Weekly PLoS ONE News and Blog Round-Up
In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: a rat’s body fuels a battery, lens of the eye links Down’s and Alzheimer’s in a new test, environmental effects in diabetes, creativity and schizophrenia, and more.
A Glucose BioFuel Cell Implanted in Rats by Cinquin et al, was covered at
Scientific American, PhysOrg, GizMag and AOL News.
Alzheimer’s Disease Amyloid-β Links Lens and Brain Pathology in Down Syndrome by Moncaster et al., was covered in Alzheimer’s Society, TopNews UK, Visit Bulgaria, Daily Mail, Seven Sided Cube and BusinessWeek.
An Environment-Wide Association Study (EWAS) on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus by Patel, Bhattacharya and Butte was covered at MIT Technology Review, PhysOrg, Scope, All Africa, and Genetic Engineering News.
Discovery of High-Affinity Protein Binding Ligands – Backwards by Diehnelt et al was covered by Medical News Today, RedOrbit and PhysOrg.
Thinking Outside a Less Intact Box: Thalamic Dopamine D2 Receptor Densities Are Negatively Related to Psychometric Creativity in Healthy Individuals by de Manzano et al, was reported on by BusinessWeek, Business Week again, Yahoo News, UPI and Softpedia.
Novel Weapons Testing: Are Invasive Plants More Chemically Defended than Native Plants? by Lind and Parker was covered by Conservation Maven.
Prestige Affects Cultural Learning in Chimpanzees by Horner et al, was explained at Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Editorial Peer Reviewers’ Recommendations at a General Medical Journal: Are They Reliable and Do Editors Care? by Kravitz et al, was discussed at Scientificblogging and Science Codex.
An Environment-Wide Association Study (EWAS) on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus by Patel, Bhattacharya and Butte was covered by Scientific American, HHMI News and Medscape.
Why Functional Pre-Erythrocytic and Bloodstage Malaria Vaccines Fail: A Meta-Analysis of Fully Protective Immunizations and Novel Immunological Model by Guilbride, Gawlinski and Guilbride was covered by NewsWise.
Serum Phosphate Predicts Early Mortality in Adults Starting Antiretroviral Therapy in Lusaka, Zambia: A Prospective Cohort Study by Heimburger et al, was covered by Birmingham Science News Examiner.
Differential Gene Expression and Protein Abundance Evince Ontogenetic Bias toward Castes in a Primitively Eusocial Wasp by Hunt et al, was covered by DNA India.
Continuing from last week’s coverage, Do Ravens Show Consolation? Responses to Distressed Others by Fraser and Bugnyar was also covered by Softpedia, PhysOrg and WIRED Science.
Also continuigng from last week’s coverage, Coral Larvae Move toward Reef Sounds by Vermeij et al, was covered by Greenfudge, Media-Newswire and Softpedia.
The new Biodiversity of Saba Bank Collection was discussed by Greg Laden.
Usually in this space I record initial, regular coverage of our articles. But this past week, an older article got a lot of press (and surprisingly, was linked almost everywhere and even explained briefly in many places) due to a controversy. The article in question is Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time by Tan et al, published on October 28, 2009. You can read about the controversy, and the role the article played in it, in many, many places, but the best coverage (including at least the link to the paper itself) can be found at Huffington Post, New Scientist, Boing Boing, Irish Times, Stephen Kinsella, University Blog, Pharyngula, Times Higher Education, Demure lemur, NeuroDojo, NeuroDojo again and probably the best as far as the coverage of the science itself, at The Thoughtful Animal.