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The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
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- May 14, 2013
- 07:44 AM
- 43 views
Cheating Your Way to Extinction
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
For a long time, it has been thought that evolutionary and ecological research were quite separated from each other. After all, evolution takes place on long timescales while ecological events usually happen much faster. At least, that was the common perception. Lately, however, it has become clear that, in some cases, the relevant timescales in […]... Read more »
Sanchez, A., & Gore, J. (2013) Feedback between Population and Evolutionary Dynamics Determines the Fate of Social Microbial Populations. PLOS Biology, 11(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001547
- May 5, 2013
- 05:22 AM
- 77 views
The (Lack of) Changes in Ecological Research
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Ecology is a rapidly changing, dynamic field of research. In recent decades, there’s been a major shift from considering ecosystems as stable and poised to seeing them as systems that are in constant flux. At least, that’s what ecologists want (us) to believe. But how much of this claimed change has been able to seep [...]... Read more »
Carmel, Y., Kent, R., Bar-Massada, A., Blank, L., Liberzon, J., Nezer, O., Sapir, G., & Federman, R. (2013) Trends in Ecological Research during the Last Three Decades – A Systematic Review. PLoS ONE, 8(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059813
- April 27, 2013
- 07:51 AM
- 65 views
A Year of Blogging
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Exactly one year ago, The Beast, the Bard and the Bot were born. Time for some reflection. But first, a bit of numerical material (current at the time of writing). Some Numbers Posts: 96, including this one. Total views: 19672 Max views on single day: 631 Top 5 countries providing visitors: United States (8264) United [...]... Read more »
Fausto, S., Machado, F., Bento, L., Iamarino, A., Nahas, T., & Munger, D. (2012) Research Blogging: Indexing and Registering the Change in Science 2.0. PLoS ONE, 7(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0050109
Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J., & Thelwall, M. (2012) Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information. PLoS ONE, 7(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035869
- April 8, 2013
- 04:08 AM
- 117 views
Publish and Perish: Aspects of Science Fraud
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
If you want to make it in the academic world, you better publish. A lot. Preferably in so-called high-impact journals. Otherwise, no job and no funding (or the other way around). Hence the use of the phrase ‘publish or perish’ to capture the enormous importance of generating sufficient publications in sufficiently respectable journals. And most [...]... Read more »
Fanelli, D. (2009) How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE, 4(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005738
Grieneisen, M., & Zhang, M. (2012) A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature. PLoS ONE, 7(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044118
Primack, R. (2013) Scientific misconduct occurs, but is rare. Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2013.01.005
- March 13, 2013
- 08:46 AM
- 174 views
Predicting Technological Progress: Putting Moore’s Law to the Test
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Being able to predict the pace of technological development could be quite useful for a lot of people. No surprise then, that several models (or ‘laws’) have been posited that aim to describe how technological progress will unfurl (the most famous one probably being Moore’s law, for those interested: original article here). However, these laws [...]... Read more »
Nagy, B., Farmer, J., Bui, Q., & Trancik, J. (2013) Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological Progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052669
- March 6, 2013
- 09:03 AM
- 171 views
Body Size and Life Span, or Big Dogs Die Soon(er)
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
When looking at mammals in general, being big correlates quite well with living long lives (barring disease, being eaten and things of that nature, of course). But, within species, it seems that the bigger individuals live less long than their smaller conspecifics. What could be going on here? And what better species to study this [...]... Read more »
Kraus, C., Pavard, S., & Promislow, D. (2013) The Size–Life Span Trade-Off Decomposed: Why Large Dogs Die Young. The American Naturalist, 181(4). DOI: 10.1086/669665
- February 25, 2013
- 04:08 AM
- 147 views
Studying Human Evolution. In Mice.
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
The evolutionary history of humanity isn’t the easiest tale to tell. As time passed, we, unlike other primates, spread across the globe, colonizing the various lands we explored. All these different habitats were surely characterized by diverging sets of selection pressures. Lo and behold, there arose diversity among human beings. But finding the exact genetic [...]... Read more »
Grossman, S., Andersen, K., Shlyakhter, I., Tabrizi, S., Winnicki, S., Yen, A., Park, D., Griesemer, D., Karlsson, E., Wong, S.... (2013) Identifying Recent Adaptations in Large-Scale Genomic Data. Cell, 152(4), 703-713. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.01.035
Kamberov, Y., Wang, S., Tan, J., Gerbault, P., Wark, A., Tan, L., Yang, Y., Li, S., Tang, K., Chen, H.... (2013) Modeling Recent Human Evolution in Mice by Expression of a Selected EDAR Variant. Cell, 152(4), 691-702. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.01.016
- February 16, 2013
- 08:33 AM
- 238 views
Fighting Disease with Biodiversity
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Biodiversity is, in most cases, good. And, as I’ve written before, biodiversity matters. In general, a healthy dose of biodiversity is something to strive for. It can, as a recent study in Nature shows, even help fighting disease. (Warning: modest bullet point bonanza below.) The researchers performed their investigation on three levels: First, sampling ‘in [...]... Read more »
Johnson PT, Preston DL, Hoverman JT, & Richgels KL. (2013) Biodiversity decreases disease through predictable changes in host community competence. Nature, 494(7436), 230-233. PMID: 23407539
Díaz, S., Fargione, J., Chapin, F., & Tilman, D. (2006) Biodiversity Loss Threatens Human Well-Being. PLoS Biology, 4(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040277
- February 9, 2013
- 08:08 AM
- 226 views
The Subglacial Saga Continues…
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Cold… Darkness… … And life. Sure, microbial life, but life nonetheless. Lake Whillans, part of the Whillans Ice Stream, to be found at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, has been reached and sampled a little less than two weeks ago. Now, researchers of the WISSARD team report the presence of microscopic life in the samples. [...]... Read more »
Priscu, J., Powell, R., & Tulaczyk, S. (2010) Probing Subglacial Environments Under the Whillans Ice Stream. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 91(29), 253-254. DOI: 10.1029/2010EO290002
- February 2, 2013
- 08:27 AM
- 128 views
New Species, Born in Conflict?
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
The ancient and mysterious Greek philosopher Heraclitus once purportedly said that war is the father of all things. Now, a recent article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution presents a new perspective on the phrase. The genome, that collection of genes representing the hereditary information of an organism might seem like quite a peaceful place. [...]... Read more »
Crespi, B., & Nosil, P. (2013) Conflictual speciation: species formation via genomic conflict. Trends in Ecology , 28(1), 48-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2012.08.015
- January 28, 2013
- 07:19 AM
- 141 views
Safe for Consumption: Genetically Engineered Food
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Imagine crops that need less pesticides because they possess an inherent resistance to certain bugs. Imagine crops that can thrive in our changing climate, or produce extra vitamins. Or grow faster. Now stop imagining. Growing knowledge of genetics and development of molecular techniques enables us to produce such crops. In fact, genetically engineered food crops [...]... Read more »
Ricroch, A. (2012) Assessment of GE food safety using ‘-omics’ techniques and long-term animal feeding studies. New Biotechnology. DOI: 10.1016/j.nbt.2012.12.001
- January 18, 2013
- 08:08 AM
- 133 views
‘Social Chromosome’ in Ants
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
A lot of ant species are very social. So social in fact that they’re called ‘eusocial’. But, even though the common conception involves a single queen leading her tightly organized colony, many social systems are possible. Even within a single species. For example, in the red fire ant Solenopsis invicta two different social organizations are [...]... Read more »
Wang, J., Wurm, Y., Nipitwattanaphon, M., Riba-Grognuz, O., Huang, Y., Shoemaker, D., & Keller, L. (2013) A Y-like social chromosome causes alternative colony organization in fire ants. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature11832
- January 12, 2013
- 08:07 AM
- 181 views
Malthus, Darwin, and the (Sustainable?) Future of Humanity
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, a British scholar, published (anonymously at first) An Essay on the Principle of Population. In this highly influential work on population dynamics, he noted that “the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.”. Put simply, a population can’t keep growing, as the resources it needs are [...]... Read more »
Nekola, J., Allen, C., Brown, J., Burger, J., Davidson, A., Fristoe, T., Hamilton, M., Hammond, S., Kodric-Brown, A., Mercado-Silva, N.... (2013) The Malthusian–Darwinian dynamic and the trajectory of civilization. Trends in Ecology . DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2012.12.001
- January 5, 2013
- 08:27 AM
- 169 views
Alzheimer’s Disease in Space
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Space travel. Few things speak more to the imagination than the possibility of leaving our ‘pale blue dot’ and exploring the vast universe in which we’re only a speck of dust. But, making a journey to the stars or planets is not the safest endeavor. There are obvious matters such as accidents, computer failures and [...]... Read more »
Cherry, J., Liu, B., Frost, J., Lemere, C., Williams, J., Olschowka, J., & O’Banion, M. (2012) Galactic Cosmic Radiation Leads to Cognitive Impairment and Increased Aβ Plaque Accumulation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease. PLoS ONE, 7(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053275
- December 29, 2012
- 08:22 AM
- 173 views
Crowdfunding Science
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Scientific research costs money. And in times where the economy isn’t exactly booming, it’s an area where, wrongfully I believe, budget cuts are quite likely to occur. When austerity reigns, governments and funding agencies alike allocate less and less capital to scientific research. Time to consider alternative routes of funding. One of these relies on [...]... Read more »
Wheat, R., Wang, Y., Byrnes, J., & Ranganathan, J. (2012) Raising money for scientific research through crowdfunding. Trends in Ecology . DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2012.11.001
- December 20, 2012
- 06:30 AM
- 218 views
We recycle less than we think
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Most of us are aware of the strain our waste puts on the environment and our health. And what is more, most of us care about it. So, we recycle. But we don’t recycle as much as we think. Studies show that there is almost always a discrepancy between self-reports and observed behaviors of recycling [...]... Read more »
Barker, K., Fong, L., Grossman, S., Quin, C., & Reid, R. (1994) Comparison of Self-Reported Recycling Attitudes and Behaviors with Actual Behavior. Psychological Reports, 75(1), 571-577. DOI: 10.2466/pr0.1994.75.1.571
Chao, Y., & Lam, S. (2009) Measuring Responsible Environmental Behavior: Self-Reported and Other-Reported Measures and Their Differences in Testing a Behavioral Model. Environment and Behavior, 43(1), 53-71. DOI: 10.1177/0013916509350849
Corral-Verdugo, V. (1997) Dual 'Realities' of Conservation Behavior: Self-Reports vs Observations of Re-use and Recycling Behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 17(2), 135-145. DOI: 10.1006/jevp.1997.0048
- December 16, 2012
- 05:57 AM
- 187 views
Premature Babies Poll Results
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Ten days ago, I asked you all a question in a poll and I promised to let you know the results. To recapitulate: Studies had shown that the survival of extremely premature (~22 weeks) babies has increased over the past decade, but also that the risk these babies run to develop severe disabilities hadn’t changed [...]... Read more »
Groenendaal, F., & Uiterwaal, C. (2012) Long term follow-up of extremely preterm neonates. BMJ, 345(3). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e8252
- December 11, 2012
- 07:35 AM
- 174 views
We’re All (Flawed) Mutants
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
There’s no such thing as the human genome. Every person’s genome is unique (even identical twins aren’t really identical genetically). So, it’s no surprise that each of us carries a unique combination of alleles and mutations. And, so new study shows, we all carry a unique set of flaws in our genes. The study took [...]... Read more »
Xue, Y., Chen, Y., Ayub, Q., Huang, N., Ball, E., Mort, M., Phillips, A., Shaw, K., Stenson, P., Cooper, D.... (2012) Deleterious- and Disease-Allele Prevalence in Healthy Individuals: Insights from Current Predictions, Mutation Databases, and Population-Scale Resequencing. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 91(6), 1022-1032. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.10.015
- December 6, 2012
- 07:53 AM
- 228 views
POLL: Very premature babies
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Preterm birth is risky. And, not surprisingly, the earlier a baby is born, the greater the risks. Two new studies (part of EPICure) address the survival and further development of babies born way too soon (after between 22 and 26 weeks of gestation). The studies found that survival has increased, when comparing premature babies born [...]... Read more »
Costeloe, K., Hennessy, E., Haider, S., Stacey, F., Marlow, N., & Draper, E. (2012) Short term outcomes after extreme preterm birth in England: comparison of two birth cohorts in 1995 and 2006 (the EPICure studies). BMJ, 345(3). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e7976
Moore, T., Hennessy, E., Myles, J., Johnson, S., Draper, E., Costeloe, K., & Marlow, N. (2012) Neurological and developmental outcome in extremely preterm children born in England in 1995 and 2006: the EPICure studies. BMJ, 345(3). DOI: 10.1136/bmj.e7961
- November 27, 2012
- 07:39 AM
- 185 views
Life Beneath the Ice
by gunnardw in The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Somewhere on the cold continent of Antarctica, we find Lake Vida, a frozen lake covered with a massive ice sheet at least 21 meters thick. Beneath the ice lies supersalty brine (about seven times as salty as average sea water. And this brine is not only very salty, it’s also quite cold at -13°C. Underneath [...]... Read more »
Murray, A., Kenig, F., Fritsen, C., McKay, C., Cawley, K., Edwards, R., Kuhn, E., McKnight, D., Ostrom, N., Peng, V.... (2012) Microbial life at -13 C in the brine of an ice-sealed Antarctic lake. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1208607109
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