#biology

A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy

EVERY year around this time, with the college year starting, I give my students The Talk. It isn’t, as you might expect, about sex, but about evolution and religion, and how they get along. More to the point, how they don’t.

EVERY year around this time, with the college year starting, I give my students The Talk. It isn’t, as you might expect, about sex, but about evolution and religion, and how they get along. More to the point, how they don’t.

When he arrived at the warehouse, the first thing he noticed (after “the beautiful, sweet, mellow smell of aging Canadian whiskey,” he says) was the black stuff. It was everywhere—on the walls of buildings, on chain-link fences, on metal street signs, as if a battalion of Dickensian chimney sweeps had careened through town. “In the back of the property, there was an old stainless steel fermenter tank,” Scott says. “It was lying on its side, and it had this fungus growing all over it. Stainless steel!” The whole point of stainless steel is that things don’t grow on it.

“It seems to be one advantage of monogamy: If you have a long-term relationship, that helps you cope with stress. It’s a good thing to do compared to systems where you always have to find a new partner and have no support in such situations,” said Claudia Wascher, an ethologist at Austria’s Konrad Lorenz Research Station.

"Now there is hope that future implants might be powered not by batteries but by the fuels in our bodies that are used for energy. Scientists have shown that fuel cells implanted in rats can successfully generate electricity from sugar in the rodent's bodies. The devices kept going for months at a time."

"This has three odd consequences. The first is that, by the end of sex, the two individuals have become genetically identical. It’s as if you and your mate began coitus as yourselves and finished as identical twins. The second odd consequence is that, partway through its life, a ciliate can radically alter its genetic make-up; genetically speaking, the transformation is so extreme that it’s as if you changed into one of your children. Talk about being reborn."

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

"Kathleen Benison, a geologist at Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, led a team that studied the sediments formed by acidic and very salty lakes in modern day Western Australia, and those deposited around 250 million years ago in North Dakota."

"Researchers discover how wasps' venom makes roaches their slaves."

"Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue."

"Magnetite helps orientation and direction finding in animals. It no doubtingly helps migratory species migrate successfully by allowing them to draw upon the earth's magnetic fields."

"the cautionary tale catalogued in ancient rocks warns us that the environment is certainly not impervious to the actions of those living in it."

"No component of the system is itself stable but the entire production locks together to have stable existence. This is how you can manage to persist even though much of you is being recycled by day if not the hour."

"Life might, in the end, be responsible for the presence of continents on Earth."

"The eyes in humans and their closest relatives in the primate world are geared to detect subtle changes in skin tone caused by blood oxygen levels, according to a new study from Caltech."

"A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday."

"These results provide clear evidence that these chickens possess the memory of the past; they have retained the ability to make teeth, under certain conditions. What I am describing is evolution."

"A few mantis shrimp though, over the years, have shattered the aquariums."

Attack of the Pod Roaches

"Basically what I'm trying to say is HOLY CRAP MONOTREMES ARE WEIRD WHY DO THEY EVEN EXIST."

"Mosquitoes are more attracted to people already infected with malaria. And this appears to be because the malarial parasite orchestrates its own onward transmission from within the human body, a new study suggests."

"It is not important to know how they work or where they come from; rather, it is enough to know they were created by a Designer, and that somehow they fit into some grand scheme."

"Researchers at Harvard University have found evidence that the retina actively seeks novel features in the visual environment, dynamically adjusting its processing in order to seek the unusual while ignoring the commonplace"