Male anglerfish are born with an innate desire to not exist. As soon as a male reaches maturity, he acquires an urge to find a female, sink his teeth into her, and grow into her. This evolved because anglerfish live in the dark ocean abyss with few mating opportunities.

By giving up his life to be part of the female, the male can reproduce more often.   It’s not clear he can appreciate all the sex he’s getting, however, because much of his body and brain atrophies and fuses with her body. Nevertheless, that’s where male anglerfish want to be – that’s a full male anglerfish life.

And you thought you had problems. At least you’re not partially absorbed in someone else’s abdomen. Let’s toast our fortune: We are not male anglerfish!

Or are we?

The slide below was shown yesterday at an invited talk that Antonio Masiero gave in the University of Bologna, during an open session of the CMS Physics week (see, I am careful to note I am not breaking any rules by showing material relevant to internal CMS business: the session was open!).

A group of archaeologists and paleobiologists say they have discovered flax fibers in a cave in the Republic of Georgia that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans.

The flax, which would have been collected from the wild and not farmed, could have been used to make linen and thread, they say. The cloth and thread could then have been used to fashion garments for warmth, sew leather pieces, make cloths, or tie together packs that might have aided the mobility of our ancient ancestors from one camp to another.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the discovery of DNA fingerprinting.   So has it done anything important, like given us a real understanding of how men and women communicate?

Well, no, but the University of Leicester Department of Genetics has revealed males and females at least communicate on the fundamental genetic level, an idea which counters scientific theory that the X and Y chromosomes - those that define the sexes - do not communicate at all. 

In research published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Zoë Rosser and colleagues say they have shown that exchange of DNA does occur between the X and Y in the regions previously thought to be completely isolated.

If I could do it all over again, I would forget genomics and specialize in the chemistry of Scotch. You may scoff, dear reader, but there are employment opportunities out there (not to mention alcoholic fringe benefits), such as the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI). Few pleasures (note that it's few, not no pleasures - you know what I mean) are greater than the delicate, intricate taste and aroma of a good single malt Scotch, and the SWRI's mission is to scientifically understand the production and enjoyment of Scotch.


Here is the kind of excitement that you can find in a career in Scotch chemistry:

Once again neuroscientists and physicists have teamed up to take brain imaging to a new level -- Supraresolution imaging.  This has the making of a great SciFi movie -- A team of researchers at Harvard University, led by Dr Bernardo Sabatini, combine laser imaging techniques, two-photon laser scanning microscopy (2PLSM) and continuous wave stimulated emission depletion (STED), to go where no human has gone before, peering deep into living brain slices to see nanoscale features of functioning neurons.

NASA's 19-year-old Hubble Space Telescope still has a few tricks up its sleeve!  New images were released today from Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3.  Installed back in March, WFC3 extends Hubble's capabilities well into the infrared, allowing it to peer through dust and see further back in time.  For a stunning demonstration, click here.

Shown below are the featured new images, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light all with WFC3:
NGC 6302: remnants of a dying star

It's not all balloons and ponies in bee colonies, despite what you may have learned.   Bees are well known for high levels of cooperation but new research in Molecular Ecology says there is a conflict for reproduction between worker bees and Queens, leading some workers to selfishly exploit the colony for their own needs.

The study focused on Melipona scutellaris, a Brazilian species of highly social stingless bees, found throughout the Atlantic rainforest. Colonies contain around 1,500 workers and are headed by one single-mated Queen.

In case you haven't heard, there's a debate about health care reform going on - today we find out that a campaign promise, no fines if you choose not to use government health care, is off the table if you are middle class.   That's only going to aggravate the situation.  What is needed is some clear thinking and some science-based evidence, but you won't find it in Washington.  Heck, you won't even find it in medicine.

Some turns of events in the technology world are truly surprising.

Who knew that a couple of guys starting up Google would hit it as big as they did? Who imagined that Facebook or Twitter would turn into sensations? Who had any inkling about how successful the iPhone would be?

OK, that last one... not so much.

From the day it was announced, the iPhone was a pre-release sensation.