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I am the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). My job is to try to motivate you to comment on the papers there. My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com

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Bloggie Stuff

Animal Behavior:

Do sponges have circadian clocks?

Much of the biological research is done in a handful of model organisms. Important studies in organisms that can help us better understand the evolutionary relationships on a large scale tend to be hidden far away from the limelight of...

Friday Weird Sex Blogging - Corkscrewing

You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006):...

Oxytocin and Childbirth. Or not.

When teaching human or animal physiology, it is very easy to come up with examples of ubiqutous negative feedback loops. On the other hand, there are very few physiological processes that can serve as examples of positive feedback. These include...

Hot Peppers - Why Are They Hot?

(First posted on July 21, 2006) Some plants do not want to get eaten. They may grow in places difficult to approach, they may look unappetizing, or they may evolve vile smells. Some have a fuzzy, hairy or sticky surface,...

Circadian Rhythms, or Not, in Arctic Reindeer

A January 20, 2006 post placing a cool physiological/behavioral study into an evolutionary context....

How do bats in a cave know if it is dark outside yet? Guest post by Anne Marie Hodge.

As traveling is not conducive to vigorous blogging (apart from posting travelogue pictures), I have asked a couple of friends to write guest posts here. The first to step up to the plate is Anne Marie who put together her...

Influence of Light Cycle on Dominance Status and Aggression in Crayfish

In this post from April 06, 2006, I present some unpublished data that you may find interesting....

Spiders and Bycicles

Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much...

Why is it called a 'zebra crossing'?

Because that is where zebras cross the road (hat-tip)...

Elephants successfully avoid landmines

Elephants avoiding mines: Eliminated from Angola during more than two decades of civil war, herds of African elephants are crossing heavily mined fields as they recolonize Angola from neighboring Namibia and Botswana. But miraculously, they are avoiding the mines entirely,...

Alan Alda at the N.C. Zoo

He was here last Tuesday for filming of a scientific documentary for PBS: He was doing important work on an upcoming PBS special "The Human Spark", a three-part documentary about what makes us human, due to air next year. Alda,...

Patricia Brennan on bird genitalia

News from SCONC: On Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m., the Zoology Department at NCSU will host a seminar from Patricia Brennan of Yale University entitled "The Biology of Avian Genitalia: Form and Function." Brennan's work on the genital anatomy...

Don't try this at home

See the moment when the lion recognizes the guys who raised him as a cub: Hat-tip: Melissa...

New Journal Club on PLoS ONE - Chimps exchange fruit for sex

A paper published back in September - Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit by Hockings et al. is getting renewed attention these days. Rebecca Walton has compiled links to the recent media and blog coverage of the paper (including those by my...

Animal Cognition

Thanks to John Wilkins, I want to point you to an excellent review on the current state of research (both scientific and philosophical) in Animal Cognition....

Clocks and Migratory Orientation in Monarch Butterflies

I had no time to read this in detail and write a really decent overview here, perhaps I will do it later, but for now, here are the links and key excerpts from a pair of exciting new papers in...

Pilobolus, Antlion and the Vertebrate Eyes

On Pilobolous: When I first wrote my post on Pilobolus (here and here) I really wanted to do something extra, which I could not do at the time. If you scroll down that post, you will see I reprinted the...

Now We Are Six*

Is there any kid who does not love giraffes? They are just so amazing: tall, leggy, fast and graceful, with prehensile tongues and a need to go through complex calistehnics in order to drink. The favourites at zoos, in natural...

Heh! Wait till you see her play bagpipes!

Have you hugged your horse today?

The other day, Kate wrote an interesting post about inter-species relationships, in particular the cases of inter-species adoption and parenting. In her post, she mentioned a paper that immediately drew my attention - Influence of various early human-foal interferences on...

Antelopes Gone Wild!

Kate describes an unusual reproductive system in topi antelopes in which the fertile females are extremely promiscuous (but choosy) and aggressive. Not what you learned in school under the "mate choice" and "male-male competition" topics in your Animal Behavior classes.......

Tinamou's Dilemma: Canines or Talons?

When I first read about a new paper about the behavior and ecology of maned wolves, I immediately thought of the blogger most uniquely qualified to write about it. Anne-Marie's research is on maned wolves and in her latest post...

Don't go near that empty beer bottle if your metabolism is fast!

That is, if you are a shrew and do not want to be just a dead data-point for some ingenious young ecologists....who at least clean up the tricky trash left by drunk drivers....

New on....

...the computers and the Web: If you are not clear about the difference between the Net (aka Internet), the Web (aka World Wide Web) and the Graph (aka Social Graph), then this post is a must read (via Ed). He...

Where does a fruitfly go when it goes out for a walk?

Last week's PLoS ONE paper, Analysis of the Trajectory of Drosophila melanogaster in a Circular Open Field Arena, is the subject of the newest Journal Club. It is an interesting methods paper, showing the way a camera and some math...

Are you a naked mole-rattist?

Do you agree that Naked Mole Rats are beautiful? Does it irk you to no end when you hear someone state that they are ugly? Does it make you mad when the MSM, oblivious, ignorant and insensitive, repeats that standard...

Running, breathing and being a horse

Yesterday, Chris Clarke wrote a post that I read three times so far, then finally submitted it myself for Reed's consideration for the anthology. Most science bloggers are excellent writers, but rare is the gift that Chris displays in many...

Oxytocin and Childbirth. Or not.

When teaching human or animal physiology, it is very easy to come up with examples of ubiqutous negative feedback loops. On the other hand, there are very few physiological processes that can serve as examples of positive feedback. These include...

Cool Animal Meme

This was Anton's idea, at the dinner the other night, but I will get it started here anyway. An interesting animal I had I never owned an unusual species of animal. As a little kid I had small turtle named...

Last paper by Steve Irwin!

Just published about an hour ago (if it was in hardcopy, it would still be hot off the presses). And it is a wonderful paper! Australian crocs can and will travel much longer distances than was previously thought and their...

Rethinking FOXP2

Earlier studies have indicated that a gene called FOXP2, possibly involved in brain development, is extremely conserved in vertebrates, except for two notable mutations in humans. This finding suggested that this gene may in some way be involved in the...

New on....

Too busy with the pseudo-moving right now, so just a quick set of links to other people's good stuff: An amazing, fantastic post on Laelaps about horse evolution (also noted by Larry Moran). While at first glance, this post on...

A kick-ass Conference: Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity

Come see Sapolsky, Deacon, de Waal, Rosenberg, Dennett, Fox Keller and others talk about what it means to be human (or chimp).

Who says herbivores are timid and helpless?

Two recent examples of successful and aggressive defense against carnivores - the first one was everywhere, but I watched it first on Stranger Fruit (African buffaloes chasing away the lions - with a crocodile playing a supporting role) and the...

A birth of a giraffe

At the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (CO), they filmed the birth:...

Alex (1976 - 2007)

It is not unusal to write an obituary when a great scientist passes away. It is much more unusual to do so when a lab animal does so. But when that animal is not just an experimental subject, but also...

The Generation Effect in Drosophila

Bjoern Brembs placed his latest manuscript about the generation effect in fruitflies on Nature Precedings before resubmitting it to PLoS Biology. He is seeking feedback to make the manuscript better. So, if you think you can, go and try to...

The Joys of Blogging Biology

One cool thing about being a blogging biologist is that one can write every day about sex with a straight face and then blame readers for "having a dirty mind". But sex is so interesting - life would cease to...

Evolution of Adoption

If we are not there at the moment of birth, how come we can bond with the baby and be good fathers or good adoptive parents? Kate explains. Obligatory Reading of the Day. Update: Related is this new article by...

"Free Will" on display on SciVee

Do you remember all the buzz about the paper on the not random but not deterministic either behavior in fruitflies? By our blogfriend Bjoern Brembs? Well, you can now watch the behavior of the insect in the movie associated with...

Some birds clean hippos, some birds clean trees

The textbook example of commensalism was always the interaction between trees and the birds who make nests in those trees - it was always assumed that the birds gain from this relationships, while the trees are not in any way...

Who are you to judge what is good parenting?

There is a new study this week about an unusual reproductive strategy in a bird, the Penduline Tit, which, if anthropomorphized, would appear to be an example of some really bad, deceptive parenting. But, Anne-Marie and Kate demonstrate the proper...

Neuroethology in Vancouver

Bjoern Brembs is at the ICN meeting and is blogging about the talks he saw. If I went, I would have probably attended a completely different set of talks, e.g., on birdsong, memory in food-caching birds, aggression in crustaceans, strange...

Influence of Light Cycle on Dominance Status and Aggression in Crayfish

In this post from April 06, 2006, I present some unpublished data that you may find interesting....

A tourist in San Francisco - sea lions

Sea lions are a big draw at Pier 39. I have seen them in zoos many times, but this is the first time I see them in their normal geographical setting, as 'un-natural' it may seem. Unfortunately, only a dozen...

Infrasonic Communication in Elephants - a new study

Russ reports on a new study of elephant communication via vibrations transmitted through the ground. It was documented before that elephants could detect these. It was also documented that they could send out infrasonic rumbles which travel faster and farther...

Biomonitoring?

By The Associated Press HEMLOCK, Mich. -- A woman who hates spiders is crediting them with helping save her from a house fire. Danielle Vigue, 18, says she awoke early Tuesday to find spiders in her room, and started killing...

Phylogeny vs. Aerodynamics in birds

A very interesting new paper was published today in PLoS Biology: Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects by Thomas Alerstam, Mikael Rosen, Johan Backman, Per G. P. Ericson and Olof Hellgren: Analysing the variation in flight speed...

Aphids and Enemies

You really don't want to be an enemy of the aphids - two papers today! The first is quite straightforward: Aphids Make 'Chemical Weapons' To Fight Off Killer Ladybirds: Cabbage aphids have developed an internal chemical defence system which enables...

Horseshoe crabs

Such fascinating creatures! If you have missed it so far, don't miss it now - the two-part series by Mark H on DailyKos: Marine Life Series: Horseshoe Crab Basics Marine Life Series: Horseshoe Crab Anatomy One day when I find...

Altruism in rats

There is a new paper on PLoS-Biology describing a tit-for-tat-like reciprocal behavior in rats: Generalized Reciprocity in Rats: The evolution of cooperation is based on four general mechanisms: mutualism, where an action benefits all partners directly; kin selection, where related...

Doesn't reading about this make you salivate?

Probably not. You are not one of Pavlov's dogs, after all. Or a Pavlov's cat for that matter. Or a Pavlov's sea slug. But, see what's your salivary response to reading a brand new paper on Pavlov's cockroaches and report...

Parenting

There are a lot of people blogging about their kids. But when Kate writes about parenting issues, it is pure science. After attending a meeting on parental behavior, she's been churning out post after post on this fascinating topic: Cheetah...

Invisibility Cloak

When I was a kid I swallowed science-fiction by the crates. And I was too young to be very discerning of quality - I liked everything. Good taste developed later, with age. But even at that tender age, there was...

Amazing Nature Picture of the Day

Tanja was lucky last night. She and her husband were filming bats out in Arizona. At one moment she picked up her cheap camera and aimed it at the sky at just the right moment to catch this picture of...

Flirting under Moonlight on a Hot Summer Night, or, The Secret Night-Life of Fruitflies

Review of some very cool new papers on Drosophila circadian clocks

Yes, dolphins are smart!

Remember last summer when some guy named Paul Manger wrote a paper asserting how dolphins and other Cetaceans are really quite dumb? There was quite an interesting discussion about it on blogs back then, e.g., here, here, here and here....

The Fly Buzz Continues

The Fly Spontaneous Behavior paper is generating quite a lot of buzz. Bjorn has collected some of the best blogospheric responses, including these from Mark Chu-Carroll, Mark Hoofnagle and Kate. He also got Slashdotted - of course, whoever posted that...

And now the scientists will do whatever they damned please (start shouting, most likely)

Google was really no help in finding the exact quote, but everyone in the animal behavior field has heard some version of the Harvard Rule of Animal Behaviour: "You can have the most beautifully designed experiment with the most carefully...

More on duck phalluses and uteri

Of course, I was not the only one commenting on the recent duck phallus paper. You should check out the other blogospheric responses, e.g., by Carl, PZ, RPM, Grrrl, Laelaps, Neil, Belle, Zuzu, Guru and many others. Unfortunately, most people...

Monday Weird Sex Blogging....

...because weird sex does not only happen on Fridays.... Remember this? Many have asked themselves (I did) where does it go, i.e., what kind of female genital tract can accomodate such a large penis. But one person actually did not...

Diurnal Rhythm of Deep-Sea Diving in Whale Sharks

Yup, that was going to be the title of this post. I got the paper and was ready to write the post when I noticed that Peter scooped me and posted about the same paper today (yup, there is just...

Do whales sleep?

It is Marine Megavertebrate Week right now, so why not take a look at one of the most Mega of the Megaverts - the grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus): Do whales sleep? You may have heard that dolphins do - one...

But do they stop to ask for directions?

Sex And Prenatal Hormone Exposure Affect Cognitive Performance: Yerkes researchers are using their findings to better understand sex differences in cognitive performance, which may lead to increased understanding of the difference in neuropsychological disorders men and women experience. In one...

Mind of a Raven

When my 'Scientific American' arrived the other day, I was excited to read the article about ravens by Bernd Heinrich, as I loved his book Mind of a Raven. I was also glad to see that new cool experiments have...

Belgrade Zoo needs to move!

Long time ago, I mentioned here something about the Belgrade Zoo. The power of Google brought a Belgrader, Sonja, to my blog, who alerted me to the dire conditions in which the Zoo is right now and the existence of...

How Elephants Walk on Hot Coals? By Having Hot Feet

Russ noted that someone is using thermography to study thermoregulation in elephants: Wits University has just completed studies on how elephants cope with high African temperatures and how that influences their behaviour. In African savannahs, elephants are exposed to high...

A question regarding dog training

We've had a few dogs over the years and housebreaking them was never a big problem. But now we got my mother-in-law's puppy labradoodle - who is a real sweetheart - for a couple of weeks to see if we...