Re: Haldane vs. Lysenko

In the comments on my epic post about J.B.S. Haldane, somebody else named Jeremy (not me, I swear) links to a fantastic video of Haldane's scientific colleague (and fellow former British Communist) John Maynard Smith, discussing Haldane's opposition to Lysenkoism. Specifically, what Haldane said in private within Communist circles, versus what he didn't say in the broader public.



I think it's quite clear that Haldane should have objected to the politicization of Lysenko's bunk science much earlier and more forcefully than he did. Whether it would've made a difference behind the Iron Curtain is less certain.

Science online, mysterious extra vertebrae edition

Wow. Lots of links this week. I'm using Google Reader again, so evidently getting better at aggregation and/or wasting valuable dissertation-completion time.

Sundews catch insects on their sticky leaves, potentially putting them in competition with web-spinning spiders. Photo by petrichor.

• Shape up, Dad. Female rats are more prone to develop diabetes if their fathers were obese—through an inherited metabolic disorder. (Neurotic Physiology)
• Also useful for studying how lizards rebel against their creators. To study how lizards communicate, build a robotic lizard. No, really. (The Thoughtful Animal)
• Sounds like the basis for a very strange odd-couple sitcom. Can a spider and a plant be competitors? Maybe, if the plant is carnivorous. (It Takes 30)
• A species in the genus Rosa by any other taxonomic identifier ... Rod Page contemplates the importance of taxonomic names to biological research, and how to handle them in modern data structures. (iPhylo)
• Nobody could've predicted. BP's cost-cutting and rapid corporate expansion probably contributed to a corporate culture prone to accidents. (ProPublica)
• One more way in which sloths are weird. Almost all mammals—giraffes included—have seven vertebrae in their necks. But sloths have up to 10. A new developmental study suggests how those extra vertebrae evolved. (NY Times, h/t Mike the Mad Biologist)
• Every little bit helps. A new study suggests that, without modern conservation efforts, the ongoing extinction crisis would be even worse. (Southern Fried Science)
• Um. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Placebos are used all the time in pharmaceutical research, but very few published studies actually report what the placebo was made of. (Helen Jacques)
• The salmon of doubt. The inaugural article in the Journal of Unusual and Serendipitous Results casts doubt on interpretation of functional MRI readings—when its authors find brain activity in a dead fish. (Byte Size Biology)
• But it looks so cool when Don Draper does it. Dave Munger ponders the ultimate effectiveness of smoking bans and warnings. (SEED Magazine)
• "Aspergirls" is one catchy neologism. Steve Silberman continues his exploration of human experience on the Autism spectrum with comedienne Rudy Simone—and opens an ongoing conversation with her at The Well. (NeuroTribes)

More sloth weirdness on video: they can swim! But the water's a dangerous place, as David Attenborough will tell you.

J.B.S. Haldane and the case of the revivified head

Here's a nicely gruesome image for the week of All Hallows' Eve.

"I dreamed I was in a dark room," said Jane, "with queer smells in it and a sort of low humming noise. Then the light came on ... I thought I saw a face floating in front of me. ... What it really was, was a head (the rest of a head) which had had the top part of the skull taken off and then ... as if something inside had boiled over. ... Even in my fright I remember thinking, 'Oh, kill it, kill it. Put it out of its pain.' ... It was green looking and the mouth was wide open and quite dry. ... And soon I saw that it wasn't exactly floating. It was fixed up on some kind of bracket, or shelf, or pedestal—I don't know quite what, and there were things hanging from it. From the neck, I mean. Yes, it had a neck and a sort of collar thing round it, but nothing below the collar; no shoulders or body. Only these hanging things. ... Little rubber tubes and bulbs and little metal things too."
—Jane describes the disembodied Head in That Hideous Strength

Before he started The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis tried his hand at science fiction. Lewis's Space Trilogy—Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength—is like H.G. Wells dunked in (by modern American standards) gentle British Christianity. As in Narnia, Lewis wrote the Space Trilogy with a thesis in mind. The villains of Lewis's imagined universe are materialistic scientists. In the first two books, the protagonist fights the scientists to preserve prelapsarian conditions among the intelligent inhabitants of Mars and Venus, respectively. The third book returns to Earth, where the evil scientists are plotting to take over the planet in the service of a demon-possessed disembodied head kept alive by technology that would've put Frankenstein off his lunch.

J.B.S. Haldane. Photo via limjunying.

Lewis derived the scientists' ideology, and one of the evil scientist characters in particular, from the writings and person of the evolutionary geneticist J.B.S. Haldane—which is not surprising, since Haldane was something of the Richard Dawkins of his day, a visible public advocate for the scientific worldview. What is surprising, though, is that Lewis may have had a perfectly good reason to connect Haldane to an artificially resurrected head: five years before the publication of That Hideous Strength, Haldane had narrated a film depicting just such an experiment.

The film, "Experiments in the Revival of Organisms," depicts a series of blood transfusion procedures developed by a Soviet medical researcher, including the (apparent) revival of a dog's severed head. It's a fascinating cultural artifact in its own right, but it's even more interesting as an element in Haldane's personal history of mixing his scientific work with politics.

Grad student eating in style: Super simple marinara sauce

Edit, 25 October 2010, 0845: Added an omitted word or several in the directions.

One of the ways I've managed to keep my sanity through six years of graduate school is cooking. Working in the kitchen uses some of the same organizational skills as working in the lab, but at the same time it's a nice mental break from thinking about abstract things like ecological opportunity and the grades my mammalogy lab students are likely to receive on their midterm. And I get to eat the results!

Scicurious's ongoing series of cheap and easy recipe posts, Grad Student Eating in Style, is a tribute to the other benefit of cooking in grad school: savings. I known I'm spending less on breakfast since I started baking a batch of her amazing scones (or a loaf of banana bread) every week. When Sci invited contributions for a carnival of student-budget-friendly recipes, I knew I had to contribute. I thought I'd go with a recipe that really is a staple in my diet: a nice, basic, marinara sauce.

I like a little pasta with my sauce. Photo by jby.

Denim and Tweed has been assimilated

Resistance was futile. I've had the "followers" widget from Google/Blogger for quite awhile now, and it's clear it's not seeing a tremendous amount of use. I infer that at least part of this is because it requires readers to use a login that they don't have, or don't use very frequently.

So I'm going to experiment with the current lingua franca of the social internet: Facebook, via Networked blogs, which I've seen used to good effect on several larger, more respectable science blogs I follow. Now, if you read Denim and Tweed, and if you like it, and if you want to like it in some sort of visible manner,* you can just click on the big blue button at the bottom of the new box on the right, as illustrated here.

Seriously, please click. My little thumbnail avatar looks so lonely right now.

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* Feel free to speculate about the probability values in the Drake equation implied by that sentence.

Science online, electrifying history edition

A hagfish. Photo by kinskarije.

• But there's no mention of the mouse who helped him. Dr. Skyskull unwinds the history of Benjamin Franklin's famous kite experiment, drawing on original reports in Proceedings of the Royal Society. (Skulls in the Stars)
• $%@!!?#! Saying an expletive aloud actually helps you tolerate pain. (Neurotic Physiology)
• I'm guessing that animated tattoos will be first. Stretchable sheets of micro-electronic components will have all sorts of science-fictiony medical applications. (All that matters)
• It's an even longer way to amphioxus than we thought. MicroRNA analysis suggests that hagfish, long thought to be the most deeply-diverged relatives of vertebrates, aren't. (Wired Science)
• On the wrong track. Dave Munger suggests that the same cognitive bias revealed by the "trolly car" dilemma may underlie people's willingness to believe pseudoscientific explanations for autism. (SEED Magazine)
• Like calcium carbonate shells, scansion breaks down at low pH. The perils of ocean acidification, explained in (mostly) rhyming couplets. (Deep Sea News)
• The king of the Red Queen is dead. Leigh Van Valen, originator of the Red Queen hypothesis, died last weekend. (dechronization)
• There's so many, we really ought to have some sort of systematic way to classify them. John S. Wilkins tackles species concepts. (Evolving Thoughts)

Video this week is the supplementary information for a recent study of sloth locomotion [$a] (via Wired Science)—the research found that, although they do it upside-down, sloths move a lot like other mammals.

Butterfly, heal thyself! (Or thy kids, anyway.)

Using specific compounds to cure disease seems like a fairly advanced behavior—it's necessary to recognize that you're sick, then know what to take to cure yourself, then go out and find it. You might be surprised to learn, then, that one of the best examples of self-medication behavior in a non-human animal isn't another primate species, or even another vertebrate. It's none other than monarch butterflies. Female monarchs infected with a particular parasite prefer to lay eggs on host plants that help their offspring resist the parasite [PDF].

(I first heard about this discovery at this spring's Evolution meetings, and learned that the article had been published online last week via Bora Zivkovic's link to coverage by Scientific American.)

Some host plants help monarch caterpillars fight off parasites, so infected female monarchs are choosy about where they lay their eggs. Photos by Martin LaBar.

Most natural monarch butterfly populations are infected, at varying rates, with the protozoan parasite Ophryocystis elektroscirrha. Monarch larvae become infected when they eat parasite spores laying on the leaves of their food plants; the parasites reproduce inside the growing larvae form more spores while the larvae undergoes metamorphosis. Infected adults emerge from their chrysalises covered in O. elektroscirrha spores, which they spread to their mates and to their own offspring.

Infection reduces monarchs' lifespans and damages their flight performance [PDF]. This creates a selective tradeoff that prevents the parasites from becoming too damaging—gimpy (or dead) monarchs are less effective at spreading spores [PDF]—but the butterflies are still better off if not infected at all. It's convenient for monarchs, then, that the plants they prefer to eat can also fight Ophryocystis elektroscirrha.

"There was a boy ..."

The theme to "Mad Men" paired with lyrics from Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy." Totally awesome. (Via Paul and Storm.)

Science online, chasing the rainbow edition

Photo by dachalan.

• In case you missed it the first time around. BoingBoing marked National Coming Out Day this Monday with great pieces by Maggie Koerth-Baker and Steve Silberman documenting the experiences of sexual minorities in the sciences. See also the personal story of the gay son of a physics professor who called himself "a proud homophobe", an article in Science Careers, and a forthcoming study of LGBT experiences in engineering [PDF].
• Lucky for them, they never invented jet travel. Sea anemones—whose common ancestor with humans lived about 600 million years ago—possess some of the same physiological features that give us our circadian rythym. (Dave Munger for SEED Magazine)
• Gesundheit! A universal flu vaccine may be possible, in the not-too-distant future. (Virology Blog)
• Congratulations! Ed Yong wins a National Academies Communications Award for Not Exactly Rocket Science.
• Being somewhat wrong is better than knowing nothing at all. Estimates of the rates at which species arise based on phylogenies still work pretty well if there is uncertainty or error in the phylogeny. (dechronization)
• Oy. Nature's science news feature mistakenly refers to platypuses (platypi? platypodes?) as marsupials. (The Tree of Life)
• Fossil forests! In commemoration of Wednesday's National Fossil Day, Anne Jefferson presents a virtual field trip to the John Day Fossil Beds in eastern Oregon. (Highly Allochthonous)
• To be fair, hoverflies are not very bright. Orchids pollinated by aphid-feeding hoverflies smell like aphids. (LabSpaces)

Preach it!

Dan Savage has had it with moderate Christians who complain about his emphasis on the bigotry of the fundamentalists.

I'm sick of tolerant, accepting Christians whispering to me that "we're not all like that." If you want to change the growing perception that "good Christian" means "anti-gay"—a perception that is leading many people to stop identifying themselves as Christian because they don't want to be lumped in with the haters—stop whispering to me and start screaming at them. Until there are moderate and "welcoming" Christian groups that are just as big, well-funded, aggressive, and loud as the conservative Christian organizations, "welcoming" Christians are in no position to complain about the perception that all Christians are anti-gay. Your co-religionists have invested decades and millions of dollars in creating that perception. You let it happen.

Voices of GLBT scientists

For a broader perspective on being gay and being a scientist, check out some great pieces on BoingBoing, posted for National Coming Out Day—Steve Silberman interviews endocrinologist Neena Schwartz about her decision to come out after a career in the closet; then Maggie Koerth-Baker rounds up personal stories from an array of LGBT scientists, including evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma. As Maggie puts it in the introduction to both articles,

Together, we realized that we'd never seen a Coming Out Day feature dedicated to the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered persons in the sciences and engineering. Science journalist powers: Activate! We hope today's two-part celebration will add to the diversity of stories and help science-minded young queer folks everywhere know that it does, indeed, get better—both through the course of history, and the course of an individual's life.

Other queer scientists are invited to contribute stories in the comments of Maggie's piece. (Maggie asked me to help contact people to share their stories, and I put her in touch with Dr. Futuyma; and Steve was kind enough to give me a nod at the end of the cross-post of his interview with Neena Schwartz.)

Photo by bensonkua.

Why I'm out online

Exactly a year ago today, I came out of the online closet. Now it's another National Coming Out Day, and it seems like as good a time as any to think out loud about why I made that decision.

Image borrowed from Wikipedia under fair use rationale.

My reasons aren't going to surprise anyone who has even a passing familiarity with gay rights history:

• Familiarity breeds acceptance. This is mainly a political argument. It's widely accepted (and supported by ongoing public opinion surveying) that people who personally know GLBT folks are overwhelmingly more likely to support treating GLBT people like full citizens. The psychology isn't hard to understand—it's easy to hate the nebulous, faceless, unknown Gays; it's rather harder to hate your son, or your niece, the nice neighbors who let you borrow their lawnmower, or (I hope) the guy who writes that one not-entirely-terrible science blog you check every so often.
• Gotta give'em hope. And an example. This is more personal. I grew up without knowing any out gay people, which was, to put it mildly, not helpful. I was, to paraphrase the Onion headline, The Only Homosexual in the World; I didn't have any of the support, or visible examples, that would've helped me think critically about my sexual orientation or imagine a future in which I was out, and happy about it. (Which I very much am, these days.) By being open about my orientation, maybe I can help someone else figure out his (or hers) in a way I couldn't, and even show that, as confusing and frequently miserable as growing up gay is, it gets better.

And if there's one impression I hope to give a confused, lonely (and presumably nerdy) gay kid reading D&T, it's that it did get better for this formerly confused, lonely (and unquestionably nerdy) gay kid. And a large part of how it got better, for me, has to do with going into science.

Science online, "Look out! Here comes the spider worm," edition

Good news, everyone! We might finally know what's killing honeybees. Photo by Max xx.

• I'll show you my effective population size if you show me yours. Have humans historically been polygamous? Population genetics tells all. (The Primate Diaries in Exile)
• Spider worm, spider worm/Does whatever a spider worm does. Biologists have engineered spider genes involved in silk production into silkworms, which will spin much more silk than spiders do. (Wired Science)
• Unintended consequences, anyone? Eradication of dingoes from parts of southern Australia turns out to have been bad for endangered prey species. (Laelaps; see also my discussion of dingoes and prey diversity)
• It was a fungus. With a virus. In the, um, conservatory. New analysis of proteins collected from bees in dying colonies points to the cause of recent honeybee declines. (NY Times; original article on PLoS ONE)
• There's a horror movie here somewhere. Mosquitoes living in the London Underground may have evolved into a new species. (Thoughtomics)
• Another one for the list. Evolution Since Darwin, a history of 150 years of biology, looks like a good read. (Dechronization)

And this week, from BBC Earth, prairie dog communication. (Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that this week's mammalogy lab covered rodents.)

Carnival of Evolution No. 28

Well, this is embarrassing. The 28th Carnival of Evolution has been online since 1 October, featuring my post on the new theory of eusociality, and I've only just noticed. This edition of CoE has a special feature on Larry Moran's blog Sandwalk, as well as great posts from Eric Michael Johnson, Zen Faulks, and Becky Ward.

Time to start thinking about #scio11 already?

Science Online 2011, the conference for online science communication, now has a website, and NESCent, whose blog writing competition helped me attend Science Online 2010, has announced another round. I'm going to sit on my hands and let someone else have a chance for a change, but I'll bet I can wrangle a grant from U of I's grad student association to get me to North Carolina next January ...

The kids aren't all right: Brood parasite chicks grow up with species identity issues

If you're a bird, brood parasitism seems like a cushy reproductive strategy—lay your eggs in someone else's nest, then sit back and let the inadvertent foster parents raise your kids for you. But what if they don't raise you kids quite right? Could brood parasite chicks raised by parents of another species grow up a bit ... confused? According to a recent study of brood-parasitic ducks, they can indeed [$a].

Redheads (above) sometimes lay eggs in the nests of canvasback ducks (below)—but redhead chicks raised by canvasbacks may not know what species they are. Photos by Nick Chill and meantux.

The new study examines redheads, a species of North American duck which frequently lays its eggs in the nests of other duck species, particularly the canvasback duck, which occupies much of the same range. Redheads are facultative brood parasites—in years when conditions produce lots of resources, female redheads lay eggs in other ducks' nests as a supplement to their own nests; and in poorer years, they may lay only parasitic eggs [PDF]. Canvasback ducks, on the other hand, will lay eggs in the nests of other canvasbacks (which is not uncommon in birds [$a]), but don't parasitize other species.

This sets up a nice behavioral experiment. In birds, species recognition may be due to varying degrees of nature and nurture—a male bird may recognize females of his own species by genetically-transmitted instinct, but he may also have to learn socially important songs or other behaviors from his parents and other adults. You might expect that redhead chicks have evolved to recognize their own species regardless of who raised them, while canvasbacks might be confused if they grow up around another species.

The Molecular Ecologist

The journal Molecular Ecology Resources, a methods-focused offshoot of Molecular Ecology, has just launched an official blog, The Molecular Ecologist. One of the contributors is Dilara Ally, who until quite recently was one of my colleagues at the University of Idaho Department of Biological Sciences. From the first few posts, it looks like TEM will be a good resource for working biologists, who are the target audience.

Science online, return of the blogger edition

Okay, I think I have things back under control. Or as back under control as they ever get. Or back under control enough to manage a link roundup, anyway.

Believe it or not, the first edition of The Origin of Species discussed giraffe tails, not necks. Photo by ucumari.

• This is a pithy lead-in. This is a brief description of the scientific news to which I will link. (This link also names the source)
• Necks for sex? Sounds like a stretch. Did you think biologists know why giraffes have long necks? Think again. (Laelaps)
• GM pesticides: still pesticides. Bt toxin produced as a built-in insecticide by genetically modified plants has been detected in agricultural runoff. (Observations)
• Time to revise the kosher laws? A fish called the European eelpout suckles its young, after a fashion. (BBC)
• Self-fulfilling expectations. When reminded about gender stereotypes, men make riskier financial decisions, and women make safer ones. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
• A convenient genetic bundle of "magic" traits. A single region of inverted DNA is behind substantial adaptive change—and reproductive isolation—between two forms of the wildflower Mimulus guttatus. (The Intersection)
• Berry-Go-Round! The 31st edition of the botany-themed blog carnival is online this week at A Blog Around the Clock.
• Masturbating squirrels. From the journal that brought you fruitbat fellatio. (PLoS ONE)
• If you buy real estate, pick your hemisphere carefully. The first documented planet in the "habitable zone" of another star (just close enough for water to stay liquid) is about three times the mass of Earth, and tidally locked to its sun. (Science 2.0, Discovery News)

And the video for the week: tickling a slow loris. Not sure the critter is laughing, exactly, but it seems to be having fun.