Posts

May 16, 2013

8:33 PM | Spring in California: Saturday is Fascination of Plants Day

On Saturday, May 18, the second international "Fascination of Plants Day" will take place. Join in to see for yourself how fascinating plant are

7:04 PM | Ecologists reaching out #reachingoutsci

By Nadine Lymn, ESA director of public affairs Since the earliest days of the Ecological Society of America’s existence (it’s 98 years old) ecologists have sought to share scientific information. In the 1950s, the Society created a public affairs committee and its members actively engaged with federal policy makers on some of the key [...]

4:03 PM | Climate Change is a Challenge for Narwhals

The unicorn of the sea is in trouble. Take a look at the problems narwhals face as climate change grips the Arctic.

2:03 PM | The lethality of loneliness

Emotional isolation is ranked as high a risk factor for mortality as smoking. A partial list of the physical diseases thought to be caused or exacerbated by loneliness would include Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and even cancer—tumors can metastasize faster in lonely people. Loneliness, she said—and this will surprise […]

1:53 PM | Landing an tenure track job in entomology: perfecting the practice of academic kung fu

This is re-posted from the Entomological Society of Canada’s blog, and is written by Chris Buddle (McGill University) and Dezene Huber (University of Northern British Columbia) Last autumn there was quite an interesting discussion on twitter among some entomologists in Canada about the ‘job search’ – more specifically focused on the process of seeking tenure-track […]

1:50 PM | Ending hunger will require increased agricultural investment, urges UK Parliament

In order to end global hunger and malnutrition in this lifetime, the UK government needs to increase investment in agriculture, urges members of the UK parliament in a new report released today. Home Grown Nutrition, produced by the the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture and Food for Development, outlines the key challenges facing food security, and recommendations for overcoming these challenges based on the series of […]

12:09 PM | Deadwood or Driftwood?

I’ve always disliked the phrase “deadwood” when referring to a certain class of senior faculty. It’s disrespectful. The term exists to identify a set of negative characteristics, after all. I used it in an earlier post, addressing how I’ve gotten a bit stale. Nobody seemed bothered by it, at least not that I heard. I’m […]

12:04 PM | Why Do Sequences Think They Are So Special?

We know that the living world depends on sequences of nucleic acids for its existence and ongoing operation. We also know that humans evolved the ability to create, manipulate, and copy acoustic sequences, and later to commit those sequences to the more permanent medium of writing. Finally, we know that our advanced technological civilization is increasingly dependent on storing, moving, and processing bit strings—sequences of zeros and ones. So what is it with sequences? […]

3:44 AM | Dead Logs are a Wasp's Aphrodisiac

I set out on a hike today in search of anything neat I missed during yesterday's hike, which I started too late to take full advantage of the daylight. I made it through the entire trail today, and had quite the detour along the way. I stopped by a dead Sycamore tree to look for beetles, since I found a neat species of Osmoderma beetle in it last year, but no dice this time. I trudged on, arriving at a small area with some fallen trees, and decided to stay a while.I quickly noticed that there […]

May 15, 2013

7:36 PM | Waiting for Obama Administration to deliver on new worker safety regulations, probably shouldn’t hold my breath

Spring 2013 looked like it would be a banner season for progress by the Obama Administration on new worker safety regulations; not so much anymore.

6:30 PM | Genomics of the Ratopolis

Today we have another in our series of guest posts by participants in the upcoming meeting on indoor evolution at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in June. Jason Munshi-South, currently an assistant professor of biology at Baruch College, studies the evolution and ecology of vertebrates in New York City. Every New Yorker has a rat story. Narrative elements of these tales often include municipal garbage cans or deserted subway platforms, and in the worst cases pant legs or toilets. […]

6:29 PM | Peanut Leechy Gallery: Lianas

Lianas are so good for mandalas! And here’s another take:

5:12 PM | You are what you eat – wait, no, you eat what you are. Wait, that’s not it…

The public will never tire of the nature versus nurture debate but here’s a hint: the answer in biology is always both. But if you’ve ever known any twins, you know they can have quite different personalities which, you would think, are attributable to differences in nurture of one sort or another. To understand this better, some scientists […]

Freund, J., Brandmaier, A., Lewejohann, L., Kirste, I., Kritzler, M., Kruger, A., Sachser, N., Lindenberger, U. & Kempermann, G. (2013). Emergence of Individuality in Genetically Identical Mice, Science, 340 (6133) 756-759. DOI: 10.1126/science.1235294

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5:00 PM | Though There is Method, There is Madness In It: How Silos of Methods Impede Cross-Cutting Research

I have three jobs—lecturer, facilitator of academic research, and mother of two nature-engaged kids. My three experiences lead me to think we have a core problem in urban social-ecology: that we let our fealty to discipline-specific methods get in the … Continue reading →

3:31 PM | Hot-spring Snakes

Everyone likes a good soak in a hot spring now and again, but imagine spending your whole life in one! Now imagine being the size of a pencil and unable to regulate your own body temperature, and you're doing a pretty good approximation of a Tibetan Hot-spring Snake (Thermophis). These tiny snakes reach only 2.5 feet in length and are found at fewer than ten sites on the Tibetan plateau in the Himalayan Mountains of south-central China, all above 14,000 feet elevation. For comparison, […]

3:06 PM | Scarlet macaw genome sequenced | @GrrlScientist

The newly-sequenced scarlet macaw genome will provide many important insights into avian and human biology, behaviours and genetics and will contribute to parrot conservation.After many years of research into the behaviours, diseases, genetics and life history of scarlet macaws, a team of scientists have taken their studies to the next level. Christopher Seabury, an Assistant Professor of Genetics at Texas A&M University's college of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Ian Tizard, […]

Seabury C.M., Dowd S.E., Seabury P.M., Raudsepp T., Brightsmith D.J., Liboriussen P., Halley Y., Fisher C.A., Owens E. & Viswanathan G. & (2013). A Multi-Platform Draft de novo Genome Assembly and Comparative Analysis for the Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao), PLoS ONE, 8 (5) e62415. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062415.s019

Oleksyk T.K., Pombert J.F., Siu D., Mazo-Vargas A., Ramos B., Guiblet W., Afanador Y., Ruiz-Rodriguez C.T., Nickerson M.L. & Logue D.M. & (2012). A locally funded Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata) genome sequencing project increases avian data and advances young researcher education, GigaScience, 1 (1) 14. DOI: 10.1186/2047-217X-1-14

Ried T., Schröck E., Ning Y. & Wienberg J. (1998). Chromosome painting: a useful art, Human Molecular Genetics, 7 (10) 1619-1626. DOI: 10.1093/hmg/7.10.1619

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2:00 PM | I am one of the winners of a ScienceSeeker award!

The winners and finalists of the inaugural ScienceSeeker awards were announced yesterday, and I’m honored to announced that two of my posts were selected! I won Best Biology Post for The Narcissism of De-Extinction, which was published on this very blog, and was a finalist for best science-art post for Photos of Starfish Up Close: What [...]

1:00 PM | What is Natural Selection?

Hurray! There is another video in the wonderful collaboration between Stated Clearly and Bird and Moon comics!! Also, amazingly, I seem to have posted the earlier video about Evolution over at Skepchick, but not here! Check it out. It’s even more adorable than the Natural Selection one. Filed under: Science Tagged: education, evolution, natural selection

12:50 PM | A recommended summer read: How People Learn

As a scientist, when I teach I want to know that what I’m doing in class is effective. To know that something is effective, we ideally need data that demonstrate understand how people learn. Then we can then tailor our approaches to fit these data. The problem is that there is a massive literature about […]

9:10 AM | Update: New Pest & Disease Records (15 May 13)

We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include recent multiple introductions of the gall-forming aphid Pemphigus bursarius into Japanese islands, the distribution and characterization of Streptomyces species causing potato common scab in Germany and the first report of Endoclita signifer as […]

May 14, 2013

10:24 PM | In defense of others

Earlier this week, a friend sent me a short email with a newspaper article attached describing a new branch of scientific research that was quite interesting. The article was well written, easily accessible and extremely interesting – a true joy to read. However, there was one large issue - not with the content or photos within the article, but with what my friend wrote in the email.In the text of the email, which had the article attached, was one sentence: “I think this girl is too pretty […]

7:16 PM | Tiny Tourists Invade the Big City

Today we have a guest post from Mary Jane Epps, post-doc and chief beetle wrangler at Your Wild Life. Recently, Mary Jane has begun investigating the associations between beetles and humans, particularly within human dwellings, including the remains of homes in ancient Egypt. Back in March I accompanied our urban ecology team on a trip to New York City to study the effects of Superstorm Sandy on urban arthropods. Admittedly as a natural historian who feels more at home in the hills of […]

6:52 PM | May We All Have The Option of Double Mastectomy

In the future, may we all have the option to get a double mastectomy. Or, rather, its equivalent for whatever cancer each of us are genetically predisposed to.

5:10 PM | Wage theft in South Florida: Nation’s first county with wage theft protections reports on progress and perils

Earlier this month, Florida lawmakers wrapped up their latest legislative session. And nearly 500 miles south of Tallahassee in Miami-Dade County, workers' rights advocates breathed yet another sigh of relief.

1:18 PM | Simply wxrong rather than an easy get

I was just reading the following post on The Panda’s Thumb: Challenge: research in the 1000 most common words. Basically, it is pointing to a list of the 1000 most common words in the English language and challenging you to write a simple statement of your research that is only using words from this list. […]

1:07 PM | Wrong on the Internet: Bogus USA Spider Chart

This poster created by a pest control company claims to show dangerous American spiders. It is full of bad information. Half of the species on this chart don’t even occur in the USA. Please, don’t share it anymore! Please don’t rely on this chart for meaningful information about American spiders. This chart is the result of a […]

12:06 PM | Drifting towards deadwood, or not: learning to use R

I’m not that old, but I already feel myself getting a little stale. How did this happen? Well, I guess it’s because I’m a professor and this is just the default rate of entropy. When I was an undergrad, one of our introductory bio professors was a kindly man who was the archetype of deadwood. […]

7:00 AM | Diverse Introspectives: A Conversation with Peter Kareiva

On May 7th, fellow UW grad student Halley Froelich and I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Peter Kareiva, . . .

6:33 AM | The Lemur Underground: New Evidence for Primate Hibernation

From bears slumbering through the winter in their dens to frogs sinking into muddy tombs of suspended animation, a wide spectrum of animals resort use hibernation to survive until spring. Just a mention of hibernation conjures images of snow-blanketed forests and ice-covered ponds, with animals hiding out from barren, dormant wintry landscapes. A group of small tropical primates is breaking the trend, however—recent research demonstrates that several dwarf lemurs in Madagascar undergo […]

6:07 AM | CSEE Kelowna

For those of you who find yourselves in Kelowna, British Columbia this week, you are hopefully enjoying yourself at the annual Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE) meeting! We’ve had one day of great talks so far, and more … Continue reading →

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