Seriously, Science?

Can weather swing an election?

It’s pretty obvious that weather can affect overall voter turnout; many people just don’t want to go out in the rain, even if it’s to exercise their civic duty. But does weather affect some political parties more than others? Are right-wing voters more likely to skip the polls on a rainy day? Do Democrats forget to vote when the surf’s up? Well, not many people go surfing in the Netherlands, but they do have elections and weather, and this study describes the relationship between the two.

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Gene Expression

Saiga through the bottleneck...and back?

In the 1980s I was fascinated by the pictorially oriented books on the wildlife of the world which dated to the 1960s and 1970s. One of the great conservation success stories of that era were the Saiga antelope of Eurasia. In 1920 there were only 1,000-2,0000 Saia left in the world. By the 1960s their numbers were in the millions. And so it was until the 1980s.

But the combination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which the Saiga was a notable conservation success, and the rise of  …

Collide-a-Scape

Is Portland Anti-Science?

For years, Portland has ranked as one of America’s greenest cities. While its eco-minded culture has been famously lampooned in Portlandia, the city’s environmentally friendly reputation is well earned, as (Seattle-based) Grist notes:
Portland’s public transit system is held up as a model for the country. Per capita carbon emissions are down 26 percent since 1990. Portland consistently tops lists for most bike-friendly city. The city even has an eco-pub.
So how is it possible that the  …

Gene Expression

Dog and man: a 30,000 year friendship

To the left is a figure which illustrates the phylogenetic inferences from a new paper in Nature Communications, The genomics of selection in dogs and the parallel evolution between dogs and humans (see Carl Zimmer’s coverage in The New York Times). Why is this paper important? The first thing that jumped out at me is that because they’re using whole genomes (~10X coverage) of a selection of dogs and wolves the results aren’t as subject to the bias of using “chips” of polymorphisms discovere …

Collide-a-Scape

The Forces that Narrow the Climate Debate

Last week on Twitter I lamented the simplistic public discourse on climate change, how it’s often framed by those who dismiss the legitimate concerns of a warming planet and those who play up those concerns. American Politicians, especially those with leadership positions in the Republican and Democratic parties, could steer the debate into calmer waters if they chose, since what they write and say on controversial issues usually makes news.

You can stop laughing now.

A recent Washingt …

Neuroskeptic

A Machine to Weigh the Soul

Newly discovered papers have shed light on a fascinating episode in the history of neuroscience: Weighing brain activity with the balance

The story of the early Italian neuroscientist Dr Angelo Mosso and his ‘human circulation balance’ is an old one – I remember reading about it as a student, in the introductory bit of a textbook on fMRI – but until now, the exact details were murky.

In the new paper, Italian neuroscientists Sandrone and colleagues report that they’ve unearthed Mosso’s ori …

Water Works

Video: Global Water Changes Help Define the Anthropocene

The Global Water System Project at the University of Bonn, in Germany, just released a video on water in the Anthropocene. If you can get past the melodramatic narration, there is a pretty stellar data visualization, based on a lot of federal agency data, that illustrates how the human footprint has changed the global water cycle.

Some of the ways civilization has made its mark on the hydrosphere:

Rainfall patterns are changing
Wet areas are becoming wetter
Dry areas are becoming  …

Gene Expression

Human mutation unveiled

What a great age we live in. Until recently critical parameters in population genetics such as mutation rates had to be inferred and assumed, even though they served as bases for much more complex inferences. Now with humans (and humans are only the beginning!) much of what was inferred is being assessed in a more direct fashion. Caterina Campbell and Even Eichler have a review in Trends in Genetics which surveys the field as it stands now, Properties and rates of germline mutations in human …

The Crux

Citizen Science Ventures Into Space

by Kiki Sanford

Inside a nondescript office building in Mountain View, California, a gathering took place recently that might have been a glimpse into the future.

At first, the people, like the building, didn’t offer many hints of what that future might look like. They came from all walks of life: young, old, students, businesspeople, men and women.

Then they started talking.

Rockets, microgravity, space planes, moon bases, gas stations in orbit – if you didn’t know better …

Seriously, Science?

Just like babies, mouse pups calm down when carried around.

It’s probably a good thing that babies scream, or else they might never get fed. But carrying a screaming, kicking infant can make it difficult to outrun the lion that’s chasing you. So, it makes sense that animal babies have evolved to calm down when being carried. But just because it makes sense, doesn’t make it true! How does one test this? Well, if human babies have evolved to be calm when carried, you would expect other mammals’ babies would also calm down when carried. These scientists …