In 2011, a group of scientists “turned mice gay.” The only issue is, of course, they didn’t. Rather, Yi Rao and colleagues at Peking University in Beijing, China, showed that male mice will cheerfully mount both male and female mice, as long as their brains are deficient in one chemical messenger: serotonin. The paper, published in Nature, received plenty of media coverage. Now, two other research groups report seemingly opposite findings: Male mice with no serotonin in their brains still prefer female mice to males. The researchers contend that serotonin is about social communication and impulsive behaviors, not sex. Mounting behavior aside, sexual preference in mice is not about “turning mice gay.” It never has been. Instead, it’s about the role that a single chemical can play in animal behavior. And it’s about what, exactly, those behaviors really mean.....Powassan -- Tick-Borne Terror Virus Or Too Much Media Hype? by Judy Stone at Forbes:
Powassan is a virus, related to West Nile flavivirus, and is transmitted by ticks. While it is rare—diagnosed less than 50 times in the past 10 years—it is scary because it can cause encephalitis, or a brain infection. More often, people who are infected develop no symptoms, but surveys show that about 1-4% of people in endemic areas show antibodies to the virus, indicating past exposure without illness. ....The Hated, Invasive Parasite That’s Actually a Key Part of Its Ecosystem by Brandon Keim at Facts So Romantic:
...........Set aside the sea lamprey’s reputation, at least for a moment. Heed the words of biologist John Waldman’s Running Silver, an account of the extraordinary richness of pre-Industrial coastal river life: “Like so many outcasts,” writes Waldman of the lamprey, “it also profoundly misunderstood.” Consider the possibility that even those creatures we most despise may be wellsprings of life, enriching the world in ways we’ve only started to understand. Or, to put it another way, “Anadromous sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are ecosystem engineers in a spawning tributary.”..........The Call of the Terror Bird by Brian Switek at Laelaps:
When you think of a scary dinosaur, what comes to mind? The agile, sickle-clawed Utahraptor? A towering Tyrannosaurus? Something as alien as the croc-snouted, sail-backed Spinosaurus, perhaps? Books and museum halls are well-stocked with such Mesozoic nightmares, but scary dinosaurs have also stalked the land in the days after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. There’s an entire group of fossil dinosaurs – technically known as phorusrhacids – that are imposing enough that paleontologists often call them by a more evocative name. These were the terror birds.....Rogue Microwave Ovens Are the Culprits Behind Mysterious Radio Signals by Nadia Drake at No Place Like Home:
Let’s be clear about one thing: Reheating coffee in the microwave is always a poor life choice. But it becomes especially unwise if you’re using a microwave oven near a radio telescope and you’re so eager for that icky, burnt and wholly unsatisfying taste that you prematurely pop the coffee out before the oven’s timer goes off.....A dark night is good for your health by Richard Stevens at The Conversation:
Today most people do not get enough sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called insufficient sleep an epidemic. While we are finally paying attention to the importance of sleep, the need for dark is still mostly ignored. That’s right. Dark. Your body needs it too......Barbara Kingsolver, Barack Obama, and the Monarch Butterfly by Nina Martyris at The New Yorker:
Back in February, the Obama Administration committed $3.2 million toward saving the monarch butterfly. Environmental activists, deeply concerned by the monarch’s alarming decline, applauded the move. The bookish among them may have also noticed a literary echo in the encouraging news: the totemic orange-and-black North American butterfly is the cause célèbre of Barbara Kingsolver’s 2012 novel, “Flight Behavior,” which happens to feature a tall, thin, Harvard-educated, African-American scientist named Ovid Byron, who bears a striking resemblance to the President, down to his inverted initials. “I always hope for the best, in the department of life imitating art,” Kingsolver recently explained over e-mail. “And to help things along, I sent a copy of ‘Flight Behavior’ to Michelle Obama.” A farmer-novelist, Kingsolver lives with her family in a forest valley in Meadowview, Virginia, “surrounded by farms and by coal mines,” growing her own food and, like the protagonist of “Flight Behavior,” raising lambs. As for the resemblance between the President and her novel’s scientist hero, Kingsolver says that she had “completely constructed the character of Ovid” before the likeness struck her. “But,” she added, “I decided that would be fortuitous.”.....The Eruption that Created Frankenstein by Donald Prothero at Skeptic - Insight:
The year 1815 was an important one in history. On January 8, the Battle of New Orleans ended the War of 1812—even though it was fought AFTER the treaty ending the war had already been signed in 1814. (Communications across the Atlantic were very slow in those days.) In February, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the isle of Elba, raised another huge French army, took control of France, and ruled for 100 days. Then he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, and ended up in his final place of exile on the remote Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he passed the remainder of his days. Soon the French throne returned to the royal family with the rule of Louis XVIII. Less known at the time was the publication of the first geologic map by the humble canal engineer, William Smith, which has been called “the map that changed the world.”......
The Brontosaurus Would Like to Know: What Is a Species, Really? by Megan Garber at The Atlantic:
In 1989, the U.S. Postal Service released a collection of 25-cent commemorative postage stamps celebrating a series of dinosaurs. The stamps featured the tyrannosaurus, and the stegosaurus, and the pteranodon. They also featured, however, the brontosaurus, or the "thunder lizard"—which had been reclassified under the genus apatosaurus ("deceptive lizard") in 1903. This was an egregious mistake, but an understandable one. The brontosaurus—the gentle giant that ate plants and sneezed on children—has spent the past century-plus as, if not an actual genus, then a cultural one. Tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus, triceratops, ... and brontosaurus. The sauropod was like the fourth Beatle, only more beloved. Sure, the long-necked lizard might not have technically existed; in another sense, though, the brontosaurus was more real in the human imagination than the apatosaurus ever was..........Physician/Writer: Dual and Dueling Responsibilities by Jay Baruch MD at MedPageToday:
When physicians write about patients and clinical encounters, are they bound by the same bedside obligations to respect privacy and confidentiality? Physician and narrative medicine scholar Rita Charon suggests that patients own their stories, and for physicians to write about a patient encounter informed consent must be obtained. The physician/writer Richard Selzer expresses an alternative viewpoint: his life takes place in the "hospital or an operating room or the bedside of a patient and therefore, to ask me not to use the material would in fact [ be] to censor me, to silence me as an artist." Journals have a range of informed consent and permission requirements as a precondition to submission and publication of medical narratives involving potentially identifiable patients. As a writer and a physician, I've struggled with how best to balance my dual and dueling duties to patients, readers, and the creative work.....Scientists Learn A Bird Uses Tools, And Promptly Decide To Screw With It by Esther Inglis-Arkell at io9:
Scientists were thrilled when they learned about the eating habits of the Egyptian vulture. Its favorite food is the egg, which it cracks open using stones. This meant one thing — it was time to mess with the bird's head in the name of science. It's a big deal when an animal knows how to use a tool. The behavior is so uncommon that, for quite some time, researchers believed that only humans had the capacity to use tools. It's possible that they slightly resented being proved wrong by the likes of the Egyptian vulture, which grabs ostrich eggs from the nest and smacks them open with stones. As soon as researchers found out about the tool use, the mind games started......
An optimistic future for sea urchin sperm by Jason G. Goldman at Conservation:
Sea urchins have one job to do: make more sea urchins. They do that by releasing their sperm and eggs into the open ocean. With luck and a bit of hard work, those gametes manage to meet up in the water and set about making new sea urchins. Scientists call this “broadcast spawning,” and it’s the reproductive equivalent of throwing a million darts into the air, blindfolded, and hoping at least a handful of them find a bull’s-eye somewhere. It’s not quite as romantic as the kind of mating we humans do, but it works....The Laws of Physics Do Not Apply to Legolas by Rhett Allain at Wired:
......... I mean, it’s just a movie, right? But my acceptance can only go so far. This next “trick” is just too much for me. Let me describe what Legolas does. Legolas is fighting an orc on the bridge that was once a tower (remember the RC troll). The orc tosses a large rock at Legolas, but he rolls out of the way so that the rock lands on the “bridge”. Oh darn. Now the bridge is falling apart with Legolas on it. Don’t worry, this is Legolas. He won’t die (because he has to appear in the Lord of Rings movies). To save himself, Legolas just runs up the blocks of the bridge as they fall. Simple right? Well, I hardly ever say anything during a movie—but in this case I blurted out “what the what?”...........If you are hungry for more:
Towering 'Terror Bird' Stalked Prey by Listening for Footsteps by Laura Geggel at Live Science
Observertration by Henry Gee at The End Of The Pier Show
Why can’t I cite Mythbusters? by Zen Faulkes at NeuroDojo
The Best Science In Fiction by Chad Orzel at Forbes
Hunters and Birdwatchers More Likely to Conserve by Dana Kobilinsky at The Wildlife Society
How global warming will actually affect your fish and chips by Chris Mooney at The Washington Post
Top Ten Intellectual Epiphanies I Had at ICFA by Cecilia Tan at Cecilia Tan blog
Tracing the origins of modern Internet culture to the BBS world by Joseph Lichterman at Nieman Journalism Lab
How to "improve" university professors and destroy higher education in the process by The Phytophactor at The Phytophactor
Clash of the Titans: The Science behind the Iceberg that sank the Titanic by David Bressan at History of Geology
Science in Wonderland: Educated by fairy tales by Jonathon Keats at New Scientist
Who Are the Real Shills? by Kevin M. Folta at Illumination
On GMOs, Cultural Brokers, and Sticky Narratives by Keith Kloor at Collide-a-Scape
Analysis: is the global banana industry facing a self-made crisis as devastating plant fungus spreads? by Marty McCarthy at ABC Rural
Shill gambit: Are geneticists who work for corporations less ethical than university researchers? by Layla Katiraee at Genetic Literacy Project
Bigfoot paper corrected because it doesn’t exist — the author’s institution, that is by Cat Ferguson at Retraction Watch
Where wildfires and climate scientists meet by Shannon Hall at Scienceline
The Dragons’ Third Stir: the Next Bigge One by Ann Finkbeiner at The Last Word On Nothing
Mistakes happen in science by Brian McGill at Dynamic Ecology
Ten Facebook Pages You Need to Stop Sharing From by Dawn Pedersen at Dawn'sBrain
How Charles Darwin used rest to be more productive — and how you can, too by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post
Moving the Goalposts Part I: "vaxxers" and climate denialism by David Brin at Contrary Brin
Thomas Jefferson's secret reason for sending Lewis and Clark West: to find mastodons by Phil Edwards at Vox
Your Brain Is Primed To Reach False Conclusions by Christie Aschwanden at FiveThirtyEight
Why Is Academic Writing So Academic? by Joshua Rothman at The New Yorker
The Collapse of Food Babe: Or, How Not to Manage a Crisis by Morgan Fisher at LinkedIn
You are when you eat by Haley Bridger at Harvard Gazette
When Open Access is the norm, how do scientists work together online? by Jon Udell at SciComm
How should journalists cover quacks like Dr. Oz or the Food Babe? by Julia Belluz at Vox
Why do we have allergies? by Carl Zimmer at Mosaic
“Yes, but…” Answers to Ten Common Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology by David P. Schmitt at This View of Life
Prof, no one is reading you by Asit K. Biswas and Julian Kirchherr at The Straits Times
Citations are not enough: Academic promotion panels must take into account a scholar’s presence in popular media. by Asit Biswas and Julian Kirchherr at The Impact Blog
'We’re basically skeletons surrounded by fluids surrounded by a membrane of skin' by Joanna Rothkopf at Salon
Above All, Do No Harm (But it Shouldn’t Stop There) by Doctor Ramey at David Ramey, D.V.M.
Why it’s Important to Take Down Charlatans by James Fell at Body for Wife
Eight questions to ask when interpreting academic studies: A primer for media by Justin Feldman and John Wihbey at Journalist's Resource
The Food Babe Way is Not Sustainable by Jenny Dewey Rohrich at Prairie Californian
Here's why scientists are hating on Vani Hari, the 'food babe' by Jennifer Raff at Violent Metaphors
Science Babe Interview by James Fell at AskMen
The Substantial Costs and Minimal Benefits of False Balance by Matt Shipman at Communication Breakdown
The Dolphin Trainer Who Loved Dolphins Too Much by Tim Zimmermann at Longreads Blog
Backyards could be a boon for urban birds by Jason G. Goldman at Conservation
Boy Plants Are From Mars ….. by Mark Lasbury at As Many Exceptions As Rules
Gibbon calls by Janet Kwasniak at Neuro-patch
Subatomic Particles Over Time: Graphics from the Archive, 1952-2015 by Jen Christiansen at SA
Visual
The Virtual Cell Animation Collection by Larry Moran at Sandwalk
No Rest For Your Sleeping Brain by Jon Hamilton at NPR Shots
Deathmatch: Conventional Breeding vs Transgenesis by Layla Katiraee at Biology Fortified
Biology And The Border by Rafe Sagarin at This View of Life
What the Deer Are Telling Us by Christopher Ketcham at Nautilus
Five Safety Lessons Learned from the Sinking of the Titanic by Mandy Savage at EHS Today
Is it really that important to prevent and correct one-off honest errors in scientific papers? by
Jeremy Fox at Dynamic Ecology
Orcas Are Shouting Over Boat Noise – And It Might Be Making Them Hungry by Ashley Ahearn at KUOW News
Image:Centrostephanus rodgersii sea urchins via Flickr/John Turnbull