Traumatic Insemination - How Bugs Get Over It

Traumatic Insemination - How Bugs Get Over It

If bugs have their own Tori Amos, she is likely writing about sexual conflict and how reproduction exists at all given that it can be so costly, especially to females. One aspect of this conflict…
The Tiniest Squid Is Also The Winningest Squid

The Tiniest Squid Is Also The Winningest Squid

I love four things about this story. First: there is an All England squid catching championship. Did you know that? I did not know that. Second: the weather this year was so bad the competitors were…
Hazel Dormice Wonder When To Have Kids Also

Hazel Dormice Wonder When To Have Kids Also

If a species´ reproductive strategy is evolutionarily adapted to the environmental constraints encountered by that species in its natural habitat, such as availability of food resources and…
Desperate Fishwives - Goby Girls Go Gaga

Desperate Fishwives - Goby Girls Go Gaga

Gobies are the little fish you may have seen under the pier or swimming around your feet in salty water if you’ve visited the coasts of Western Europe. These seemingly boring brownish fish live a…
A Zero-Sum Game Of Squid?

A Zero-Sum Game Of Squid?

I may have mentioned before that squid fishermen of the Falkland Islands go after two very different species: Illex argentinus, the shortfin squid, an open-ocean animal that migrates…
Cephalo-fiction!

Cephalo-fiction!

It's called Knowledge and it's a short story by John Frizell in Nature. Did you know that Nature publishes short stories, one at the back of every issue? They do! No human could have grasped the…
The Sweet Smell Of Synthetic Whale Ambergris

The Sweet Smell Of Synthetic Whale Ambergris

In Moby Dick, Melville scoffs that “fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale.” Following the example of the Ancient Egyptians…