I haven't contributed a single thing to the platypus genome project, but since my desk sits one floor above where people and robots broke the platypus DNA into chunks, cloned those chunks into bacteria, sequenced the pieces of DNA, and used massive amounts of computing power to assemble the stretches of sequence into a complete genomic whole, I'm going consider myself somewhat of an authority on the subject and tell you what's wrong with other people's ideas about the platypus.

The genome sequence of the platypus was published Thursday in Nature, and from the press headlines, you could be excused for thinking that genomics has in fact confirmed that the platypus is a freak of nature: part bird, part reptile, and part mammal. The animal certainly looks like it - the platypus has the webbed feet and bill of a duck, and venomous spines and rubbery eggs that remind us of reptiles, but it has fur and feeds its young with milk, so it must be a mammal. The confusing press headlines might even lead you to believe that we sequenced the platypus genome just to figure out what this thing is, when the truth is, as we'll see below, that the genome sequence has essentially confirmed what evolutionary biologists have already deduced about the position of the platypus on the tree of life.

Is the platypus part bird, part reptile part mammal, an amalgam of very different groups of animals? Is it a primitive mammal that resembles the early ancestors of all mammals? Can we figure out just what this creature is by gazing at its genome?

There has been considerable interest in the publication of the platypus genome, which is good. Unfortunately, much of the reporting has been distorted, which is bad. However, rather than picking on the press, I want to focus on an example from the scientific literature where a misconception about evolutionary relationships seems to creep in and generate confusion.

As you read In Praise Of Consumerism - It Appeals To The Thoreau In You you may have wondered if I hated poor Henry David Thoreau. Not at all. He inspired me at the young and impressionable age of sixteen and has powered my engines ever since. There's a good chance that he did the same for you. But brace yourself for irony. Thoreau is the perfect example of the positive aspects of consumerism.

What is consumerism? It’s the flaunting of surplus. It’s the conspicuous display of surplus time, of surplus energy, and of surplus luxuries.

And what was Thoreau doing at Walden Pond? He was flaunting a small flood of hidden luxuries. He was flaunting the surplus time that the wealth of his father’s pencil factory had given him. He was flaunting his ability to escape the web of commercial trade and the meshwork of human technologies. He was celebrating his ability to ditch the conventions other rich kids followed - the obligatory trip to Europe and a permanent plunge into the newly-quickening madness of city life.

Would you recognize a legislative push for Creationism if you saw one? After decades of failed legal strategies to overtly ban evolution or make equal time for Creationism in public schools, the latest tack used by the opponents of evolution is to have 'academic freedom' bills that encourage school teachers to include supposed evidence against evolution, or the presentation of 'both sides' of a controversial issue in science class. If you support the integrity of science education, you should oppose bills like this, both because they are redundant when it comes to good science (teachers already can teach both scientific sides of a legitimate scientific debate), and because the Creationist legislators pushing them are up to no good. But are we reaching a point where Creationism is defining itself out of existence? Are they creating a legal loophole too small for their anti-evolutionary propaganda to fit through?

A team of Dutch and German astronomers have discovered part of the missing matter in the Universe using the European X-ray satellite XMM-Newton. They observed a filament of hot gas connecting two clusters of galaxies. This tenuous hot gas could be part of the missing “baryonic” matter.

The existence of this hot gas (with a temperature of 100 000 - 10 000 000 degrees), known as a warm-hot intergalactic medium, was predicted 10 years ago as a possible source for the missing dark matter. Gas at such high temperature and low density is very difficult to detect and many attempts have failed in past years.

The team observed a pair of clusters of galaxies (Abell 222 and Abell 223) using the European X-ray satellite XMM-Newton. Their observations (see Fig. 1) clearly show a bridge connecting both clusters. The gas they observed there is probably the hottest and densest part of the diffuse gas in the cosmic web, which would be part of the missing “baryonic” dark matter.

Like video games? Want to also solve puzzles for science?

A new game, named Foldit, turns protein folding into a competitive sport. Introductory levels teach the rules, which are the same laws of physics by which protein strands curl and twist into three-dimensional shapes – key for biological mysteries ranging from Alzheimer's to vaccines.

After about 20 minutes of training, people feel like they're playing a video game but are actually mouse-clicking in the name of medical science.

Socrates (470-399 BC) may have lived centuries ago but the methods connected with him never go out of date.

Socratic methods(1) have developed independently in various countries. They all describe similar methodological steps - an opening question is answered by all participants and followed by cooperative, critical analysis. Finally, the new ideas are connected to the everyday life experience of the participants.

This formal structure helps participants to try new, bold ideas that they might otherwise not have tested. By cooperating when examining the ideas they also seem to learn a way to address problems on their own without teacher intervention.

A team of scientists has provided, for the first time, a detailed map of how the building blocks of chromosomes, the cellular structures that contain genes, are organized in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The work identifies a critical stop sign for transcription, the first step in gene expression, and has implications for understanding how the AIDS virus regulates its genes.

The scientists found that nucleosomes--chromosomal building blocks made up of proteins around which DNA is coiled--occur at precise locations along genes that are actively undergoing transcription. They also showed that RNA polymerase--the enzyme that reads genes as the first step in making proteins--is stopped at the first nucleosome, where it remains idle until it is directed to continue moving forward.

President Bush has a bill on his desk,

The Antennae Galaxies, located in the constellation of Corvus (the Crow), are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard against which to validate theories about galaxy evolution.

Scientists using Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to observe individual stars spawned by the colossal cosmic collision in the Antennae Galaxies have reached a surprising conclusion - the Antennae are much closer than previously believed, 45 million light-years instead of the previous best estimate of 65 million light-years.

Photosynthesis is of great interest outside biology, specifically in the energy industry. Using photosynthesis, green plants are able to harvest energy from sunlight and convert it to chemical energy at an energy transfer efficiency rate of approximately 97 percent and if scientists can create artificial versions of photosynthesis, the dream of solar power as the ultimate green and renewable source of electrical energy could be realized.

However, a potential pitfall for any sunlight-harvesting system is that if the system becomes overloaded with absorbed solar energy, it most likely will suffer some form of damage. Plants solve this problem on a daily basis with a photo-protective mechanism called energy-quenching. Excess energy, detected by changes in pH levels, is safely dissipated from one molecular system to another, where it can then be routed down relatively harmless chemical reaction pathways.

In a study of the molecular mechanisms by which plants protect themselves from oxidation damage should they absorb too much sunlight during photosynthesis, a team of researchers has discovered a molecular “dimmer switch” that helps control the flow of solar energy moving through the system of light harvesting proteins. This discovery holds important implications for the future design of artificial photosynthesis systems that could provide the world with a sustainable and secure source of energy.

A protein that is indispensable for passing on an accurate copy of the genome from mother to daughter cells can be compared to a cowboy’s lasso, say scientists at the The FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology Foundation (IFOM).

It 'catches' chromosomes and ties them to a transitory structure assembled during cell division. Once they have been neatly tied up, the chromosomes await the end of replication to be equally distributed between the two daughter cells. But if the lasso doesn’t catch them, chromosomes end up being randomly scattered, with potentially disastrous genetic effects: should cells survive this, they receive the wrong genetic inheritance, with dire consequences.

This study opens up new avenues of research to reduce the toxicity of chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer.

Martin Fischer, University of Dundee, Scotland, recently reported results showing that the majority of adults prefer to start counting on their left hand, regardless of whether they are left- or right-handed. In a subsequent odd-even task, the left-starters had more consistent spatial-numerical associations than the right-starters.

Designer labels aren't just cool to pretentious New York women - they're also the dream of nuclear physicists.

Designer isotopes, the relatively new power scientists have to make specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies, will compete with nanotechnology for big breakthroughs, according to Bradley Sherrill, a University Distinguished Professor of physics and associate director for research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University.

Isotopes are the different versions of an element. Their nuclei have different numbers of neutrons, and thus give them different properties. Rare isotopes don’t always exist in nature – they must be coaxed out with high-energy collisions created by special machines, like those in MSU’s Coupled Cyclotron facility. As technology advances, newer equipment is needed.