I’m always interested in what’s going on in other fields, but can't sift through the onslaught of articles to find the interesting ones (and significant/important/citable doesn't necessarily mean interesting). There’s so much more research beyond what's in “the news” and it’s always exciting to hit upon a new topic I didn’t even know existed! So what have been some of your favorite articles over the years?
Here’s two that amazed me when I first read them to get us started:
This study was about why a certain species of fly has evolved to only be able to live on a single species of cactus. It appears that at some point, the fly species developed a mutation that caused it to be unable to make a necessary chemical for itself, but which it had also been consuming from the cactus. Thus, once it couldn’t make it’s own chemical it became restricted to only living on that cactus so that it could get that chemical. Neat!
Mutations in the neverland Gene Turned Drosophila pachea into an Obligate Specialist Species (Science 28 September 2012) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6102/1658
There’s this general belief that you shouldn’t touch bright amphibians like frogs and salamanders because they are the most poisonous. This study found that some groups of bright poisonous frogs in Central America have actually evolved to be more poisonous and less visible. All of their ancestors and relatives are brightly colored and poisonous, but they are dark green and even more poisonous.
INVERSELY RELATED APOSEMATIC TRAITS: REDUCED CONSPICUOUSNESS EVOLVES WITH INCREASED TOXICITY IN A POLYMORPHIC POISON-DART FROG (Evolution June 2011) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01257.x/abstract