As a father of two dawn-loving children I don’t get as much sleep as I used to, which makes me wonder sometimes why I crave it so much. A number of scientists who share my curiosity have turned to sleeping animals to find an answer. Sleep appears to be an ancient behavior, perhaps 600 million years old or older. But it may not exist “for” any one purpose. Instead, sleep can serve many functions, as animals are shaped by evolutionary tradeoffs. I’ve written an article about the evolution of sleep for tomorrow’s New York Times where you can read more. (And for those interested in some of the the gory technical details, here’s an interesting new review in Nature that’s free.)

Continue reading “The Long, Long Sleep” →

The insects scandalously embracing in this picture are decorated crickets (Grylllodes sigillatus), which can be found in the southwestern United States, among other places. The droplet on the male’s tail is–for want of a better word–a gift. After producing this glob he sticks it onto the package of sperm he places on the female. After the crickets are finished with their encounter, the female will grab the gift and snack on it.

Continue reading “Beware of Crickets Bearing Gifts” →

Back in March I described a provocative paper that suggested that plants might be able to get around Mendel’s laws of heredity. Reed Cartwright, the grad student behind De Rerum Natura, left a commentexpressing some deep skepticism. Now he reports that he and Luca Comai of the University of Washington have published a letter in the journal Plant Cell. You can read the letter for free. (There’s another paper commenting on it in the journal, but it requires a subscription.)

Continue reading “Stay Right There, Mendel” →