{"id":6171,"date":"2012-09-28T11:04:59","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T10:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/?p=6171"},"modified":"2015-05-14T15:01:11","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T14:01:11","slug":"best-of-nature-com-blogs-scilogs-com-and-scitable-22-28-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/2012\/09\/28\/best-of-nature-com-blogs-scilogs-com-and-scitable-22-28-september","title":{"rendered":"Best of nature.com blogs, SciLogs.com and Scitable: 22 \u2013 28 September"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mars rover finds evidence for an ancient streambed<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Eric Hand<\/a>\u00a0reveals in the News Blog,<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0NASA\u2019s Mars rover, Curiosity, has found the first definitive signs that, billions of years ago, water once flowed at the bottom of Gale crater. Fast:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

{credit}NASA\/JPL-CALTECH\/MSSS{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

At press briefing on 27 September, the science team said that a layer of rock, a conglomerate containing large pieces of gravel within a matrix of sandy material, suggests that a fast moving stream once spilled over the Gale crater walls.<\/em><\/p>\n

Project scientist John Grotzinger says the science team reached consensus after inspecting the size and texture of gravel pieces in one layer, named Hottah, that had been tilted up and exposed (pictured). \u00a0\u201cTo us, it looks like someone came along to the surface of Mars with a jackhammer,\u201d he says.<\/em><\/section>\n
<\/section>\n

\u00a0Find out more about this discovery in Eric’s post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>Buddhist \u2018Iron Man\u2019 found by Nazis is from space<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Buddhist statue brought to Germany from Tibet by a Nazi-backed expedition has been confirmed as having an extraterrestrial origin, reports\u00a0Daniel Cressey<\/a>\u00a0in the News Blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Known as the \u2018iron man\u2019, the 24-centimetre-high sculpture may represent the god Vai\u015brava\u1e47a and was likely created from a piece of the\u00a0Chinga meteorite<\/a>\u00a0that was strewn across the border region between Russia and Mongolia between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, according to Elmar Buchner, of the University of Stuttgart in Germany, and his colleagues.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a paper published in\u00a0Metoritics and Planetary Science<\/a>, the team reports their analysis of the iron, nickel, cobalt and trace elements of a sample from the statue, as well as its structure. They found that the geochemistry of the artefact is a match for values known from fragments of the Chinga meteorite. The piece turned into the \u2018iron man\u2019 would be the third largest known from that fall.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More information can be found in the post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Choosy females speed speciation of poison dart frogs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Strawberry dart frog, Dendrobates pumilio, photographed at La Loma Jungle Lodge on Isla Bastimentos, Panama. Image: Cori Richards-Zawacki.<\/p><\/div>\n

SciLogs blogger\u00a0GrrlScientist<\/a>\u00a0explains in her latest post<\/a>\u00a0how female poison dart frogs\u2019 distinct preferences for mates with particular colours may be a first step in the process of speciation:<\/p>\n

This frog species has an amazing variety of vibrant colours, including red, yellow, blue, green, orange and white, along with various combinations and patterns, known as colour morphs. Yet surprisingly, all of these colour morphs comprise the same species: the males all have similar mating calls and lab studies have found minimal genetic divergence in a number of genes that are known to change rapidly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Depending upon where in their range they are seen, these frogs have different colour combinations and patterns that are characteristic for that area. But in a few areas, such as the Panamanian island of Bastimentos, frogs of two colour morphs, red and yellow, live side by side.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laboratory studies indicated that female choice is the driving force that maintains both colours in this population.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Continue to the post <\/a>to learn more about these frogs.<\/p>\n

Sexism in science means men more likely to get hired<\/strong><\/p>\n

Corinne Moss-Racusin<\/a>, a psychology postdoc at Yale University and her colleagues, devised a simple test to work out whether there is any bias against women applying for a job in science:<\/p>\n

The team got 127 university professors working across biology, chemistry and physics, to give feedback on what they believed were the application materials from a real student applying for a job as a laboratory manager.<\/em><\/p>\n

Each professor received exactly the same application materials, except for the name of the applicant. Half of the professors were told they were reviewing an application from somebody called John, whilst the other half were told the applicant\u2019s name was Jennifer. Apart from the name, all the other information was identical.<\/em><\/p>\n

The professors were asked to rate how likely they would be to hire the applicant, as well as how competent they thought the applicant was. They were also asked to suggest a starting salary\u00a0 and say how much mentoring they would offer the applicant in their new role.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the application materials were identical apart from the applicant\u2019s name, the professors \u2013 regardless of whether they were men or women \u2013 were significantly more likely to hire the applicant when they thought he was called John. Although they said they liked the female applicant, the scores suggest she was rated as less competent than the man, even though they had identical skills.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feel free to share your thoughts on this post in\u00a0the\u00a0Nature Jobs\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0blog.<\/p>\n

Migrating Butterflies Are A Sign Of Global Warming<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scitable’s blogger\u00a0Samantha J<\/a>\u00a0reveals that after 18 years of observation and nearly 20,000 surveys, a very interesting\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0was published in\u00a0Nature Climate Change\u00a0<\/em>about the effects global warming has on Massachusetts\u2019s butterflies:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Conducted by amateur scientists of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club, the study supported the hypothesis that global warming is the culprit when it comes to the changes in the \u201cdistribution and abundance<\/a>\u201d of butterfly populations on the Northeast Coast. As the temperature is rising, populations of warm-adapted butterflies are increasing in size and moving farther north, whereas populations of cold-adapted butterflies in Massachusetts are decreasing in size.<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the past 100 years, the temperature of Massachusetts has risen\u00a03.6<\/a>\u00a0degrees Fahrenheit. Although this may not seem like a huge increase, the effects it has on northern butterflies can be deadly. Of the 21 northern butterfly species reported in the study, a whopping 17 were in decline. That is 81 percent! One particular Massachusetts butterfly population of the species\u00a0Speyeria atlantis,\u00a0for example, declined by 90% in just 17 years.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Learn more about this research in\u00a0Samantha J’s post.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

September\u2019s SoNYC: The $1,000 genome is here \u2013 are we ready?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last Thursday evening, we hosted the\u00a0fourteenth installment<\/a>\u00a0of the monthly Science Online NYC (SoNYC)\u00a0discussion series. This month\u2019s event was back at the Rockefeller University and the topic for discussion was the $1,000 genome \u2013 are we ready?\u00a0Panelists included:\u00a0Matthew Herper who covers science and medicine for Forbes,\u00a0Ronald Crystal, the Chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, who has had his genome sequenced and analyzed it himself,\u00a0Virginia Hughes, a freelance author who has written about her experience with the 23andMe genotyping service and\u00a0Manish Ponda, of Rockefeller University, who has experimented with other -omic type analyses.<\/p>\n

To read the online conversation around the event, check out our Storify <\/a>collating all the tweets and pictures.\u00a0We also live-stream each SoNYC event to give as many people as possible the chance to take part in the debate. Check out this month\u2019s\u00a0livestream<\/a>, or take a look at our\u00a0archives where you can view the previous meetings.<\/p>\n

Cheaper Genomes Should Enhance Undergraduate Education<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a related post<\/a>, Scitable’s\u00a0Eric Sawyer<\/a>\u00a0explains how cheaper genomes should enhance undergraduate education:<\/p>\n

It’s not that farfetched. Genome sequencing has already found its way into high school and undergraduate biology curricula. The HHMI-funded\u00a0Phage Hunters<\/a>\u00a0program gives undergraduates and high school students the opportunity to discover new mycobacteriophages-a group of viruses that infect bacteria-in their local soils. Viral genomes are small, and thus cheap to send away to be sequenced. Plus, it’s fun to name the new phages you discover (the tradition is quirkiness, with names like Corndog, Pumpkin, and Banjo), and you can compare your phage’s genome to others in the database.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now imagine being able to sequence the bacteria in the same soil sample. That increases the level of sophistication dramatically, allowing students to understand the microbial ecology of their local soils. If the bacteria were cultured beforehand, it would also allow students to go deeper into studying a newly-sequenced (newly-discovered, even) organism.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

Viktor Po\u00f3r<\/a>‘s latest cartoon<\/a>:\u00a0How seemingly irreconcilable loves are possible<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mars rover finds evidence for an ancient streambed  … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-round-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/ofschemesandmemes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}