Weekly PLoS ONE News and Blog Round-Up
In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: a new leech species discovered in a nose, torrenting biological data, mangrove extinction, cockroach mind-control and more.
The big hit of the past week was Tyrannobdella rex N. Gen. N. Sp. and the Evolutionary Origins of Mucosal Leech Infestations by Phillips et al, describing a new species of a leach recovered from the nose of a girl in Peru. The article was covered by Not Exactly Rocket Science, National Geographic, National Post, Herald Sun, NineMSN, BBC, The Sun, Fox News, Telegraph, Thaindian news, eCanada Now, Apathetic Lemming of the North, Metro, Treehugger, io9, MSNBC, Wired Science and Discovery News among others.
Another yesterday’s article, BioTorrents: A File Sharing Service for Scientific Data by Morgan G. I. Langille and Jonathan A. Eisen, is getting biology geeks excited this week. See the coverage on Ars Technica, GenomeWeb, Beta Science, The Tree of Life, Amazing News, The Scientist blog and The Great Beyond – Nature.com blog, for now.
The Loss of Species: Mangrove Extinction Risk and Geographic Areas of Global Concern by Polidoro et al. was written about by ConservationBytes, The Voltage Gate, Journal Watch Online, Surfbirds News and Mongabay.
A Wasp Manipulates Neuronal Activity in the Sub-Esophageal Ganglion to Decrease the Drive for Walking in Its Cockroach Prey by Ram Gal and Frederic Libersat was covered by NeuroDojo and Björn Brembs.
Editorial Peer Reviewers’ Recommendations at a General Medical Journal: Are They Reliable and Do Editors Care? by Kravitz et al. was covered by Gobbledygook and Phased.
The Walking Behaviour of Pedestrian Social Groups and Its Impact on Crowd Dynamics by Moussaïd et al was covered by Mind Matters.
Article Growing Season Temperatures in Europe and Climate Forcings Over the Past 1400 Years by Guiot et al was covered at Ars Technica.