Getting all “House of Cards.” Photo by drewgstephens.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! I explain why I think we should study the evolution of human sexuality.
• And, at the Molecular Ecologist: I fret about Congressional interference in NSF’s grant review process.
• With an apperance by some guy with a really weird middle name. A nice extended meditation on the biological basis of sexual orientation.
• Something to keep in mind while teaching: It hurts to feel stupid.
• The solution for bad science: more science. How the emergence of evolutionary biology overturned a major “scientific” justification for slavery.
• Mr. President, we must not allow an implementation gap! Is there a gap between ecological theory and conservation practice?
• NSFW if you’re an orchid; just embarrassing if you’re a bee. How orchids trick bees into mating with them. With video!
• And it has nothing everything to do with the fact that she’s black. Sixteen-year-old girl faces felony charges for DIY chemistry experiment. See also, also, and also. If that sounds crazy to you, there is a petition you should sign.
• Because, fitness. A nexus of recent human evolution might just be pregnancy.

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Stress relief. Photo by dolanh.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! Does science promote morality?
• And at The Molecular Ecologist: I demonstrate how to make species distribution models in R.
• Good luck! Physicians at the University of Minnesota are going to try to cure another patient of HIV infection using a bone marrow transplant.
• Best experimental treatment ever? Need to de-stress your rat? Try a daily tickle party.
• For a general audience—but most of this also applies for scientific ones. David Dobbs on how to write about science.
• “So, we have red blood because Nature started making O₂ with chlorophyll.” The biochemistry of blood in science fiction movies.
• Definitely significant. Or trending that way, at least. A list of statistical weasel-words.
• “That was the only way we could get them to pay attention.” How a groundbreaking book about the AIDS crisis spread a lie about the diseases’ origins.
• Seriously, this is asinine. How not to treat your graduate students, episode 2,573.
• And they don’t look that much nifty-er. “Forests” planted on the terraced sides of skyscrapers cost a lot more than actual on-the-ground forests.
• Clever girls! Groupers use gestures to coordinate their collaborative hunts with moray eels.
• Or, Jeremy Fox aims for the head. A couple of new papers help to slay the zombie of the local-regional richness relationship.

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Are you going to Snowbird? Photo by Al_HikesAZ.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! We’re looking ahead to the Evolution meetings.
• And, at ProfHacker: I review a book about teaching science.
• Maybe! Does your brain know whether you’re reading a piece of paper or a screen?
• Not that we couldn’t do a lot better. U.S. policies for reducing carbon pollution are a scattershot mess, but they seem to be working.
• No, really. Why we should treat science and math literatcy more like basketball.
• With a lot of money on the line. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that could decide whether it’s legal to patent a human gene.
• So to speak. Even when you have all your publication-ducks in a row, how do you decide which ducks go first?
• Yum! Scicurious review’s Mary Roach’s new book Gulp.
• In a lineage this young, are we surprised? Human origins are turning out to be more of a mosaic than a clean-cut family tree.
• No kidding. For more students to go into science careers, maybe there need to be more science careers?
• Well, Earth-scale-ish. Kepler space telescope finds evidence of not one but two Earth-scale planets orbiting in another star’s “habitable zone.”
• More on E.O. Wilson vs. math. Maybe what he really doesn’t understand is how collaboration works.
• Aww. Zoobooks! The journey to field studies of lions in Kenya starts with a subscription to Zoobooks.

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Math, in the field. Photo by Wanda Dechant.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The resident roller-derby expert discusses metagenomics on the track.
• And, at the Molecular Ecologist: An interview with Julian Catchen, creator of “stacks,” in two parts.
• This probably explains Nowak et al. (2010), eh? E.O. Wilson says “great scientist ≠ good at math”. Math-knowing scientists object variously, and enlist some big names in response. But the most biting critique is, maybe what Wilson says is true—if you’re E.O. Wilson.
• “… could be catastrophic.” White-nose fungus has been spotted in a cave harboring endangered bats.
• Don’t panic. Yet. Reed Elsevier buys Mendeley. Mendeley users are not pleased. But Mendeley staff say it’ll be okay.
• Ditto for other crops, probably. A new emerging threat to biodiversity could be vineyards relocating farther north.
• Good luck! Trying to get through to the anti-vaxxer in the family.
• No, really. Bedbug control via bean-leaf trichome.
• Of course, larger N is going to cost you. Survey of neuroscience papers finds that most studies are statistically underpowered.
• Put on your horn-rims. This new history of eggheads looks pretty great.
• Of course, if you use Mendeley, the auto-import … oh, right. A field guide to “citation download” links on journal websites.

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Bees. Photo by wondermac.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! I describe my latest work with Joshua trees.
• And, at The Molecular Ecologist: Thoughts about fieldwork, and the announcement of Molecular Ecology‘s first genome resources note.
• Gather ye bee-pollinated produce while ye may. Last year, colony collapse disorder took out up to half of the U.S. honeybee population.
• Pretty bad. How bad will tar sands oil be for the climate?
• Faster than a speeding cliff swallow. On the implications of rapid evolution for conservation.
• Evolution swings every which way. The natural history of human sexuality isn’t so much “tragically confused,” as wonderfully complex.
• It’s not worth the effort, apparently. Why haven’t plants and animals evolved sensitivity to radio waves?
• Slogan vs. biology: advantage, biology. Abortion does indeed stop a beating heart—if by “beating heart” you mean a pulsing tube of cells.
• “Nature being what it is, the badass crab struck hard.” How invasive European green crabs are helping restore wetlands on Cape Cod.
• Specifically, snakes. Teaching Medelian genetics with a case study more interesting than Mendel’s peas.

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Yum? Photo by Stephen Downes.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! Which came first: the obese chicken, or its obese gut microbiota?
• And at The Molecular Ecologist: A new method for summarizing and comparing microbial diversity; plus new views of hair traps for pikas and aerial drones for landscape genetics.
• Lupins—yum! Prepping new food crops for a climate-changed world.
• Today in counterintuitive juxtapositions. If you removed every ship from the ocean, the resulting drop in sea level would be made up by the effects of climate change in about six hours.
• Not easy even if you do it directly. Measuring the human mutation rate.
• Would it have killed them to consult the family? Henrietta Lacks is still immortal, and still raising questions about research ethics—this time over the public release of the HeLa genome.
• The old-school approach. On tinkering as a research program.
• “… flirts with predatory OA status.” A pretty scathing review of post-publication review at F1000.
• Context matters more than “motivation.” What campaigns against climate change can learn from public health campaigns.
• What is this I can’t even. Targeted advertising based on your genome?

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Like monarch butterflies? Plant milkweed, stat! Photo by Dave Govoni.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! I discuss my latest paper, study in reconstructing evolutionary relationships with genome-wide data.
• And, at the Molecular Ecologist: How human migration has shaped the diversity of our domesticated microbes.
• Yow. Tracking changes in people’s personal microbial communities during a roller-derby.
• Awww. Bees are better able to remember flowers that offer them caffeinated nectar.
• Eek. The CDC’s warnings about antibiotic-resistant bacteria are getting scary.
• Yay! Ambitious plans to genetically engineer a blight-resistant American chestnut are looking promising.
• Oy. Another meteorite, another claim of fossilized extraterrestrial life.
• Not good. This year’s overwintering monarch butterfly population is worryingly small.
• Nifty. For some early birds, feathers on their legs might have formed a second pair of wings.
• Heh. Seven things that are older than the (creationist) universe.

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Pollen counts. Photo by jby.

• This week at The Molecular Ecologist: Speciation is easier when genes evolve together.
• And, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! In adaptive evolution, the rate of environmental change determines the path to adaptation.
• #Sciquester. More on the impact of across-the-board Federal budget cuts to basic science funding.
• Yay! Early, aggressive antiviral treatment appears to have eliminated a young girl’s prenatally-acquired HIV infection.
• But, you know, you’ll need to decide how to take it. Advice on how to recieve advice.
• Resisntance is not (yet) futile. On that experiment that supposedly wired together two rats’ brains.
• And yes, there’s a place. Where science media fit in conversations about media portrayals of racial diversity.
• A manifesto. Concerning research at teaching universities.
• At least someone’s getting something out of it. How generations of failed plant sex provides critical data for ecologists.
• Maybe! Should peer reviewers tell you what journal fits your paper best?
• Or, facts and values. In addressing denialism, don’t the positive and the normative.
• Or, why the positive facts matter. Why there’s such poor available data on guns and gun violence.
• Ugh. How bad could MOOC university be?

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A red wolf. Photo by Jim Liestman.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The sneaky sperm of the grass goby.
• And, at the Molecular Ecologist: Readers send their photos of molecular ecology. Find out how to send in yours here!
• Variously, but never for the better. How the budget “sequester” will impact science.
• Have some bifidobacteria with that baguette. The role of intestinal microbiota in celiac disease.
• Oy. More on dealing with sexism on the ecolog-l listserv.
• Oy. No, listings of sexy scientists are not good for science.
• Kinda. Turns out cookie withdrawal might be a thing. (See also the adorable cartoon version.)
• We are our own worst yardsticks. Direct demonstration that self-assessment provides poor data.
• Conservation triage sucks. Is the red wolf worth saving?

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