Editor’s Selections: From Gender-Bends to Science Training and Back
March 25th, 2010 Editor's Selections 18 Comments
Jarrett Byrnes focuses on posts in ecology, environmental sciences, and evolution. He blogs at I’m a chordata, urochordata!
He’s back from DISCCRS in Arizona, and rarin’ for a double shot of awesome science blogging.
- First up, bilateral gynandromorphy in chickens. AKA, left half is a dude, right-half is a lady. In chickens. (What, you thought I was going to start-back mild?) Grrlscientist provides a detailed explanation of the phenomenon.
- Sticking with our gender-bending theme, this week we’ve been flooded with news that the happy male-pregnancy scenario of seahorses and pipefish might hide some more sinister motives. Three excellent posts cover the story, and provide links to the excellent Nature video on the subject.
- New work gives ants “nose jobs” to examine their skills at olfactory navigation and finds they navigate in stereo. I wonder if they used Doctor 90210?
- How do you examine octopus personalities? Why, by letting them sit around and watch a super-awesome HDTV all day, of course.
- And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, does our current system of producing scientists really use them to their fullest potential? Current behavioral and neurological analyses suggest that the constant stress of publish-or-perish-RIGHT-NOW might be holding back all of science.
