It was a really bad week for Homo sapiens: 

First, it turns out rats have regrets just like we do:
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.3740.html
At least when they fail to maximize their food intake. That primitive circuitry is highly active in grad students (cliche, I know).

Then chimps beat humans at gaming:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140605/srep05182/full/srep05182.html
I’m just happy I was not one of their human subjects. The authors kindly played it down stating that chimps’ choices were “at least as strategic as human choices”. Much nicer than than the other way around.

And finally, a computer which can out-converse a human being:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2014/06/this-supercomputer-can-convince-us-it-s-human
I wonder how many times the computer had to say “like” to be so convincing…
Also, what is the reason behind Russian scientists' decision to have the computer pretend to be a Ukranian boy with a pseudo-jewish last name? Ivan Ivanov not good enough?

Now onto more scientific stuff:

A computational biology paper about predicting enhancers based on dinucleotide frequecies:
http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.169243.113

An excellent review on genome editing using different nucleases
http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v15/n5/full/nrg3686.html#t

A nice back-and-forth on adaptive value of a certain mutation.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/E2357.full
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/E2358.full
Or is it just a polymorphism undergoing some good old genetic drift? Regardless, there should be more discussions like that.

And back to non-science:

Real heavyweights on dire prospects of the research enterprise as it is:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/16/5773.full
I think it applies more broadly, not just to the US.

There is a more optimistic counter-argument of course:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/06/11/1408267111.full.pdf?etoc

But if you are hell-bent on getting a PhD, you will need to take GRE of course. Which apparently is no good for nothin'.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7504/full/nj7504-303a.html
The figure is very persuasive indeed. I would be even more persuaded if it turned out that among tenured faculty, women and minorities entered grad schools with lower average GRE scroes than the white dudes.

Enjoy!

A very nice paper on bone regeneration in zebrafish:
http://dev.biologists.org/content/141/11/2225.full

Ongoing insertional mutagenesis of the human genome by transposons:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/22/8131

Selective mating in Homo sapiens:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/22/7996.full
Perhaps we should have computational geneticists play with this some 10 generations into the future. Or maybe not…

I am very disturbed by many aspects of this story:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1076.full
One of them: persuading a briliant mech engineering student to get PhD in math may be considered a success. But not if all he has is a non-tenure track teaching position as a result.

Ironically, here is a mathematical model of probability to become a PI:
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2014_06_02/caredit.a1400136

Remember that paper about wnt not really being a morphogen I highlighted back in January? Here is a paper about wnt being transported by migrating neural crest cells:
http://dev.biologists.org/content/141/10/e1002.full
It is one of the papers which make me wish (again!) we had a Dev Bio journal club...

A cautionary tale than not all genes are essential in humans:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/687.full
This is probably only a surprise to human geneticists who do not bother with model systems literature...

It is nice to read about a successful post-science career transition:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6186/934.full
But we do not get to read about those who don’t make the transition quite as successfully, so the sample is biased.

About a $30-million-a-year scam business:
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/12/antioxidant-in-red-wine-has-no-benefit-at-low-doses/?hpt=hp_bn13
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27371546

An entertaining column that rings true. A lot.
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2014_05_20/caredit.a1400126