Dogs and brains link fest

Here's what I've been reading and tweeting about this week (in between scrambling to get an NSF grant proposal submitted):

• Fascinating post on the genetics and ethics of Shar-Pei wrinkles from Pedigree Dogs Exposed
• Trainers and vets need to collaborate better! I fervently agree. From Jennifer Cattet.
• Companion Animal Psychology on a recent study which suggests that owning a pet might help decrease stress in the parents of autistic children
• Julie Hecht got interviewed about what dog breed is the smartest (I suspect the answer will not surprise you, but it's a good read)
• And I and other researchers got interviewed about why dogs get perhaps a bit too happy when we come home, and what you can do about it
• #fieldworkfail was the awesomest thing to happen on Twitter last week
• People are actually using DNA to find out whose dog pooped there
• The American Animal Hospital Association just published guidelines for veterinarians on behavior management for dogs and cats. A trainer weighs in.
• The brilliant Ed Yong on that most complicated of hormones, oxytocin. Bonus cute baby mouse picture.
• Julie Hecht writes about dogs, cats, owners, and Crazy Green Monsters
• Want highlights of what the veterinary behaviorists talked about at their symposium this summer?
• Companion Animal Psychology on that question that I keep hearing people ask: does early spay/neuter affect an animal's behavior? This study was done in kittens and found no effect. (But as always, remember these studies are hard to interpret due to difficulties in study design.)
• Lovely and informative metaphorical tour of the brain
• Update on the new strain of canine influenza (dog flu) which was first identified in Chicago and has moved to Georgia
• The pet microchip market is expanding, and that might not be a good thing
• Do you know what "shelter medicine" really means? (Lots of people don't.)
• You'd think show dogs would be the perfect weight. You'd be wrong
• Should Vets Give Treats to Pets? (spoiler: absolutely!)

Dogs and brains link fest

I've been doing a lot of writing, actually, but none of it on this blog. Right now I'm working on an NSF grant proposal. This is really exciting for our lab, but it's a lot of writing! I'm also working on a piece for the writing group I was assigned to as part of attending the upcoming ComSciCon-Chicago, a science communication conference, and I just recently submitted another story to a dog-focused magazine (I'll report here when it's published).

As a result, I haven't found the time to write any new blog posts. But there's lots of other stuff for you to read out there, and I report the best of what I find on my Twitter feed. Here are some recent ones:

• What is a “Hard Eye” in a Dog? (And What Should You Do When You See One?) - A blog post from the ever-awesome Dr. Patricia McConnell. Are you following her blog yet?
• You're a What? What's a Pathologist? - Really cool piece from a veterinary pathologist about one of the lesser-known veterinary specialties. (But if you've ever had an animal with cancer, or suspected your animal had cancer, you've probably used their services whether you knew it or not.)
• Uncinate Fasciculus - Lovely writing about brains and fearful dogs from The Chook House, the blog of a veterinarian who sure can write.
• Carl Zimmer’s Brief Guide to Writing Explainers - A post from a peerless science communicator on how to be a good science communicator... Augh, it's hard!
• Cool story on Wolves and Monkeys: Unusual Hunting Buddies at the Extinction Countdown blog
• Beware the pseudo gene genies - Some ruminations on epigenetics and what it means
• Easy DNA Editing Will Remake the World. Buckle Up. - This story is trending at WIRED, and well it should, because it's an engaging description of what this new CRISPR technology we keep hearing about actually is, how it was discovered, and why it is so earth-shatteringly important to the future of our world as we know it.
• Blind, Orphaned Red Fox Kit at Buttonwood Park Zoo - You'd think from the title that this video would be sad. But it's not. It is instead extraordinarily cute.
• Re-Arranging Metaphors for Dogs from Companion Animal Psychology on why the wolf-pack metaphor for our relationships with our dogs really sucks. Hear hear!
• The epiphany of understanding what dogs are saying - A little humor curated for you by Dr. Ilana Reisner.
• What makes siblings from the same family so different? Parents. - While it sucks that all the good behavioral genetics articles (like this one) out there are about humans and not dogs (I mean, dogs are so much more interesting), it turns out it's not too hard to see how to apply this stuff to dogs, too.
• Eight Grey Wolf Pups Pop Out of Their Den - Yeah, I basically just share every baby canid picture on ZooBorns. You're welcome.
• Entrepreneur finds pet microchip problem unsolvable - This story is so sad, but agrees with my experience with microchips from my days working as a shelter medicine intern.

Links post

I haven’t been reading many blogs lately, so these link recommendations are pretty old. Still delicious, though.
 

• Who’s your double merle daddy? (Border Wars): The devil’s bargain of breeding a collie who is guaranteed to produce blue merle colored puppies.
• Shelters: Pit bull drop-offs on rise (Telegram.com): My local newspaper reports that since Worcester, MA passed its anti-pit bull ordinance, pit bull drop-offs at the area shelter have increased.
• It works! How to stop an approaching dog in an emergency (The Other End of the Leash): Patricia McConnell’s excellent advice about what to do when a dog is running at you, and your dog isn’t going to react well. Comes with video, so it is extra yummy.
• Patricia McConnell Seminar: What Science Tells Us About Puppy Development (Reactive Champion): A summary of a Patricia McConnell seminar on, oh wait, you can read the title.
• Breeding Discontent (Paula Kislak, DVM on the HSVMA website): More on the pitfalls of irresponsible dog breeding practices. “All stakeholders [in dogs] ... should forge cooperative alliances and develop robust plans to improve canine health and welfare”

Links post

As usual, may of these are old, because I don’t have time to keep up to date on my blog reading.

• Dog Fear Isn’t Funny or Cute (Champion of my Heart): Nice analysis of dog behavior seen in the recent viral dog video of the “guilty dog.” In short, don’t treat your dog like that.
•  “We don't want a bunch of scientists telling us what to do” (Pedigree Dogs Exposed). Blog post from my new favorite blog about dog breeder resistance to scientist input on breeding strategies for purebred dogs. Dog breeding ethics!
• The Lady and the Trump—without hungry puppies: The science of stray dog sterilization (Cynthia Mills on the Scientific American guest blog)
• Yes! We have no bananas (Border Wars): Inbreeding in dogs and bananas 
• Web breaks echo-chambers, or, ‘Echo-chamber’ is just a derogatory term for ‘community’ – my remarks at #AAASmtg (Blog Around the Clock)
• Bristol University vet students use new “cow machine” (BBC News): Two words: RECTAL SIMULATOR. Seriously, though, this would have been really useful when I was learning to rectal a cow. I love learning tools like this; they let you get the hang of a procedure without causing discomfort to an animal.

Links post

• Science Online 2011 is this weekend and I really wish I could be there. Luckily I can attend virtually.
• A post from this blog will be included in the 2010 Open Laboratory!

Links post

• Scared or feral: How do you know? (Pet Connection)
• Repost: The ethics of snail eradication (Adventures in Ethics and Science): “Plenty of people are happy just to get the food without knowing the details of its provenance. I’d rather shoulder the responsibility of doing my own dirty work here. The karmic costs of my food are not hidden out back in the fields behind the farm stand.”
• Canine Cogniton and Pointing Gestures – An Update (The Other End of the Leash)
• Vaccination, Confirmation Bias, and Knowing Your Audience (The Thoughtful Animal): on effective communication of science
• Enrichment in Captive Cephalopods (Cephalove)

Links post

Animals

• Do Dogs Inherently Understand Pointing Gestures? (The Other End of the Leash): Patricia McConnell weighs in on the ongoing research and debate about the canine ability to follow human pointing gestures, and whether it is genetically mediated/innate.
• Chicken Slaughtering: a day at a mobile poultry processing unit
• Domesticating the Fennec: Dog Domestication 2.0? (Retrieverman)
• Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs (Observations of a Nerd)
  
  

Meta

• “The current phenomenon of ‘bloggers’ should be of serious concern to scientists” (Terra Sigilata)
• Science Cafes: Nice idea for getting people interested in science. How well does it work?
• The Trouble with Scientists (Speakeasy Science): “Ask yourself... whether young scientists are reward[ed] for spending time on public communication?” It would be awfully nice if, instead of being afraid that my school will notice that I am blogging, I could expect my school to reward me for trying to improve my communication skills. Just saying.

Links post

Animals/veterinary

• “Hoarding” and “warehousing” arise from traditional, not no-kill, shelter models (Pet Connection): Nice overview of the ideal version of the No Kill shelter movement. I definitely think this version of No Kill is a good idea. The version described to me in school differs from what Christie describes here. My conclusion is that there are good shelters and bad shelters, and some of each like to call themselves No Kill. The name you use isn’t important; the policies you implement are, and the approach described here is one I support.
• Can veterinarians and pet owners trust compounding pharmacies? (Pet Connection)
• The 24th Grade: How to make a veterinarian (Pet Connection)
• Raw Diets and Assistance Dogs (The Other End of the Leash)
• The Evolvability Of Dogs: A Journey From Mongrels To Poodles (Ursula Goodenough)
• Friday Sprog Blogging: rabbit behavior (Ethics and Science): I am totally enjoying the interactions between a Science Mom and her offspring as she demonstrates a scientific perspective on life using a Socratic approach.
• Med Student Q&A (A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor): In which we learn about “dirty Netters.” That’s nice — vet students have “dirty Millers.” THEY GET REALLY DIRTY.

Meta science blogging

• Should science journalists take sides? (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
• What Variant of Science Communicator are you? (Science and the Media) I think I am “Communicatus Scientificus Var. Obsesionatii.”

Links post

Policy

• Nonprofit helps pet owners cope with emergency vet bills (Seattle Times)
• It’s time to try funding spay/neuter instead of mandating it (Pet Connection)
• The Worcester pit bull ordinance passed. The Worcester Animal Rescue League has links to relevant articles. These links are on their “current news” page, so if you visit the page a while down the road, it may have changed. (I think breed specific legislation is a very bad idea.)
• In the UK: Young children are being taught to interpret dog body language in a bid to cut the number of attacks. (BBC News) Awesome.

Meta science blogging

• Of writers and activists – are science bloggers being ambitious enough? (Not Exactly Rocket Science)
• In which I set up a collaboration between a biologist, a farmer and a chimeric chicken (Not Exactly Rocket Science): This is a lovely story about the power of science bloggers to make connections between people and help advance science.

Miscellaneous

• Life is One Continuous Mistake (The Other End of the Leash): Life philosophy from Patricia McConnell. McConnell is a very well-known behaviorist who recently rehomed one of her dogs (for very good reasons) and has been writing about it.
• Stress Doesn't Cause Ulcers! Or, How To Win a Nobel Prize in One Easy Lesson: Barry Marshall on Being ... Right (The Wrong Stuff): An interview with the guy who drank a bottle of Helicobacter to prove that it causes gastric ulcers (it does). This is one of my favorite stories about a crazy scientist and the power of his convictions.

Links post

Dog stuff

• Mandatory spay/neuter laws: Follow the (lack of) money (Pet Connection): Why mandatory spay/neuter laws for pets are a bad idea, even though spaying and neutering is a good goal to have.
• Canine Dominance: Is the Concept of the Alpha Dog Valid? (Psychology Today) Article by Stanley Coren, PhD. He has written some great books about dog behavior and cognition; look him up if you want more on this.

Local food/food safety stuff

• Faeces and flies “found” at US egg farms tied to illness (BBC News): “Officials say chickens’ contact with animal faeces and wildlife are among the main causes of concern as they investigate the source of the salmonella outbreak.” I really hope this story is not spun into “chickens are healthier in cages where they can't come in contact with wildlife.” Infectious disease is a problem when animals live in too-close quarters. Well-managed farms can balance allowing chickens room to move around with disease management. I assert that I am safer eating eggs from backyard chickens (plenty of room to move around, plenty of grass to clean their feet off on, where one sick hen is not going to make all her neighbors sick, because they are not crammed together), even if those chickens interact with wild birds, than eating eggs from factory farms. I don’t have scientific evidence to support this because the studies have not been done (and are hard to do — there are a host of different factors between those two environments to control for).
• ButcherShop (Sugar Mountain Farm): Creative solutions to the lack of slaughter facilities in the Northeast: “We are building our own USDA/State inspected on-farm slaughterhouse and butcher shop... Since banks have not been lending we are bootstrapping the construction from our own cash and selling CSA Pre-Buys where customers get free processing in exchange for buying early.” Lack of local slaughter facilities for small farms is the major impediment to an increase in the number of farmers producing humanely-raised meat in the Northeast. Read more about shortage of slaughterhouses, particularly in the Northeast.

 
Meta-science stuff

• How to make a difference – Responsible vaccine advocacy (Science-Based Medicine): Nice article about how to approach the problem of spreading your viewpoint, recognizing that repeating facts over and over is probably not very effective.
• Good example of a tag cloud for blogs. This is the interface I really want to see on a larger scale.
• Online science blogregator
• Peer Review and the Internet (Science-Based Medicine): “Imagine an alternate process by which an article is published online, either on an open site or a secure site that only experts have access to. Then dozens or hundreds of experts can comment on the paper, providing feedback directly to the authors in addition to the editors, who can also respond to the commenters. The result would be more of a dynamic conversation than you get with the current review process. But most importantly, in my opinion, is that you would get a broader range of opinions, and a far greater chance to detect error or bias. An editor or editors can oversee the process, and once it has played itself out the final version of the paper can be published to the public, and become part of the official literature.” Sounds great. One question I have: how do you know when “it has played itself out”?
• Asking “Who’s a journalist?” is so 2007 (Global Vue): Proposes a list of questions we should be working on now. (It’s nice when posts don’t just explain why a question is a bad one, but constructively offer alternative questions that we should be asking.)
• Supplementary Information: should I stay or should I go? (Martin Fenner): Nice collection of the blog posts about supplemental information and the implications of the Journal of Neuroscience's recent decision to stop accepting it. Fenner comments “This is a perfect example for why we need better systems to track blog posts relating to an article.“ I concur.
  

Miscellany

• (Proposed) World Veterinary Year 2011!

Links post

• The illustrated guide to a Ph.D. (Matt Might)
• The Zen of Presentations, in at least 34 parts (Neurodojo): Neurodojo has apparently been writing about the zen of presentations for a while. This link is to all of the posts so far.
• Disrupting with data (Book of Trogool): The Journal of Neuroscience has begun refusing to accept “supplemental materials” (the researchers’ raw data). Dorothea Salo reflects on why this is good news for librarians and the future of scientific publications.
• Stop and think before greeting a strange dog (Pet Connection): Video about greeting a strange dog, one of my favorite topics. Flash is broken on my computer right now, so unfortunately I can’t preview this to make sure it's interesting, but I trust Pet Connection.
• Peer review, schmeer review (Lab Spaces)
• Meta-encounters and non-overlapping magisteria (or, why Virginia Heffernan wrote what she wrote about ScienceBlogs) (John Pavlus)
• If it bites, it must be a pit bull, right? (Pet Connection): More on media bias in pit bull reporting, written by a vet.

Links post

• ZooBorns has your canid puppy fix, with baby bush dogs, dingoes, and fennec foxes. The dingoes post has some interesting background on dingoes and explains how they are different from domestic dogs.
• Hands Off My Bone! (The Thoughtful Animal): review of an article about whether dog growls have different meanings to dogs.
• P ≠ NP and the future of peer review (Science in the Open): Science in the Open considers what the reaction of the mathematics community to a recent extremely high-profile paper means for peer review.
• Native American Project HSVMA Stipend (The Vet Gazette): a vet student reports on her experience working on a Native American reservation, providing veterinary services, spay/neuter, and outreach to grade school students.
• Science Bloggers: Diversifying the news (CMBR): review of a journal article about science bloggers versus political bloggers, and how they approach topics differently.

Links post

I’m catching up on science blogs reading after a few days off. I was awfully busy recovering from defending my thesis! I am now almost done with the MS part of my dual-degree program, though there will be some thesis edits to do. Then I settle in for the final two years of the DVM program.

Anyways, links!

• The PepsiGate linkfest (A Blog Around the Clock): so comprehensive, he even linked to me.
• Mesozoic Blogosphere (Chasmosaurus): David Orr considers the usefulness of topic-based networks. The comments suggest aggregators to achieve this goal.
• “Dominance” mythologies, Suzanne Hetts (The Other End of the Leash): More on dominance theory in dog training from Patricia McConnell
• Tick news? It ain’t good, Dr. Flea tells AVMA audience (Pet Connection)
• Environmental enrichment is key to happy, healthy animals (Pet Connection): This seemed like a relevant link after The Thoughtful Animal’s recent post about behavioral differences in pigs in enriched environments.
• On detecting stress endocrines in hamster poop (C6-H12-O6): need I say more?
• Learning to speak dog (Dog Star Daily): the usefulness of understanding canine body language, and some good pointers
• You are what you eat – how your diet defines you in trillions of ways (Not Exactly Rocket Science): Nice post about how populations of gut bacteria are influenced by diet in different life stages and in different cultures. “As we learn more about our bacterial partners, we might eventually find ways of influencing them to improve our health, just as breast milk appears to selectively nourish helpful species.” He suggests inoculating people with appropriate gut bacteria, which makes me a little sad. I’d rather see people change their eating habits. Anyone for some research on the effects of fresh whole foods on populations of gut bacteria?
• Under Pressure: The Search for a Stress Vaccine (Wired): What is it today with links to articles about fixing problems with injections? Actually, this is a really good article about Robert Sapolsky, who did ground-breaking work on the effects of chronic stress on health. Apparently Sapolsky is now working on a vaccine to counter the neural effects of chronic stress. I have to admit that I find that a little scary. It sounds like a great answer to the problem of a society full of highly-stressed people, but the stress response is so complex and affects so many parts of our metabolism that it just can’t work without horrible side effects, can it? (The article addresses some of the issues.)
• Virginia Heffernan Is Our Target Audience (Uncertain Principles): For those who don’t know the background, Heffernan wrote a piece in the New York Times in which she criticized Scienceblogs.com for having some snarky people on it, and said as a result of its tone, she didn’t find it to be a good place to go to learn about science. Various science bloggers have opined that she’s dumb and no one should change what they are doing. Here, Uncertain Principles suggests perhaps science bloggers should be trying harder to speak to this particular audience. I’m not going to write a whole blog post about it, but I vote with UP and the others who’ve voiced this particular opinion. Who cares who’s right? The important thing is getting your message across, and it’s pretty clear that some members of the audience find a less snarky message to be easier to absorb.

Links post

• The ancestry of the domestic donkey is no longer a “wild ass” guess (Retrieverman)
• Should Doctors Have to Take Physics and Chemistry? (Uncertain Principles): I would definitely support some change in the pre-vet (very similar to the pre-med, with one or two more classes) process. The comments are almost more interesting than the actual post here.
• Welcome Scientopia, a new science blogging network (Blog Around the Clock): Oh good, it happened — a not-for-profit science blogging network organized by the bloggers. Now I can relax.
• Food scares and FDA actions: What has happened since 2007? (PetConnection): Report from the American Veterinary Medical Association convention last weekend about what the FDA has done since the 2007 pet food recalls.
• BREAKING: Bloggers Are Misunderstood (It’s not a Lecture): Another post on why being polite and reasonable is more effective than ranting. Maybe I should make a new “nice blogging” tag for these links...
• More hybrid lovin’: coywolves, wolves and coyotes… (Wild Muse): Canid soup is so interesting. Dogs are coyotes are wolves and they all interbreed like mad. If this topic interests you, definitely check out the comments on Wild Muse’s post for links to more information. The article that Wild Muse is covering is by Jon Way, who also wrote a very interesting book, Suburban Howls, about his research on Massachusetts coyotes. You can also find more on canid soup in Dogs: a new understanding of canine origin, behavior, and evolution, (Coppinger and Coppinger) which I have recommended before.

Links post

• Are clicks better markers than words? (The Other End of the Leash): Patricia McConnell gets nerdy about the mechanics of operant conditioning (in this case, animal training).
• Massachusetts Animal Coalition’s Pit Bull Spay/Neuter Task Force: “The task force recognizes that Pit Bulls are the most common breed surrendered to adoption centers and found as strays and that spaying and neutering that is affordable is key to reducing the number of homeless pit bulls in our state.” A constructive approach to the pit bull problem.
•  “Animal connection” helps separate humans from other species (Nobel Intent): Nice post reviewing a journal article about our domestication of various species, with a particular emphasis on how we domesticated dogs. If you want to read more about how humans and dogs developed together, and what the process of canid domestication might have looked like, I recommend reading Dogs: a new understanding of canine origin, behavior, and evolution, by Coppinger and Coppinger.

Links post

Links about science blogging

• The Nature of Science Blog Networks (Science in the Open): Reflections on what’s next for science blogging networks, since we seem to be all assuming that Scienceblogs.com is dead.
• It’s not information overload, nor is it filter failure: It’s a discovery deficit (Science in the Open)
• Science Blogging Networks: What, Why and How (Blog Around the Clock): More thoughts from the godfather of science blogging, Bora, on the post-Pepsigate future
• Some thoughts about science blog aggregation (Word Munger)

Links about medicine (sometimes veterinary)

• Orthopaedics vs anesthesia: “This work is fictional and any resemblance to reality is completely coincidental. No orthopaedic registrars, anaesthetic registrars or patients were harmed during filming.” Video.
• Position Regarding Dangerous Animal/Dog Legislation (Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association): the MVMA’s position on breed-specific legislation (e.g., the proposed pit bull ordinance I have been posting links about)

Links post

• Following on the topic I posted about recently, the Worcester Animal Rescue League (a shelter in Worcester) has stated that if Worcester passes its proposed breed-specific legislation, the shelter will no longer accept any dogs from Worcester. They cite fears of rising surrender rates as a result of this legislation.
• Don’t be a dick (Thoughts from Kansas): analysis of a speech about the effectiveness of not being a dick
• The gut’s “friendly” viruses revealed. DNA sequencing reveals a new world of bacterial viruses in our intestines (Nature News): More on the ecology existing inside us.
• A Farewell to Scienceblogs: the Changing Science Blogging Ecosystem (coturnix): It is a novel. The best bits are at the end, so if you start to get overwhelmed, skip ahead.
  

Links post

• The Chicken Project: Hope: La Vida Locavore has been writing about her project to convince her town to legalize ownership of chickens. I could explain why chickens make great pets (and more useful ones than dogs), but she does it so much better.
• How to win a Nobel Prize: fail, persist, iterate (Ars Technica)
• A treat by any other name... (Dog Star Daily): Some great philosophy of dog training. Do you know the difference between treats and reinforcement?
• Out with the old, in with the noobs (Pet Connection): The new veterinary interns are starting around now. My old roommate is starting her internship this month, too. This is a nice overview of what a veterinary internship is, and why (and why not) someone might choose to do one.
• PLoS ONE: Is a High Impact Factor a Blessing or a Curse? (The Scholarly Kitchen): insights on open access publishing, and how it will handle increasing popularity
• The Third Reviewer: a blog of anonymous reviews of peer-reviewed literature. This seems to me to be a great way to get feedback on journal articles, in a way that hasn’t been well supported before. We’ll see how the experiment goes.

Links post

• The Slaughterhouse Problem: is a resolution in sight? (Food Politics): Overview of the slaughterhouse problem by Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and Safe Food. “The slaughterhouse problem is what small, local meat producers have to contend with when their animals are ready to be killed. The USDA licenses so few slaughterhouses, and the rules for establishing them are so onerous, that humanely raised (if that is the correct term) animals have to be trucked hundreds of miles to considerably less humane commercial facilities to be killed... Furthermore, appointments for slaughter must be made many months or years in advance — whether the animals are ready or not.”
  
• A Movable Beast: Four-legged mobile slaughter (cows, goats, sheep) comes to the northeast! There is now a mobile unit in New York state which can travel to farms to provide slaughter services (and helps mitigate the problem described by Nestle in the post I mentioned above). Until now, the only mobile units in the northeast were mobile poultry processors. The arrival of mobile four-legged slaughter units is a good thing — trucking animals long distances to slaughter is unpleasant for them. This also allows farmers more oversight over how their animals are treated on that important last day. Four-legged slaughter is more highly regulated than poultry slaughter; it is also technically more complicated because of chilling requirements. So this was a long time in coming.
• A good week for UK science journalism (despite one big fail) (Not Exactly Rocket Science). A bunch of links to interesting new ideas in science journalism.
• Seals do it with whiskers, sharks do it with noses – tracking fish with supersenses. Seals can sense the passage of fish in the water with their sensitive whiskers up to 35 seconds after the fish have swum by. I think this sort of insight into alternative senses is so interesting — what is it like to be able to perceive these sorts of things? How do their brains interpret it? Is it like sight is to us?
• fight club soap: Nature Publishing Group proposed a 400% price hike of the licensing fee paid to them by the University of California library system. The UC schools proposed boycotting NPG. Boycotting NPG would be a big deal; they publish some very important journals. This post, by a librarian, summarizes the situation well and has some interesting ideas about the broader impact it may have on academic journal pricing.
• Nutritional inadequacy: Is it what your pet’s having for dinner? (PetConnection): “So, ‘holistic’ pet food companies, don’t you have trade or industry groups? Create your own third-party-verified feeding trials the way the organic food industry created its own certification programs. That would be something to brag about.” Hear, hear.
• The Switches That Can Turn Mental Illness On and Off: Review of current state of research on how epigenetics affects stress. (Epigenetics is a set of mechanisms that affect how your DNA is accessed and read, and therefore how it is used. I have posted about it before.)

Links post

• Work hours for (human) surgery residents. This is something I feel strongly should be implemented for veterinary students, interns, and residents as well.



• Not Exactly an Interview with Ed Yong. A Twitter interview! About different kinds of science journalism.



• Peer review: What is it good for?



• Patricia McConnell (who inspired me to return to school to learn about dog behavior) writes about The concept formerly described as “dominance”.



• The Thoughtful Animal has a nice post on play bows, the way that dogs tell each other that play fighting is in play.



• The competing priorities of teaching and research



• A paper comparing regulation in bacteria and Linux! It makes my geeky heart happy.