Incumbents Polling Below 50 Percent Often Win Re-Election, Despite Conventional Wisdom. ‘By the way, the theory espoused by Mr. Kraushaar and others isn’t coming out of nowhere: there is solid evidence that it used to be true, 20 or 25 years ago. Back then, the undecideds in a race usually could be counted upon to break toward the challenger: the name given to this phenomenon was the “incumbent rule.”’ CW is a lagging indicator.
New Mongoose-Like Carnivorous Mammal Discovered in Madagascar. Crazy that we’re discovering mammals which are not the size of mice.
A genetic system to assess in vivo the functions of histones and histone modifications in higher eukaryotes. It’s open access, but ScienceDaily has a summary, On the Trail of the Epigenetic Code: Test System on Drosophila Should Provide the Key to Histone Function.
The Case Against Voters, Part Infinity. “In a very clever research design, the authors asked Americans and Indians to evaluate the attractiveness of Mexican and Brazilian candidates for office. They not only found that Americans and Indians had pretty similar ideas about who was more attractive but also that their judgments predicted the outcomes of Mexican and Brazilian elections surprisingly well.” No surprise. I wonder if instead of fighting aging people would benefit from better cosmetic techniques which would allow everyone to be beautiful? Also, how come parties just don’t make sure to nominate good looking people?
Scientific answers to silly questions. Part of the long running “feud” between “Accommodationists” and “New Atheists.” As someone who follows this only superficially it reminds me of factions among libertarians. Jerry Coyne = Ayn Rand, Sam Harris = Murray Rothbard, and Chris Mooney = Frank Meyer?