The Ed's Up #74

Why Do Luna Moths Have Such Absurdly Long Tails?

"Eyespots are visual defences, and bats—the main nemeses of moths—are not visual hunters. They find their prey with sonar—they make high-pitched squeaks and visualise the world using the rebounding echoes. To divert a bat, you need something that makes distracting echoes. That, according to Barber, is what the luna moth’s tails do. They are “auditory deflectors”. Bat distractors." (Image: Bruce Hallman/USFWS)
 

Fast-Evolving Human DNA Leads to Bigger-Brained Mice

"Some parts of our genome have evolved at particularly high speed, quickly accumulating mutations that distinguish them from their counterparts in chimps. You can find these regions by comparing different mammals and searching for stretches of DNA that are always the same, except in humans. Scientists started identifying these “human-accelerated regions” or HARs about a decade ago. Many turned out to be enhancers--sequences that are not part of genes but that control the activity of genes, telling them when and where to deploy. They’re more like coaches than players." (Image: Silver lab, Duke University)
 

More good reads

• “Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” Oliver Sacks has terminal cancer and is going out in a blaze of poetry and beauty.
• "These discoveries do not sit well in a world in which sex is still defined in binary terms." – Claire Ainsworth with an essential piece on the biology of sex and gender.
• This video on epigenetics, as explained through Beethoven’s 5^th, is a masterpiece of explanatory science communication, from Kerri Smith.
• "The endangered dead": a great feature on the threats facing natural history museums. By Christopher Kemp
• The gorgeous typeface that drove men mad and spurred a 100-year mystery. By Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan
• "Why do you want to talk about this embarrassing corpse?" Tom Bartlett on the brutal response to the Human Brain Project.
• Ebola’s not over yet. Maryn McKenna talked to a front-line worker in Liberia about what stands before the endgame.
• The first person to get a heart transplant received a chimp heart. He died. An incredibly historical story by Lindsey Fitzharris.
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• 500 million years ago, this critter had a really bad day: Ivan Semeniuk on a treasure trove of ancient fossils in Canada.

More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science.

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And that's it! Thanks for reading.

-Ed