In the journals
Johnston SE, J Gratten, C Berenos, JG Pilkington, TH Clutton-Brock, JM Pemberton, and J Slate. 2013. Life history trade-offs at a single locus maintain sexually selected genetic variation. Nature doi: 10.1038/nature12489.
We found that an allele conferring larger horns, Ho+, is associated with higher reproductive success, whereas a smaller horn allele, HoP, confers increased survival, resulting in a net effect of overdominance (that is, heterozygote advantage) for fitness at RXFP2.
Almbro M and LW Simmons. 2013. Sexual selection can remove an experimentally induced mutation load. Evolution doi: 10.1111/evo.12238.
Here we induced mutations in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus using ionizing radiation, and tested the efficacy of sexual selection in their removal. … Two generations of sexual selection were sufficient to remove mutations that affected male strength, but not testes mass.
In the news
Rosie Redfield’s continued digging into the fine print of Creative Commons licensing finds that CC-BY is not a blank check.
Memo to grad students and other early-career researchers: it’s not going to get easier.
Here’s a list of more than 60 resources for learning how to do stuff in R—and many of them are free.
The Onion reports that scientists are finally pronouncing the human genome.