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Why did The Atlantic publish this piece trying to link miRNAs and GMOs?
Rice.[Note: Updates on this piece are at the bottom. Writer Ari Levaux explains (1) that he was not responsible for headline or dek, which I'd suspected, and (2) that he's going to rewrite the piece,...
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How your genes can affect your response to religion
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical that carries a signal across nerve junctions. You might know of it because of its links to Parkinson's disease, but it's actually pretty widespread in the...
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A troll raises a semi-valid concern
An anonymous troll posted this comment on a previous post: im curious about how much time the DNA you prepared has spent in solution since you prepped it — supposing there were C-Ar bonds in the DNA at...
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Regenerating Worm Ignores Rules of Biology
Meet Schmidt. Schmidtea mediterranea is a hermaphroditic, googly-eye-spotted flatworm that sometimes chooses to reproduce by breaking in half and regenerating two new bodies, but that's not the most...
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Callocystitids: Ambulacra Advancement and Rhomb Reduction
The Upper Silurian callocystitid Staurocystis quadrifasciata, from Museum Victoria. The Palaeozoic echinoderms included many distinctive groups that have no close relatives among the modern fauna:...
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Sunset
Proffesor Frédéric Pont at the University of Exeter has simulated what sunsets on planets orbiting distant stars would look like.What does the sunset look like on HD 189733 b? Amazingly, we know quite...
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Fungal bio-coating & soft cheeses
Fungi are some pretty amazing organisms. Molds in particular can grow in some fantastically hostile environments for example on the surface of our maple syrup. Generally things like syrups and jellies...
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Two New Triassic Temnospondyl Papers in the Journal Palaeontology
Witzmann, F., Schoch, R. R., Hilger, A., and N. Kardjilov. 2012. Braincase, palatoquadrate and ear region of the plagiosaurid Gerrothorax pulcherrimus from the Middle Triassic of Germany. Palaeontology...
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Two steps forward, one step back (the postdoc's uptake bias paper)
The postdoc's manuscript on uptake bias is inching towards completion. He's added most of the references and updated the figures, and we've only discovered one new analysis that needed to be done....
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Energy-saving lights with biological theme
The library used to have tall, decorative (?) architectural fixtures studded with big, glowing incandescent bulbs that were expensive (and hard) to replace and as incandescent bulbs get phased out,...
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The good, the bad, and the ugly - bad & ugly landscaping
My daily walk through the student ghetto that surrounds our campus provides many examples of landscaping that meets the minimum municiple requirements placed upon the slumlords. One of the requirements...
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Writing the #arseniclife paper
The grad student working on the mass-spectrometry analysis of GFAJ-1 DNA is still making sure his results meet his high standards, but as soon as they are ready he'll send them to me and I'll post them...
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What makes an expert dangerous?
Via WikiMedia CommonsToday, an autism parent tweeted a link to the @thinkingautism twitter account asking, "Do you know who Tetyana Obukhanych is?", and linking to a site called "Natural Immunity." I...
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What determines rates of ecological speciation?
Speciation models are the most beautiful thing in evolutionary biology. This is widely known, and those who disagree are the crazies. Other models have their place, and empirical evidence for...
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Deciphering the Layers of Earth
“This was the man to whom all things were known;this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the...
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Catnip and cats
The effect of catnip on cats is obvious to anyone who's ever dosed their usually docile, lazy pet and watched them turn into a wide-eyed, crazed maniac. So as you would have guessed, cats have a...
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Just in time field work
At about 3 pm yesterday it occurred to the Phactor that should he want a collection of winter condition twigs for a lab exercise, it would be one hell of a lot smarter to collection them while a nice...
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How to Decode a Monkey Face
Look closely: The black-capped squirrel monkey is trying to tell you something. No, staring deep into its eyes won't help. Actually, forget looking closely. Maybe squint. This South American monkey's...
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The Beetle to Beat TB
Over at Infectious Thoughts, Siouxsie Wiles has a video up about her research, which makes a great introduction to a paper that I've wanted to blog about for some time. The goal of this research was...
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Friday Fabulous Flower - Kohleria
Gesneriaceae is best known for African violets, but many other members are showier and even easier to grow, of course, my F1 grows better African violets, so the Phactor is not the best authority on...
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