Opossums eat lots of disease-carrying ticks. So that’s one thing they’re good for. Photo by graftedno1.

Remember that story about NASA having discovered bacteria using arsenic in place of phosphorous? UBC microbiologist Rosie Redfield ripped into the data underlying that conclusion on her blog RRResearch. (She’s also writing to the journal.) Redfield’s complaints and others prompted a lot of discussion about the the trouble with over-publicized science—see David Dobbs at Neuron Culture and Carl Zimmer on Slate, as well as Zimmer’s comprehensive roundup of scientific criticism of the study. Slate also took the opportunity to re-post an old piece on problems with peer review, but, as Chris Rowan wisely pointed out at Highly Allochthonous, peer review continues after a paper is published, especially in the case of “cutting edge” results like this one.

Meanwhile, in non-arsenic-based science news:

• “… like the appendix … only more fun.” Scicurious tackles the question of whether female orgasm is adaptive. (Neurotic Physiology)
• Save the ‘possums. The relationship between mammal diversity, tick host use, and the risk of Lyme disease spread to humans (previously discussed on D&T), rendered into charming narrative form. (EcoTone)
• Short answer: cancer isn’t smallpox. Why haven’t we cured breast cancer yet? (White Coat Underground)
• Ho-hum. I mean, wow. Yawning is measurably “contagious” for adult humans, chimpanzees, and dog—but not for children under the age of five. (The Telegraph)
• Get out and play. Sitting around all day is worse than simply not exercising. (Obesity Panacea)
• They’re all legs men. Like many other animal species, deep-sea octopodes practice multiple paternity. (SouthernPlayalisticEvolutionMusic)
• “It’s not just kids who are bullying. Adults are stacking the deck.” Gay teens—especially openly gay teens—”suffer disproportionate punishments by schools and the criminal-justice system.” (Blogtown, NY Times; original article in the journal Pediatrics)

And now, via Craig McClain of Deep Sea News, video that answers the pressing question of what happens when an alligator attacks an electric eel. Don’t watch this if you don’t want to end up feeling bad for the alligator.

Precarious, yes, but he’s protecting his sperm count. Photo by Ed Yourdon.

• Don’t roast your junk, dude. Scicurious takes on the recent study showing that laptop computers can raise dudes’ scrotal temperatures, putting their sperm at risk. (Neurotic Physiology)
• In case you needed another reason to hate them. A grad student specializing in mutation repair mechanisms considers the risk of the TSA’s new X-ray backscatter body scanners. (My Helical Tryst)
• Too late to change the name to Phoenix? The neuroscience blog carnival Encephalon is back, in spades. (A Blog Around the Clock)
• It’s that time of year again. Bora kicks off the lead-up to ScienceOnline 2011 with a series of posts introducing registered participants. (A Blog Around the Clock)
• More than cat videos. Jonathan Eisen lists the ways blogging and microblogging have contributed to his scientific career. (The Tree of Life)
• Actually, it’s just an eternal dissertation defense. Neuroskeptic imagines what scientific Hell would be like. (Neuroskeptic)
• Waterproof sunscreen, anyone? Depletion of the ozone layer may mean whales are at greater risk of sunburn—and skin cancer. (Mental Floss, original article in Proc. Royal Soc. B)
• Preadaptation for the win. One of the few Australian predators that can tolerate invasive cane toads is a snake that may have evolved the tolerance in response to selection from toxic prey in its ancestral range. (Oh, For the Love of Science)
• NASA has not found extraterrestrial life. But it has found bacteria that use arsenic in place of phosphorous, which means there’s one more form extraterrestrial life could take. (Nature News, NY Times, Not Exactly Rocket Science; original article in Science [$a])

Regarding that last item, I’ll give the final word to good ol’ xkcd.

Comic by xkcd.

There may be more going on in those tiny heads than you think. Photo by shadarington.

• Attention, bacon fans. Epileptic seizures can be controlled by an ultra-high-fat diet. (NY Times)
• A few mg of prevention. Men who have sex with men can substantially reduce their risk of HIV infection by taking antiretroviral drugs. (NY Times, Dan Savage; original article in The New England Journal of Medicine)
• Oh, now you tell us. Turkeys have enough social intelligence to recognize other turkeys from their own social group. (Jason Goldman for Scientific American)
• Mmm. Cranberry genomics. Jason Goldman rounds up Thanksgiving-themed online science writing. (The Thoughtful Animal)
• Meta-blogging science? The fellows behind Obesity Panacea have launched a blog about science blogging. (Science of Blogging)
• A pithy comment is beyond the scope of the present linkfest. Incremental publication can be a good thing. (DrugMonkey)
• Well, that was easy. A simple 15-minute writing assignment closes the “gender gap” between male and female physics students. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
• To be fair, science is pretty difficult. The leadership of the American Anthropological Association is moving to remove references to science from the organization’s mission statement. (Fetishes I Don’t Get)

And finally, Robert Krulwich narrates a beautifully animated short film about an enduring mystery of human behavior: our inability to walk in a straight line without help from visual cues.

Hey, there! Photo by hankplank.

“Sociable tortoises” would make a pretty good name for a band. I assume they’d be somewhere in the genre phenotype space between Vampire Weekend and The Decemberists.

• Call it the “smugness threshold.” Higher income is only associated with greater emotional well-being up to a point—but past that point, people with higher incomes still report greater perceived happiness. (Neurotic Physiology)
• Heads up! Tortoises follow the gaze of other tortoises, indicating unexpected social intelligence. (The Thoughtful Animal)
• Who knows what a fish is thinking? Siamese fighting fish will famously attack other fish or their own mirror images with equal vigor—but their brains express different genes when looking at their own images! (NeuroDojo)
• Best paleontological reconstruction illustration ever. Pterosaurs may have launched into the air by “vaulting” on their arms, not jumping with their teeny-tiny legs. (80 Beats)
• Phylogenies on the witness stand. Ed Yong surveys the use of evolutionary trees as evidence in legal cases. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
• Can’t wait to see the phylogeny of the Septuagint. Texts, especially hand-copied manuscripts, mutate over time in much the same way as DNA. (The Atlantic)
• Especially in Hitchcock’s classic “To Catch a Prairie Dog.” Film scores contain sound patterns strikingly similar to animal alarm calls. (Wired Science; original article at Biology Letters)
• We are also the beaver. New analysis of fossils identifies the sister group to Castor, the genus containing modern beavers. (Open Source Paleontologist; original article on PLoS ONE; interview with one of the authors)
• That’s what undergrad field assistants are for. A classic study of bitter taste as predator deterrent had students taste-testing tadpoles. (Wonderland)

Apparently trying to top the transcendent union of “Star Trek” and Monty Python, the Internet presents Harry Potter singing Tom Lehrer. I’ll admit, this upgraded my opinion of Daniel Radcliffe from “Hollywood nerd” to “nerd.”

Photo by rpongsaj.

• Or, you know, the evolution of a super-cold. The discovery of a new way to stop viruses after they’ve already invaded cells could lead to an actual cure for the common cold. (The Independent)
• Pleistocene Park, anyone? An extremely well-preserved mammoth skeleton unearthed near Denver, Colorado, may contain reasonably intact DNA. (The Denver Post)
• Not just because of running to catch the bus. People who use public transit tend to be more active in general. (Obesity Panacea)
• What the !?%$#**! do we know about human mutation rates, anyway? Less than you might think. (John Hawks Weblog)
• This confirms what I already believe about both anti-vaxxers and corporate PowerPoint use. A GlaxoSmithKline presentation on the importance of vaccination leaves Jason Goldman pondering cognitive bias and the vital importance of good PowerPoint use. (The Thoughtful Animal)
• All part of a conspiracy by socialist Radiolarians. Analysis of carbon isotopes in sediment cores suggest that a period of climatic warming in the middle Eocene was caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. (Scientific American)
• WTF is hepato-splen? That’s just one of many questions Scicurious can’t answer about a truly bizarre study investigating the effect of lunar phases on women’s menstrual cycles. (Neurotic Physiology)

Video this week, via io9: German researchers have determined that bats recognize bodies of water by echolocation because, when presented with a metal plate that reflects sound the way water does, they try to drink from it.