Also this week...
Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom
Only 28% of high school biology teachers are doing their job. See comments by PZ.
Phylogeny and palaeoecology of Polyommatus blue butterflies show Beringia was a climate-regulated gateway to the New World Nabokov's hypothesis was apparently right, "A novel method is used to estimate ancestral temperature tolerances using the limits of distribution ranges of extant organisms", etc. See comments by Carl Zimmer.
Stress-induced evolution of Escherichia coli points to original concepts in respiratory cofactor selectivity Evolution of a new function for the key metabolite, NADPH
Leaving home ain't easy: non-local seed dispersal is only evolutionarily stable in highly unpredictable environments Spreading seeds widely won't usually get them to consistently better spots, so it's more of a bet-hedging mechanism.
Importance of single molecular determinants in the fidelity of expanded genetic codes The latest on making organisms that use a DNA stop codon to encode an amino acid not normally found in proteins
Inland post-glacial dispersal in East Asia revealed by mitochondrial haplogroup M9a'b Using DNA to track human migration history
The Newest Synthesis: Understanding the Interplay of Evolutionary and Ecological Dynamics Ecological changes can drive evolution, but what about the reverse?
Oceanic rafting by a coastal community
I still don't believe that's how camels got to Australia.
Evidence of parasitic Oomycetes (Peronosporomycetes) infecting the stem cortex of the Carboniferous seed fern Lyginopteris oldhamia
Newly identified and diverse plastid-bearing branch on the eukaryotic tree of life
We can't grow these newly discovered microbes in culture, but we can classify them as a new branch based on their DNA, and we can use their DNA sequences to make fluorescent probes to label them for microscopy.
Oxytocin promotes human ethnocentrism