energetic cost of running decreases as they go faster.
• Declining effect. Ecologists really shouldn’t be all that surprised, or worried, about the “decline effect”.
• Skin guns don’t heal people. Doctors with skin guns heal people. A new “skin gun” can heal second-degree burns by spraying them with stem cells.
• Microscopic foraminifera know more than you might think. The history of a warming Northwest Passage is encoded in plankton.
• Ants are total mutualism sluts. Microbes living on leafcutter ants generate antibiotics that may help fight bacterial infections of the ants’ fungus gardens.
• Harder than it sounds. Science educators need to know when, and how, to say, “I don’t know.”
• Is that a just-so story in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Scicurious and A Primate of Modern Aspect consider adaptive explanations for the shape of the human penis.

Video this week, via Thoughts from Kansas: a Sunday School song for the combative biologist. (See also Eric Idle’s classic “All Things Dull and Ugly”.)

Photo by www.ericcastro.biz.

• The poetic possibilities alone are staggering. Given a wing with the right optical properties, it’s possible to fly on a beam of light.
• Which is why I buy in bulk. Serving snacks in smaller packages can help people eat less—but it only works for overweight people.
• “Digital rectal stimulation.” Really. Science finds a cure for intractable hiccups.
• Being female ≠ being anemic. Normal blood loss during menstruation does not cause iron deficiency.
• Two million years of eating bamboo. Although fossils of the giant panda’s ancestors are few and far between, paleontologists are beginning to piece together their evolutionary history.
• Context! Ed Yong compiles five years of stem cell research into an interactive timeline.
• Boy, is my face red. How did blushing evolve as an involuntary social signal?

And now, Nature Video explains a new study [$a] that suggests why seahorses are horse-shaped. Via The Hairpin.

Photo by gorditojaramillo.

• “… dinosaurs using their feathers to fly.” Carl Zimmer digs into the evolutionary origins of feathers.
• This is your brain wanting to be on drugs. When smokers see movies of other people smoking, their brains light up.
• Also, raptors are from the Cretaceous. Jeez. Turns out that “Jurassic Park” screwed up dinosaur taxonomy.
• Biofilm-coated cookware, anyone? Bacterial biofilms are more water-resistant than Teflon.
• She’s done more than embarrass NASA. A lot more. Dilara Ally interviews Rosie Redfield.
• My guess: magical rings that made them invisible. Robert Krulwich considers how the “hobbit” people of Flores might have coexisted with six-foot carnivorous storks.
• Adaptation for a period of extremely short tempers during the Upper Cretaceous. Paleontologists discover a dinosaur with only one finger per forelimb.
• Hey, nitrogen is nitrogen. A tropical bat species nests exclusively inside giant carnivorous pitcher plants, providing the the plants with an, um, alternative fertilizer.
• “I want no other fame.” Population genetic data has confirmed a hypothesis about butterflies colonizing the Americas from Asia that was first proposed by Vladimir Nabokov. Yes, that Vladimir Nabokov.
• When Caenorhabditis elegans catches a cold, scientists celebrate. A species of nematode widely used as an experimental organism has contracted a virus. Let the experiments in coevolution commence!

Video this week: actual, real-time, microscopic video of a malaria parasite invading a human blood cell, via New Scientist TV. The parasite, a smallish blob on the right, attaches to the outside of the big, round, red blood cell and disappears inside it—and then the red blood cell shrivels away.

Photo by foshydog.

As this post goes live, I’ll be waking up for the first full day of Science Online 2011, for which I expect to do a lot of blog coverage. So I’m just listing a handful of links this week:

• And the twist is? It’s a much bigger pill. Thalidomide may be making a comeback to treat cancer.
• Hey! Eyes up here. Ringtailed lemurs follow each other’s gaze, a key behavior in social cognition.
• Geshundheit. Is it possible to sneeze while you’re asleep? Scicurious wonders.
• Coming soon: Checkers-wrestling, Risk-fencing. In chess-boxing, the cognitive challenge is all about emotional control.

And here’s a ScienceOnline-appropriate video, produced on behalf of NASA because “NASA is the most fascinating, adventurous, epic institution ever devised by human beings, and their media sucks.”

Bumblebee. Photo by je-sa.

• An alarmist take on publication bias? Ironic! Do scientific results fade over time? Not so much. Yes they do.
• Oh, and arguing that philosophy doesn’t matter? That’s philosophy. Scientists may not admit it, but philosophy of science is important.
• One arm was so small/ it was no arm at all … Tyrannosaur-like abelisaurid dinosaurs had (probably) useless vestigial forelimbs
• Still going. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been operating for seven years now.
• It’s not just honey bees. North American bumblebee populations are declining, too.
• Not so smug now, are you, Chemistry? Revisions to the Periodic Table will better account for uncertainty around atomic masses.
• Between 500 and 1000 bacteria species. In your mouth. Cold and flu season might be rough for you, but your internal bacterial community is fighting off viruses year-round.
• Always a catch. New desktop rapid-sequencing machines could make genomics truly accessible, but there’s more to genomics than sequencing.
• Not adequately explained by stupidity. Andrew Wakefield’s original study linking vaccines to autism wasn’t just bad science, it was outright fraud.
• When natural selection fails. Stories about natural populations adapting to environmental change are cool, but the cases when adaptation fails may be more imporant.