Category Archives: linkfest

Science online, return of the blogger edition

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Okay, I think I have things back under control. Or as back under control as they ever get. Or back under control enough to manage a link roundup, anyway.

Believe it or not, the first edition of The Origin of Species discussed giraffe tails, not necks. Photo by ucumari.
  • This is a pithy lead-in. This is a brief description of the scientific news to which I will link. (This link also names the source)
  • Necks for sex? Sounds like a stretch. Did you think biologists know why giraffes have long necks? Think again. (Laelaps)
  • GM pesticides: still pesticides. Bt toxin produced as a built-in insecticide by genetically modified plants has been detected in agricultural runoff. (Observations)
  • Time to revise the kosher laws? A fish called the European eelpout suckles its young, after a fashion. (BBC)
  • Self-fulfilling expectations. When reminded about gender stereotypes, men make riskier financial decisions, and women make safer ones. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
  • A convenient genetic bundle of “magic” traits. A single region of inverted DNA is behind substantial adaptive change—and reproductive isolation—between two forms of the wildflower Mimulus guttatus. (The Intersection)
  • Berry-Go-Round! The 31st edition of the botany-themed blog carnival is online this week at A Blog Around the Clock.
  • Masturbating squirrels. From the journal that brought you fruitbat fellatio. (PLoS ONE)
  • If you buy real estate, pick your hemisphere carefully. The first documented planet in the “habitable zone” of another star (just close enough for water to stay liquid) is about three times the mass of Earth, and tidally locked to its sun. (Science 2.0, Discovery News)

And the video for the week: tickling a slow loris. Not sure the critter is laughing, exactly, but it seems to be having fun.

Science online, chaste and helpful siblings edition

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First, the meta-news: Months ago now, Pepsigate drove some of the leading lights of ScienceBlogs in search of new homes, and with new developments this week most of them now have. Mostly this has been through the formation of brand-new science blogging networks, which are snapping up more than just the SB Diaspora. GrrlScientist and The Lay Scientist have been at Guardian Science blogs for awhile now; PLoS launched PLoS Blogs with Deborah Blum, Steve Silberman, and the Obesity Panacea guys among others. Now Wired Science has brought in Brian Switek, Mary McKenna and David Dobbs to join Jonah Lehrer and others in their new network, and Bora Zivkovic has accepted a well-deserved position as Community Editor for the Scientific American blog network. If you’re having as much trouble keeping up with all this as I am, here’s a nice graphical explanation [PDF].

A cooperative-breeding pied babbler. Photo by Blake Matheson.

Now, on to the science:

  • Effort where effort is due. A new analysis finds that tigers might be most effectively conserved by focusing efforts on just six percent of their current habitat. (Conservation Magazine)
  • When it rains, it pours. The ongoing human-driven extinction of worldwide diversity may not be greater than past mass extinctions, but it’s happening a lot faster. (Gravity’s Rainbow)
  • Must. Resist. Urge to. Anthropomorphize. An analysis of hundreds of bird species suggests that cooperative breeding behavior—where offspring stick around to help raise their siblings—is associated with lower promiscuity. (It Takes 30)
  • Trust me, it’ll make your life better. Get that dissertation published! (Open Source Paleontologist)
  • Not when I’m getting up for a 6 a.m. run, it isn’t. Two experiments with rats provide evidence that endurance exercise can be addictive. (DrugMonkey)
  • See a little farther. The 27th edition of The Giant’s Shoulders history of science blog carnival is out this week at Entertaining Research.
  • Maybe standing on those shoulders made you dizzy? The 2nd edition of the Carnal Carnival is online, hosted by Dr. Carin Bondar. This edition’s carnality: barf.

And now, Richard Attenborough presents flying squirrels:

Science online, where have all the taxonomists gone? edition

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Cool ant! Anyone know what species it is? Anyone? Bueller? Photo by ViaMoi.
  • Subversive science under Stalin’s mustachioed nose. Artificial selection for human-friendly behavior in foxes on a Russian fur farm also led to physical changes. (Jason Goldman, guest-writing for Scientific American)
  • Cast off for Science! Dr. Bik of Deep Sea News will be sailing the Gulf of Mexico to study the effects of the recent oil spill on biodiversity there, thanks to new NSF funding—and blogging the whole way. (Deep Sea News)
  • Wii should really play outside instead. The physical benefits of video “exergames” may be overrated. (Obesity Panacea)
  • Is your car turned off? Turn it off again. Deborah Blum sets a new stylistic standard for science blogs with a cautionary tale of carbon monoxide poisoning. (Speakeasy Science)
  • Well, to be fair, they’re really nerdy. Morphology-based identification of species is still important, but no-one wants to actually employ taxonomists these days. (Myrmecos)
  • Toad versus ants. Invasive ants introduced to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi seem to have met their match in a native, ant-eating toad. (Wired Science)
  • So that’s what it takes to gross out a lizard. Crickets defend themselves against predators by vomiting and hemorrhaging on cue. (Carin Bondar)
  • I, for one, welcome our new orca overlords. Killer whales have learned how to hunt and kill great white sharks. (Deep Sea News)

This week’s video was going to be the one about shark-eating whales, until someone decided to illustrate Tom Lehrer’s “Elements” using Google’s shiny new instant-response search. I have my priorities.

Science online, raised by humans edition

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A scarab. Photo by bloomgal.
  • Pretty sure that violates the five second rule. Some well-preserved specimens suggest that wooly mammoths ate their own dung, at least occasionally. (Brian Switek)
  • You rock, rocks. A newly discovered Burgess Shale outcrop is already yielding freaky new Cambrian Explosion-era fossils. (Wired Science)
  • Not versed in the social graces. A study of domesticated wolves finds that they’re much slower than domestic dogs to look for guidance from humans. (The Thoughtful Animal)
  • Afraid you’ve picked up bed bugs during fieldwork? Try baking your clothes in your car. Seriously. (dechronization)
  • How is a scarab like a mantis shrimp? Scarabs might also be able to see circularly polarized light. (Arthropoda)
  • So a sense of humor and good conversation does help? Male house finches can compensate for less-attractive plumage by expanding their social circle. (A Scientific Nature)
  • I know you’re out there. I can smell you eating. Predators can detect the chemical interaction of insect herbivores’ saliva and plant compounds. (Bioblog, original article in Science [$a])
  • In which a tenured faculty member is literally worse than some baboons. Sexual coercion—and lack thereof—in our evolutionary relatives illuminates a sadly human case study. (The Primate Diaries in Exile)

And now, via Everyday Biology, They Might be Giants on photosynthesis, with a chorus of anthropomorphic insects.

Science online, counting chlorophylls edition

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Photo by Jonathan Cohen.
  • It’s the hot new pigment this season. A just-discovered form of chlorophyll allows the algae that produce it to photosynthesize using infrared light. (Wired Science)
  • One, two, three … many? Studies of monkeys, babies, and chickens suggest that the ability to count small numbers is innate, and separate from the ability to count larger numbers. (The Thoughtful Animal)
  • Can you hear me now? On the Galapagos islands, marine iguanas listen for the alarm calls of mockingbirds to know if a predator is approaching. (The Thoughtful Animal)
  • Crocodile tears from the Adaptationist Programme. Crying confers fitness advantages by eliciting empathetic responses. Or something like that. (NPR)
  • Long-term forecast: 60% chance of dueling results. Remember all that oil in the Gulf of Mexico that hadn’t magically disappeared? Analysis of DNA microbial DNA sampled in that oil plume just found lots of oil-eating bacteria. (Deep Sea News, Wired Science, NPR; original peer-reviewed article in Science [$a])
  • Climate’s changing, with or without you. As temperatures warm throughout the Mojave Desert, Joshua tree, my favorite woody monocot, may disappear from 90% of its present range. (Voltage Gate)
  • 10-mm frogs. Discovered living inside pitcher plants. (io9, Wired Science; species description in Zootaxa [PDF])

I start another semester as Teaching Assistant for Mammalogy next week, so here’s David Attenborough discussing mammalian dentition, with reference to an ancient omnivore I’d never heard about up to now.

Science online, older than we thought edition

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A little brown bat covered with the white nose fungus. Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region.
  • First Ginsu salesman still millions of years away, though. Newly discovered bones bear scratch marks that could have been made by flaked stone cutting tools 3.4 million years ago—more than 800 thousand years earlier than previous evidence of such toolmaking by human ancestors. (Greg Laden’s Blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science)
  • I thought they said it had all magically disappeared? As much as 70% of the oil spilled by the now-plugged Deepwater Horizon well is still out there, somewhere. In fact, it’s probably suspended in the deep ocean, where microbes expected to break down oil may take months to finish it off. (Deep Sea News, Wired Science)
  • Thesis, antithesis. Synthesis! Razib Khan describes how R.A. Fisher united Mendelian genetics and quantitative trait theory into a single mathematical model. (Gene Expression)
  • Really? Life doesn’t look a day over 640 million. New 650-million-year-old fossils may be the oldest examples of animal life. (Science Daily, Highly Allochthonous)
  • Being pecked to death never looked so unpleasant. Stress analysis of terror bird skulls suggest they killed prey by repeatedly stabbing it with the dagger-like tip of their beaks. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
  • Is there an HVAC engineer in the house? We might be able to save bats from white-nose syndrome by heating their hibernation caves. (Wild Muse)

And now, via Ed Yong and BoingBoing, Humbolt penguins chasing a butterfly:

Science online, developmental pointilism edition

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Mosaicism. Photo by docman.
  • Probably delicious with a nice Chianti. A new species of monkey has been discovered in the Amazon, and is already critically endangered. (Short Sharp Science)
  • Also link to fewer knitting patterns than crafts bloggers. A systematic comparison finds that science bloggers link to more original scholarly articles, and fewer news media sources, than political bloggers. (CMBR)
  • Don’t panic. Yet. The evolution of drug-resistant bacteria may mean the end of usefulness for current antibiotics within a decade. (The Guardian; Original article in Lancet Infectious Diseases)
  • We should probably set up more. On balance, marine protected areas seem to have improved biodiversity and productivity. (Conservation Bytes)
  • We’re all mosaics. Patterns of cell proliferation and specialization during development are pretty, as well as informative. (Pharyngula)
  • Brought to you by the government agency responsible for Tang. Scicurious walks through a ground-breaking NASA study of urination in zero gravity. (Neurotic Physiology)
  • Adds up to trouble. American students don’t fully understand what the “equals” sign means. (Cocktail Party Physics)

Video this week: the first part of a USGS-made film about desert tortoises, which are awesome, and very, very endangered. Via Chris Clarke, who posted the whole thing.

Science online, speak up in the speakeasy edition

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Nope. Not going for a single-entendre in the caption, either. Photo by law_keven.
  • Oh, that’s why he didn’t respond when I asked for a phone number. Drinking alcohol induces measurable hearing loss. (Neurotic Physiology)
  • No naughty intro necessary. Male ducks adjust when to grow a penis, and how long to grow it, based on the presence of competitors. (Wired Science, Discoblog)
  • They’re just hopping on the alternative energy bandwagon. Spotted salamanders may be effectively photosynthetic, thanks to algae living inside their cells. (Nature News)
  • Thousands of species in the sea, most of them not fish. A new comprehensive census of marine biodiversity estimates that for every known species in the sea, four are waiting to be discovered. (EveryONE)
  • Wild. Radioactive. Boars. More than 24 years after the Chernobyl disaster, Germany’s booming population of wild boars are still radioactive. (The Two-Way; original article in Der Spiegel)
  • Sip, don’t swig. Dave Munger sifts through evidence about the effectiveness of caffeine, and concludes that if you must drink coffee, it’s best in small, regular doses. (SEED Magazine)
  • Smells like adaptation. Selective breeding has reshaped dogs’ brains, particularly the location of the olfactory bulb. (80beats)
  • Batpocalypse now. The most common bat species in eastern North America could be extinct in the region within decades, thanks to a mysterious disease striking overwintering colonies. (Wired Science, original article in Science [$a])

Here’s a good video description of the syndrome that might wipe out those bats. (The Kentucky state biologist interviewed is exceptionally careful in her use of the word “hypothesis,” too.)

Science online, relentlessly negative edition

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Would you be less afraid of the big, bad wolf if we paid you? Photo by Eric Bégin.
  • Can’t say “mission accomplished” just yet. Wednesday was day 100 of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The hole has been more-or-less plugged for a while now, and surface oil is disappearing, but we’ll probably be watching the effects of this mess for years to come. Might as well have a Gulf Spill cocktail while you wait.
  • Can’t buy their love. Offering ranchers compensation for livestock lost to wolves doesn’t improve their opinion of wolves. (Conservation Maven)
  • Can’t make them shut up. Disrupting quorum sensing, or “communcation” between bacteria, is a promising new approach to treating infections. Except that—surprise!—bacteria evolve resistance to QS disruption. (Lab Rat)
  • Can’t expect them to be constrained by mere facts. The one little bit of actual science underlying claims that New Zealand was originally settled by Celts —the age of rat bones found on the islands—turns out not to be so accurate. (The Atavism)
  • Can’t afford not to plan ahead. Ecologists should start planning for the end of cheap oil, and its many unpleasant consequences. (Conservation Magazine)
  • Can’t be worse than the status quo … or can it? The “tragedy of the peer-review commons” could be resolved by compensating reviewers, either with credit towards their own submissions, or just plain ol’ money. (Jabberwocky Ecology)
  • Can’t hurt to try. Eliminating soot pollution—which leaves the atmosphere much more quickly than carbon dioxide—could cut the effects of global warming in half within less than two decades. (Wired Science)

Can’t be bothered to care for your larvae? Trick an elaisome-hunting ant, or a sex-crazed bee, into picking it up.

Science online, confused jumping spiders edition

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Awwww. Photo by coniferconifer.
  • Worth it just for the Journal of Experimental Biology cover image. By selectively covering jumping spiders’ four anterior eyes with (removable) paint, behavioral biologists showed that the spiders orient using only the pair on the side of their heads. (Arthropoda)
  • Not extinct after all. The Horton Plains slender loris, that is. (Wired Science)
  • Only criminals will have serpentine. California seems to be prepared to pass a law removing serpentine‘s status as the State Rock, and, more worryingly, declaring it a carcinogen without any scientific justification. (Summing up by Highly Allochthonous; find out who to call at The Intersection)
  • So did Triceratops use a fake I.D., or what? A new analysis of fossils concludes that the dinosaur formerly known as Torosaurus is actually the adult form of Triceratops. (Dinosaur Tracking)
  • Images Not Suitable for Lunchtime. Culling Tasmanian devils infected with transmissible facial tumors doesn’t seem to reduce the prevalence of the tumors in a managed population. (Wild Muse; see also RadioLab’s discussion of the tumors.)
  • And then Elijah Wood tries to steal your girlfriend. Electrodes implanted in the hippocampus can induce amnesia. (Neuroskeptic)

This week’s video, via Arthropoda, provides scientific proof that jumping spiders are adorable. I love how she wriggles her thorax before she jumps! This video, and the ones on the linked page, are by Thomas Shahan, whose Flickr feed is an entomologist’s dream—and all CC licensed.