The Ed's Up #125
XY Bias: How Male Biology Students See Their Female Peers
"Over the last three years, Sarah Eddy and Daniel Grunspan have asked over 1,700 biology undergraduates at the University of Washington to name classmates whom they thought were “strong in their understanding of classroom material.” The results were worrying but predictable. The male students underestimated their female peers, over-nominating other men over better-performing women. Put it this way: To the men in these classes, a woman would need to get an A to get the same prestige as a man getting a B." (Marcelo del Pozo)
Biologists Steal Nanospear Technology From Bacteria
"Billions of years before hominids sharpened sticks into stabbing weapons, bacteria invented spears. Specifically, they invented transforming spears—structures that could almost instantly unfold from flat, coiled ribbons into long, pointed cylinders. They use these weapons to wage war on other microbes. And now, scientists—descendants of those early stick-sharpening hominids—are planning to tweak these bacterial javelins, and deploy them as tools for research, medicine, and more." (Paulo Whitaker) 
How Microbes Make Malnutrition Worse (and How They Can Be Marshaled To Fight It)
"Several years ago, a group of gut microbes went on a 14,000 kilometer-long trip. Having freshly emerged from an infant in southern Malawi, they were scooped up by eager scientists, frozen, stored in cold boxes, exchanged from one courier to another, flown across the Atlantic Ocean, driven to the University of Washington in St. Louis, and finally transplanted into the bodies of germ-free mice that had been raised all their lives in a sterile bubble. Their epic voyage was part of a study by Jeffrey Gordon, showing how the microbes of our gut contribute to the problems of malnutrition—and how they might help to fix them." (Image: Mike Hutchings) 
Does a Brain Parasite Make Chimps Morbidly Attracted to Leopards?
"When a mouse smells the heady aroma of cat urine, it will typically run in the sensible direction: away. But if that mouse is infected with a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (or Toxo for short), it will instead make a fatal beeline towards the source of the smell, and the jaws of the feline that created it. Its suicidal behaviour is Toxo’s doing. But what happens when Toxo gets inside a bigger-brained animal like a chimpanzee? And what happens when that infected chimp smells the scent of abig cat, like a leopard?"
More good reads
- Heard of white noise? There's also pink, blue, grey, and brown noise. By Meghan Neal
- Superb piece about the "nature-faked" relationship between Hadza hunter-gatherers & the honeyguide bird. By Cara Giaimo
- A superb, insightful, compassionate piece on the vaccination debate, by Maggie Koerth-Baker
- Scientists finally detected gravitational waves. Nicola Twilley has a beautiful story about how it happened and what it means. Nadia Drake has a shorter but equally good explainer, and also talks about the rumour-mongering that preceded the announcement. Allan Adams writes about the sound of gravitational waves. And Rachel Feltman has the most delightful story coming out of the discovery: "This is actually the second time she's broken an embargo with a cake."
- Palau’s aggressive response to illegal fishing may help the rest of the world save all of the oceans. By Ian Urbina.
- 100,000 years of everyone ****ing everyone. An explainer about prehistoric interbreeding by Ewen Callaway
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And that's it! Thanks for reading.
-Ed