Darwin didn't miss much, I think we all agree, and came up with a lot given the limited science of his day.   One thing he missed, that by this time tomorrow will be the source of outrageous titles from every schlock science publication in existence, was that sexual selection that goes on even after actual sex.

Confusing?  It's not so difficult to understand.   Some female critters are trampy and have sex with more than one guy, for example (what, you think other parts of the animal kingdom don't have Jenna Jameson?)  so there's sperm competition but there are also other factors having to do with the internal workings of the female body (i.e. that magical place), so let's catalog a few of post-copulatory sexual selection's greatest hits:

LONDON and NEW YORK, June 16 /PRNewswire/ --

**38 AUCTIONS COMPLETED TO DATE IN 2009**

During the week of June 8, 2009, Markit and Creditex conducted Credit Event Auctions (CEAs) to facilitate settlement of credit derivative trades referencing five global companies, including General Motors. The auctions have been used to settle transactions in connection with the defaults of 38 companies so far this year in the U.S. and Europe and are an integral part of efforts by International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) to standardize critical elements of the credit default swap (CDS) market through the Big Bang Protocol, which came into force on April 8, 2009.

Now that I am officially a philosopher (i.e., my salary is going to be paid by a philosophy, instead of a biology, department), I can indulge full time in reading philosophy without feeling guilty. I haven’t mastered the skill (of not feeling guilty) yet, but I’m working on it.

This is also why I’m starting an occasional series of blog posts devoted to individual philosophers, picked among those that strike my fancy for one reason or another. Obviously, a blog post is not the appropriate venue for even a superficial look at the entire body of work of a major philosopher, so what I’ll do instead is to briefly comment on a number of major themes relevant to each particular case, and hope to stimulate people to read more about that philosopher.

Below I offer a preview of the slides I will show tomorrow at an invited seminar on the rather technical topic of  "The b-jet energy calibration with Z-->bb decays", which I have come to CERN to give at a meeting of the LHCb collaboration. As I mentioned already in the first part of this two-part article, the topic is rather technical, and I do not expect a large audience -but I will nonetheless make an attempt at explaining the meaning of the slides pasted below. Then, of course, I am available to provide some additional light on any specific issue among those dealt below which you may want to understand more about.

Humans aren't all that close to each other in a modern sense but in one way we may be a little closer than previously realized: the way fish learn could be closer to humans, suggests a new research study.

A common species of fish which is found across Europe called the nine-spined stickleback could be the first animal shown to exhibit an important human 'social learning' strategy.   Sticklebacks can compare the behavior of other sticklebacks with their own experience and make choices that lead to better food supplies, according to the study by St Andrews and Durham universities.

PARIS, June 16 /PRNewswire/ --

PARIS AIR SHOW -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) has completed production and testing of the heatshield for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). The heatshield is half of the large and sophisticated two-part aeroshell that will encapsulate and protect the Curiosity rover during its deep space cruise to Mars, and from the intense heat and friction that will be generated as the system descends through the Martian atmosphere.

MINNEAPOLIS, June 16 /PRNewswire/ --

- Fax-to-email server delivers increased production and quick ROI

Can you fly a house with balloons?  The recent Pixar movie "Up" does, but it's animated.  In the "Up" production notes, Steve May, the film's supervising technical director, writes

"It was important to the film to have fairly realistic balloon simulations.  The balloons behave in a realistic way, although the notion of being able to fly a hosue with balloons is pretty preposterous.  We're not physicists but one of our technical directors calculated that it would take on the order of 20 to 30 million balloons to actually life Carl's house.  We ended up using [...] 20,622 when it actually lifts off."

LENEXA, Kansas, June 16 /PRNewswire/ --

Today, SpreadsheetGear LLC announced the immediate availability of SpreadsheetGear 2009. With one safe managed assembly, SpreadsheetGear 2009 enables developers to easily add scalable ASP.NET Excel Reporting, dynamic Dashboards from Excel Charts and Ranges, powerful Windows Forms Spreadsheet Controls, comprehensive Excel Compatible Charting, the fastest and most complete Excel Compatible Calculations and much more.

LONDON, June 16 /PRNewswire/ -- The APM Group, which is responsible for the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) Best Practice Qualifications, is celebrating the launch of PRINCE2 2009. To coincide with the launch of the new manual, APMG's accredited training organisations are now ready to deliver courses in the new version of the method. Examinations will be available in seven languages from 6th July 2009.