[citation needed]

Aside from containing about eleventy hundred papers on Ardi–our new 4.4 million year-old ancestor–this week’s issue of Science has an interesting article on the genetics of dog hair. What is there to know about dog hair, you ask? Well, it turns out that nearly all of the phenotypic variation in dog coats (curly, shaggy, short-haired, etc.) is explained by recent mutations in just three genes. It’s another beautiful example of how complex phenotypes can emerge from relatively small genotypic differences. I’d tell you much more about it, but I’m very lazy busy right now. For more explanation, see here, here, and here (you’re free to ignore the silly headline of that last article). Oh, and here’s a key figure from the paper. I’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, which effectively makes this a 1200-word post. All this writing is hurting my brain, so I’ll stop now.

a tale of dogs, their coats, and three genetic mutations

Apparently I missed this, but the 2009 Ig Nobel prizes were awarded a couple of days ago. There’s a lot of good stuff this year, so it’s hard to pick a favorite; you have people making diamonds from tequila,  demonstrating that beer bottles can crack human skulls, turning bras into facemasks, and reducing garbage mass by 90% using… wait for it… panda poop. That said, I think my favorite is this one right here–the winners of the Economics prize:

The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic Banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

And yes, I do feel bad about myself for finding that funny.

[h/t: Language Log]