Dear all,
Quite a little flurry of links since the last edition, thank you and keep sending them in! One more edition before the Christmas holiday…
Judith
Sent in by PhD student Pete Boyd (thank you Pete) – do bird papers have the best figures?http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/do-bird-papers-have-the-best-figures/
Lyndsey de Valmency thought you might all be interested to read about the state of the UK’s birds (thank you Lyndsey) http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/science/sotukb/
Greg Parke wrote “I was doing my essay for spatial ecology on marine protection areas and came across this little beauty…I’m sure the politicians will never agree on it but nonetheless it’s a bit of good news! The cook islands have proposed to make the world’s largest MPA which will help protect sites of blue whale and endangered birds etc!
http://iucn.org/?11486/IUCN-supports-Cook-Islands-to-create-the-worlds-largest-marine-park” (thank you Greg!).
More from Felix (star staff member sender-in of the week!), a book called “Saving the earth as a career” which has had good reviews http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1405167610/ref=pe_26231_32982501_pe_vfe_dt3
And another one from Pete Boyd (star postgrad sender-in of the week!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-groCeKbE
When Physicists get it wrong!
You may have read a theory proposed in the press about cancer (Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/cancer-evolution-bygone-biological-age, Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9065707/The-final-frontier-in-the-war-on-cancer.html ). The idea is that cancerous cells are cancerous because they use the same genes which allowed multicellularity to evolve http://iopscience.iop.org/1478-3975/8/1/015001/
There are several inaccuracies with this idea, which you can read about herehttp://genotripe.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/cancer-does-not-give-us-view-of-a-bygone-biological-age/ and here http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/20/aaargh-physicists-again/ .
Keep sending me your links!
Posted By : Judith Lock