Science News
evolgen | May 14, 2006Bad science reporting is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. LabLit has an article on the death of the science section in the Grauniad.
evolgen | May 10, 2006
Twelve Drosophila species from the picture wing clade are now protected under the Endangered Species Act, according to this LiveScience article. The picture wing flies are endemic to Hawaii and characterized by their colorful wings. They are also larger than most other Drosophilids. D. grimshawi (pictured above) is the lone picture wing fly in the Drosophila genomes project.
evolgen | May 9, 2006The NYTimes has an article on bartenders using some science tricks. I have a new favorite drink:
For the martini, they blend olive juice, vermouth and gin with xanthan gum and calcium chloride and drop it into a sodium alginate and water solution to form stable olive-shaped blobs. It is served as a lone olive in an empty glass; it reverts to a liquid state when popped into the mouth.
evolgen | May 4, 2006Via EurekAlert comes this news release on research into error checking during DNA polymerization. I'm not judging the science; I'm judging the reporting, which includes the following statement:
Everyone knows mutations - genetic mistakes in DNA, the material of heredity - are bad: The more mutations in the cell's DNA, the higher the risk of cancer developing.
In case the syntax in the title is unfamiliar to you, lemme spell it out for you: MUTATIONS ARE NOT NECESSARILY BAD. Sure, genetic mutations are responsible for diseases such as cancers, but they are also the raw material upon with all…
evolgen | May 3, 2006At least I didn't accuse Carl Zimmer of doing this. As Rebecca Skloot points out, we shouldn't blame the science writers for this. It's those damn editors that don't understand science. By the way, I hate the creators of X-Men for damaging the public's understanding of genetic mutations.
evolgen | May 2, 2006I'm trying to emerge from hibernation, and I'll hopefully have some good blogging material up in the next few days. In lieu of my own ideas, I'm going to link to what other people have written. Read them, because I ain't saying much right now. The list can be found below the fold.
Neil Saunders points us to this article from the BBC on a new function for "junk DNA". I hope Neil is right: "one day the term 'junk DNA' will fall into disuse."
John Hawks has a good discussion of a recent paper on inferring population size using mtDNA. Apparently cytoplasmic DNA is under selection, and that…
evolgen | April 18, 2006Read this article. It deals with scientific literacy, politics, and religion in the United States, focusing on stem cells and evolution. Here's a taste:
To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory.
To find out what I think about rephrasing the question and substituting "develop" for "evolve…
evolgen | April 3, 2006It looks like the United States is not the only nation sending molecular markers into orbit. From the New York Times:
The spacecraft is small by world standards -- a microsatellite of a few hundred pounds. Launched in October by the Russians for an oil-rich client, it orbits the earth once every 99 minutes and reportedly has a camera for peering down on large swaths of land.
The punch line comes in the next paragraph: the satellite is owned by Iran. No report as to whether it's a CA or AT repeat.
evolgen | March 30, 2006
The Coalition Against Biopiracy has announced their winners for the 2006 Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy, and they're a hoot. We already knew that Darwin was a pirate, but now we learn that so are Craig Venter and Google. What are their crimes? Venter is accused of being the "Greediest Biopirate", and Google is accused of being the "Biggest Threat to Genetic Privacy". I have some more details on these charges below the fold, in addition to showing why the Coalition Against Biopiracy needs to walk the plank.
Venter is accused of:
"undertaking, with flagrant disregard for national…
evolgen | March 27, 2006My little screed on junk DNA elicited some good feedback, including a comment from Dan Graur. In a somewhat ill-thought out rant, I implied that anyone who uses the term 'junk DNA' should be ostracized from the scientific community (or something along those lines). I restated my opinion in a far more diplomatic manner in the discussion that followed in the comments: junk DNA is an appropriate term for DNA that serves no function (non-transcribed, non-regulatory, and non-structural), but we should refrain from using that term for all non-coding DNA. I elaborate my opinion and reference a…
evolgen | March 23, 2006The term "Junk DNA" is bullshit. There, I said it. The moment I hear someone utter that phrase, I immediately lose respect for him or her. No one whose opinion is worth anything will refer to non-coding DNA as junk. That's why this article bothers me. The title, "Junk DNA may not be so junky after all" has nothing to do with the content of the article. The research being described is not about showing that non-coding DNA has a function. The function has already been determined. The researchers have used zebrafish to identify enhancers for human genes. The subtitle to the article (…
evolgen | March 22, 2006Take a look at the unfortunate name NASA has given to its small satellites used to study the earth's magnetic fields:
evolgen | March 6, 2006I have to say, it's kinda cool to have my opinion acknowledged and used to correct an error. It looks like I pull some weight around here (not as much as some folks, but the 100 or so page views a day mean something).
But I ain't done yet. In honor of my dedication to correcting errors in the popular press, I have added a new category called "Science News" to this blog. In this installment, I will point out another error published by Seed. Not all of my posts will be devoted to copy-editing my bosses, it just so happens that they're now one hit away from a trifecta for the day.
This one…
evolgen | March 6, 2006If anyone thinks I have sold out to the Seed Gods, let this be my exhibit A against such opinions. Seed has published a review of Funk et al's ecological divergence and speciation PNAS paper. The scientific content is not all that bad, but it blows the implications of the study way out of proportion. My thoughts are below the fold.
The Seed article uses to the Funk paper to look at the role natural selection plays in speciation. The focus is put on whether allopatric speciation is a neutral process or if it depends on divergent selection in the two different environments. The article…
evolgen | February 4, 2006It has always bothered me when certain scientific publications get a lot of popular press despite the fact that the results are not that revolutionary. But the general public probably does not care to learn about a discovery in some esoteric discipline, so I understand that bias. What irks me more is the bias in high impact journals to publish sexy publications even if the science is limited. A correspondence to Nature addresses this issue:
"The broad audience of Nature forces its editors to pre-screen papers according to how appealing they will be for its readers, even if appeal and…
evolgen | January 26, 2006To be filed under: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
My name is not Inigo Montoya. You did not kill my father. And I couldn't care less if you died or not. But give me a god damn break here people. If you want to ask a question, then ask the question. There is no reason to not ask the question.
What question am I talking about? As Chris and John have pointed out, the Brits ain't down with evolution. According to the BBC:
"More than half the British population does not accept the theory of evolution, according to a survey.
"Furthermore, more…