Any bidders for the number three?

I loved this snippet in the New Scientist, about computer software and patent law......

Ooh I love a good testicle story.....

Recent story from the beeb says men with small testicles make better parents -  "the idea being that larger testicles would suggest greater commitment to creating more children over raising them."

Praise

Got the proofs through today for a paper to come out in Journal of Biosciences - title is 'Origins of Evolutionary Transitions'. Its a paper I wrote after attending a conference in northern India last summer, and the first thing I've finished since becoming a mother! And I'm disproportionately pleased about it!!

It should be a small thing compared to the enormous achievements I've produced in the last four months. But somehow it's different. I've been pondering why that is.

Exiting the cave

When you are pregnant, people who are already parents say to you things like 'everything changes' and 'it turns your world upside down'.

Philosophy is a life skill

No, I'm serious. Stop laughing.

Love, sex, betrayal....motherhood?!?

Warning: This post contains seriously long sentences.

I once read or heard the statement that all successful song lyrics are variations on just two themes - a) I love/want/desire him/her or b) I hate/miss him/her. The pursuit of, celebration of, and nostalgia for romantic love would surely be identified by alien anthropologists as THE organising principle of all human activity, the meaning of life, the raison d'etre of our existence. Chuck in some other key passions involving envy, betrayal, guilt, fear and so on and you have the ingredients of just about any song, novel, play, soap opera or film that anyone dreamed up.

Wired generation

Modern mothers have so much more time to interact with their babies than did their mothers, or their mother's mothers. What impact is this going to have upon forthcoming generations?

Crazy gorgeous late summer sky

How Eskimos keep their babies warm

Parenting wisdom from around the world.
By Mei-Ling Hopgood, Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 2013

Argentinians let their children stay up late. French parents apparently inculcate a wholesome attitude towards food. Kenyans don't bother with prams.