Alom Shaha at the Guardian thinks that even though there are now more women Ph.D.s than men, women won't go into science unless they see a woman hosting a science show in the UK.

Cook's Source is an old school sort of magazine - in that they think they are doing the online world a favor by copyright infringement.  For the benefit of their readers and advertisers and to the detriment of Monica Gaudio, whose work was stolen by someone at Cook's Source, they lifted her 2005 online article and published it.

Naturally, Gaudio complained.    The response:

an editor fired back that she should feel grateful because they edited it and cleaned it up, and "now it will work well for your portfolio."

On October 26th, the residents of Earth’s northernmost town, Longyearbyen, Norway watched the sun set and the next time they see it will be February. 

Depressing?  Science says Seasonal Affective Disorder exists and so a shortened day much less a non-existent one is bad.   Longyearbyen is located at 78 degrees north latitude in the Arctic circle and experiences 'Polar Night', when it remains dark for four months each winter.    It's not healthy.

As the U.S. Navy bombs Guam with dead, poisoned mice in the latest attempt to eradicate invasive brown tree snakes, it's worth taking a moment to sit back and appreciate -- yes, appreciate -- invasive species.

Now, before the environmentalists among you get upset, I'm not suggesting that species invasions are good things but let's put aside our usual feelings about invasive species, and just talk about some really cool animals.

Researchers Patrick Markey and Charlotte Markey, associate professors in psychology at Villanova University and Rutgers University, respectively, were trying to test the idea that testosterone levels rise after a male has won a fight or challenge, and fall after he has lost. This would make evolutionary sense, because he could be hurt or killed, and therefore not breed if he kept fighting even though outmatched.

Step 1.  Go to Google Maps
Step 2.  Click the 'Get Directions' button
Step 3.   Input Japan as the starting location and China as the destination
Step 4.  Click 'Get Directions'

Go to #43.   Laugh.  Those Google guys think of everything.

So Christine O'Donnell lost her election race in Delaware by a ridiculous landslide margin - anyone worried that she could somehow get elected and institute forced witchcraft zones in schools can rest easy.   No Republican took her seriously, in Delaware or anywhere else - that's why she lost so badly.  Sure, MSNBC played her up but it's what they do.

Likewise, Sam Brownback in Kansas is no friend to biology but the governor's office is a lot safer place for him than a local school board, where he could actually do some damage.

In Colorado, Proposition 62, the so-called personhood amendment, would have defined a ‘person’ as beginning at conception and never had any chance of success.  As predicted, it failed easily.

Tired of hearing the same old arguments and having to try and be interesting in drafting a response?   The Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW is here to help, at least on Twitter.

Every five minutes, it searches twitter for those phrases that correspond to the usual arguments about how global warming isn't happening and then replies to the twitterer with a canned response from a database.

Nigel Leck is the programmer who created it.    Read Chris Mims at Technology Review for the details.  

Asexual reproduction is common among invertebrates but rare in vertebrates, though parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops to maturity, can occur.

Now scientists have discovered a boa constrictor that reproduces by virgin birth - read it at Livescience for the details.