Some Links

First find your tuatara. If you read nothing else from this list, read this one. It gives a really great, simple explanation of how to sequence an organism’s genome, in this case a tuatara lizard.

I think this is a cool post because it not only shows the iterative nature of science in a single moment, but also lays some groundwork for understanding what genome (or even gene) sequencing is. For those who read this blog and don’t know how it’s done, but are interested in gene-related issues (patented DNA/cDNA, genetically modified/engineered organisms), this is some good foundational material, even if it is not directly related to those things.

The other two links go together, and are both about a paper that recently came out about primate infanticide as a driver for monogamy. I haven’t gotten ahold of the paper yet to read it myself, so I can’t comment much on it. My gut says there’s a great deal more to it, between what I’ve read on infanticide in non-primates, the fact that humans (in particular) have hidden and non-induced ovulation, that the community can do a lot to raise a baby (“it takes a village…”), but I’m curious.

If you’re curious too, start over at Science Daily. They give a solid, easy to read run down of the paper. Then head over to Dr. Patrick Clarkin’s blog for another useful, skeptical and quite humorous take on the paper. I don’t know Dr. Clarkin, nor do I recall how I found his blog, but I love it and you guys should read it more often.