Deciphering a deadly attraction

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 6, 2006

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From late summer through early autumn, a gruesome ritual goes into full swing. The praying mantis and its relative, the Chinese mantis, are in their courtship season. A male mantis approaches a female, flapping his wings and swaying his abdomen. Leaping on her back, he begins to mate. And quite often, she tears off his head.

The female mantis devours the head of the still-mating male and then moves on to the rest of his body. “If you put a pair together and come back later, you’ll just find the wings of the male and no other evidence he was ever there,” said William Brown, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia.

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This Can’t Be Love

Posted on by Lori Jia

The New York Times, September 5, 2006

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Across the eastern United States, a gruesome ritual is in full swing. The praying mantis and its relative, the Chinese mantis, are in their courtship season. A male mantis approaches a female, flapping his wings and swaying his abdomen. Leaping on her back, he begins to mate. And quite often, she tears off his head.

The female mantis devours the head of the still-mating male and then moves on to the rest of his body. “If you put a pair together and come back later, you’ll just find the wings of the male and no other evidence he was ever there,” said William Brown, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia.

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Sexual Cannibals in Gould’s Shadow

Posted on by Lori Jia

This female praying mantis is finishing up the last tasty bits of the male that just mated with her. In the lead article in tomorrow’s science section of the New York Times, I talk to scientists who study females of some species that sometimes devour their mates. Sexual cannibalism is not common, but it is revealing. The evolutionary forces that shape the sexes can drive them into some extreme conflicts, even turning one sex into a meal for the other. In some cases, males actually become partners in their own demise–passively or complicitly. A new study indicates that male praying mantises are not so willing. They can tell when females are hungry, and they take extra precautions.

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Original Sin Genomics

Posted on by Lori Jia

Before I moved the Loom to this address earlier this year, I got a fair amount of comments on my blogs about evolution from creationists. (See this entry, for example.) They fell off after the move, but now they’re back in fine form. Today we are joined by Kevin Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Creation Research Society Quarterly.

Here’s a little background: last week I wrote here about stumbling across a radio show put out by the Institute of Creation Research. It claimed that recent research on the human genome supports Young Earth creationism. Dr. Anderson spoke on the program about how sickle-cell anemia and lactose tolerance, and other genetic changes in human populations have nothing to do with evolution but are just the result of original sin.

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Not Even Wrong

Posted on by Lori Jia

From time to time, my Seed magazine hosts throw out a question for bloggers to answer. Today’s question is concerns a column by James S. Robbins on global warming in the National Review Online. Robbins claims that global warming will be a great thing if it happens, which he doubts. The question is, does he have a point?

The question of what the full range of effects from global warming will be–both good and bad–is an important one, but Robbins shows little ability to offer an answer. His column overlooks important things, gets various facts wrong, and belies a general ignorance of and indifference towards science. For me, you can sum up everything that’s wrong with the article in one word: micobiotic.

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