Summer Assignment: 8.3.10

More links than usual this week, each one to a slightly longer article...but they are all about sex!















[Image: mating sand wasps, Alex Wild]


Gonna Have a Fungal Good Time

When Love Shocks

Water Strider Blues

Darwin, Sex and Dada

I don't have much to say about these posts, just pick one or two to read over and let us all know what you found interesting.

Summer Assignment: 8.5

Microbes 'R' Us

Interesting ideas about the role of intestinal flora in human evolution. Why do specific groups have specific bacterial signatures? Do the diets fit the bacteria, or vice versa? Could this play a role in one of the posts from a few weeks ago about humans eventually evolving to be able to handle high-fat diets and not become obese: Since bacteria can evolve so much faster than humans, it is probably much more likely for a fat-metabolizing bacteria to arise than the human genome changing.

How Happy is the Internet?

Very interesting use of the internet in social research; the results from Twitter should be even more enlightening. Some interesting questions raised about popular music too: Is there a relationship between happy lyrics and popularity? As someone who listens to both "sad" (Radiohead, Elbow) and "happy" (Jack Johnson....umm, that's the only happy artist I can think of right now. Maybe I only like sad music...) artists, I think maybe the popularity of the artists may be a reflection of the overall mood of time. Happy mood = happy popular music.

But anyway, how can the internet not be happy when there is stuff like this on there. And this.