Cape ground squirrel. Photo by Ian n. White.

• Carefully. How to think about the results of a personal genome scan.
• For a given value of “natural” and “selection.” Has human activity rendered the term “natural” selection meaningless?
• Well, that’s what they say. Behavioral observations suggest that ground squirrels masturbate to prevent sexually-transmitted infections.
• Maybe? A new study identifies dozens of genes associated with inflammatory bowel disease — but will that help IBD treatment?
• Ridiculous. In which a press embargo on one paper prevents reporting on two others.
• For a given value of “genetic” and “modified.” In less-popular election news, California voted down a proposal to require labeling of genetically modified food.
• Wow. Just, wow. Some hard questions — and tellingly vague answers — for James Watson.

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Apparently there’s an election coming up. Photo by KCIvey.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! What if we’ve set the molecular clock incorrectly?
• And at the Molecular Ecologist: The genomes of two flycatcher species may tell us why they’re separate species.
• Hypothesis testing fail. Evolutionary psychologists try to link women’s voting habits and ovulation without actually determining whether the women they surveyed were, um, ovulating.
• Dangerously obvious? A new model links species diversity, niche width, and environmental variation.
• Sure, why the hell not? Is this the best possible imagination of an intelligent dinosaur?
• Tens of thousands of years before Atkins. Cavemen probably ate less meat than we thought.
• Darwinian beard, not-so-Darwinian perspective. Peter Kropotkin was one of the first people to see cooperation, not competition, in the theory of natural selection.
• They’re okay, mostly. How did Hurricane Sandy affect New York City’s rats?
• The graphical case for open access. Data from users of reference-management program Mendeley demonstrate, among other things, a relationship between number of papers collected and national GDP.

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Photo by e-MagineArt.com.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The microbial diversity of human breast milk.
• This week at The Molecular Ecologist. The site hosts an online continuation of the Molecular Ecology Symposium.
• And, post arising. When you criticize a scientific method (or anything, really), are you obliged to provide an alternative?
• [Insert pun about the word “fault”] In Italy, leading seismologists have been convicted of manslaughter for failing to raise the alarm about an earthquake — but how could they have done any better?
• “I … hate everybody and everything.” Charles Darwin has a lousy day.
• My God, it’s full of stars. The European Southern Observatory releases a nine-gigapixel image of the Milky Way.
• Or do you only think there is? Is there a genetic basis to the placebo effect?
• “… cataloging the apocalypse.” On the spread of antbiotic resistance.
• Well, if Scicurious buys it, I’m convinced. Does ritalin make you more vulnerable to peer pressure?

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Cruel and unusual education. Photo by Lee Nachtigal.

• Zeno’s pinkeye. A woman fails to keep her contacts clean, ends up with eyes infected by an amoeba, which is infected by a virus, which is infected by a smaller virus, which is infected by sub-viral DNA particles.
• So that works out even? African spiny mice have fragile skin, but that’s okay—it grows back super-fast.
• Fishing trips. If you do enough different tests, eventually something will come up significant.
• Or, you know, just more funding for all science? Do we need a NASA for the ocean?
• CSI it ain’t. U.S. forensics doesn’t just need better technology; it needs a better scientific culture.
• Let’s teach a chimp sign language, then ask it. Are humans really the only animals with language?
• Oops? A new report from personal genomics company 23andMe suggests that family history may tell you more about disease risk than, um, personal genomics.
• Or developing them. Why more ecologists should consider using model systems.
• The horror! A “former philosophy major” is very upset that his son has to take high school chemsitry.
• Alongside many other computers. The many movie roles of the IBM AN/FSQ-7.

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Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I’m hunting … everything. Photo by Hans Pama.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! An army of cloned wasps demonstrates the importance of host-parasite specificity.
• And at the Molecular Ecologist: Best practices for scientific programming.
• How to be a queer ally — in science! An upcoming Q&A and/or discussion.
• What about “Caution: not actually science”? Guest editor abuses his position to publish anti-feminist screed in a scientific journal. Journal apologizes badly, retracts screed, apologizes again, and then doesn’t mark the paper’s online copy — until someone tweets about it.
• Paging Dr. Pangloss. Researchers shocked to discover that their adaptive storytelling doesn’t explain women’s taste in male body hair.
• It just means you’re a lousy singer. If you can’t sing, it may not be because you’re tone deaf.
• Well, a model Iguanodon. The time Victorian scientists celebrated New Year’s Eve inside an Iguanodon.
• Most specific sample ever? Gay men found to be happier than their straight twin brothers.
• Misremember me, maybe? Carly Rae Jepsen is on to something besides a catchy tune.
• Furry murderers. That study about cats’ nocturnal hunting, as an infographic.
• The reports of Solenodon‘s extinction were slightly exaggerated. The venemous, shrew-like mammal has been rediscovered in Cuba.

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Someone just saw his report from “23andMe,” I guess. Photo by CHRISTOPHER MACSURAK.

• At Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! God fails a standard information-theoretic test.
• At the Molecular Ecologist: Reduce sequencing error with a new “duplex tag” method.
• The only thing we have to fear is variation at adrenaline receptor loci. Against fearmongering over personal genomics.
• Encouraging words for job application season. You don’t know how your story ends.
• We’re number one? Study by Dunkin’ Donuts concludes that scientists drink more coffee than members of any other profession.
• So say we all. Space operas, graded by accuracy of physics portrayed.
• Three out of four cases. A large majority of scientific paper retractions are due to fraud.
• Jumping gigawatt! Experiments that are so crazy, they just might work.
• Proposed, then scuttled in Congressional absurdity. A multi-location National Park to commemorate the Manhattan Project.
• Or, you know, human. Ayn Rand’s individualism doesn’t work so well if you’re a hunter-gatherer.
• The early bug gets the bite. The use of insecticide-infused bed nets at night prompts mosquitoes to bite during the morning.
• Historical contingency. What killed the electric car, the first time around.

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Don’t roast all those pumpkin seeds—save some to plant. Photo by satakieli.

• This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The evolutionary origins (or lack thereof) of type II diabetes.
• Caveat: adaptive evolution requires (1) heritable variation and (2) time. Make your home garden more self sustaining, and maybe better adapted to a changing climate by saving seeds.
• In which “functional” means about 80% of what you thought it means. Further complaints about the spinning of ENCODE.
• Wait, what? Yes, colonoscopies can (rarely!) cause patients to explode.
• Yeah, you’re probably going to need to declare that in your conflict-of-interest statement. When your new study linking cancer and GMO corn is also central to your new book and documentary film.
• Size labeling matters. People eat more cookies when they’re labeled “medium”.
• But probably not, you know, a causative one. An association between type II diabetes and gut bacterial profile.
• Paging Dr. Jones … Paging Dr. Indiana Jones. A Tibetan statue brought to Germany by the Nazis was made from a meteorite.
• Wallace’s online. A new online archive of the work of Alfred Russell Wallace.

Video for the week: “Plants are cool, too!” is a botannical YouTube series. And yes, it’s cool. Here’s an episode featuring University of Idaho (go Vandals!) biologist Dave Tank, who acts as a tour guide through a famous fossil site not far from the UI campus.

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You’re not hydrated—you’ve got two empty halves of coconuts and you’re banging them together. Photo by Minette Layne.

• This week at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! Sarah Hird reports on a workshop, The Ecology and Evolution of Host-Associated Microbiota.
• And at The Molecular Ecologist: Making maps with R.
• Applying sports psychology to an academic career, part I and part II—and further thoughts on that theme.
• Prepare for a whole week of Friday Weird Science. Scicurious gets ready to blog the Ig-Nobels.
• Endangered species, catfish, and—gasp—American ginseng. What a DNA barcoding study found in dietary supplements.
• Bird brains. The only thing that drives Creationists crazier than fossils is fossils of feathered dinosaurs.
• The stuff from the tap still wins. Running the nutritional—and hydrational—numbers on coconut water.
• Maybe if they drink enough coconut water? Could humans become photosynthetic?
• Splitters v lumpers, round eight thousand. The arguments, pro and con, on whether to split genus Anolis.
• Convenient. Turns out that many of the most-sustainable and least-mercury-laden fish species are also better for you.

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These two mammalian species evolved bigger brains via changes in the same gene. Photo by Sagolla.

• You say “tomato,” I say “pomato.” Yes, you can make a plant that grows a whole fruit salad.
• Time dilation is just the start. Your new guide to the weirdness of special relativity.
• Objections biological, and non-. Evolutionary psychology takes a drubbing in The New Yorker.
• Sure, why the hell not? Shiny! Are these structurally-colored berries “the strongest iridescent [color] in nature?”
• Convergence: the smart thing to do. Selection on the same gene is associated with the evolution of larger brains in both primates and cetaceans.
• Oops? A study of “spin” in popular science coverage traces the hype back to the abstracts of the original journal articles.
• “Blame” is such an unscientific word. The full picture on the connection between a father’s age and his childrens’ risk of autism.
• Peer pressure works. Experimental evidence from the 2010 U.S. election shows that Facebook can prompt people to vote.

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