Mendel's Garden

Welcome to the March edition of the Mendel's Garden Blog carnival. A place where the best of genetics is showcased... I'd now like to dedicate this issue to Jim Belushi, who died in 1982 on this day, and to the victims of the Boston Massacre, which occurred also on this day, in 1770. This has nothing to do with genetics of course, but it is a small piece of trivia for those of you trying to amass small bits of meaningless information for no good reason..

For those of you that are new to The Behavioral Ecology Blog, welcome. Here, I blog about sex, science, the science of sex, our slacker Prez, and other random stuff..

OK, on to the submissions... In random order:

• The Voltage Gate sends us Sex for Valentines, Evolution for Darwin. Among other things, Jeremy reminds us of out true motives that underlie Valentines Day gifts- sex! In addition, there is a nice discussion about the differences between asexuals and sexually reproducing animals in host-parasite interactions- AKA the Red Queen effect.
  

• From Greg @ Evolution... not "just a theory" anymore, is a post entitled "Got Milk (alleles)?" This is an exceptionally nice post reminding us of our strange (and unnatural) infatuation with cow's milk. For Greg's sake, I hope the American Dairy Association is not reading- after all isn't this libel?

• Dr Larry Moran, a Canadian Biochemist reminds us of the Genetics of ABO Blood Types. There, Larry gives a succinct yet adequate intro to how MENDELIAN genetics controls blood types. Larry deserves extra attention as he is the only submitter to actually work Mendel into Mendel's Garden!! A second submission from Larry describes the genetics of eye color.

• Phil B gives us "The future of Evolution", where he proposes that artificial selection might be used to produce super-humans and singing dolphins...

• The conservative Cat sent in The 48-hour key to understanding DNA, which is a nice post about how one actually goes about managing the enormous amount of data generated by DNA sequencing projects.

• From the GrrlScientist we get a post about moths mimiking spiders. There, moths have evolved a striking likeness to a poisonous jumping spider as a way to avoid predation.

• Joanne is writing about a bunch of potential controversies, for example, is AIDS caused by HIV, or by malnutrition.. Well, you all be the judge of that one, but it seems pretty clear to me. Anyhow, her post, A time for change proposes that molecular biologists do something a little more productive aims.

• Mistaken Collection of DNA Jeopardizes Criminal Cases at Genetics and Health gives us a particularly interesting reminder of one of the potential pitfalls of massive DNA databases.

• In a post clearly aimed at poking fun at out religious nut-brained brethren, an anonymous submitter points us toward The God Genome. I'm not convinced on it's relevance and scientific merit, but it was funny..

Now For some UNsolicited inclusion:

• The Soggy Bottom is bashing bar-coding with the best of them- Go Bill!!

• Sequitur has a cool post on the use of the word evolution in the medical literature.

• Plant defenses prompt bacterial countermeasure in the form of ‘island’ DNA excision From a blog entitled "Science"
• Social Darwinism & Why Nice Guys Finish Last
• You and the Fugu, (Part 2 here) from John Hawks

Well that's about all the fun I have time for.. Enjoy. It's never too early to get started on the submissions for the next, which will be hosted at The Daily Transcript by Alex Palazzo.