Monday Science Links

This week's science:

• Selva at The Scientific Indian is high on pi:In the spin of quantum mechanics, in the accretion of galactic clouds, in a little girl's twirl, when a pebble is dropped on a quiet lake; wherever and whenever there is rotation, it lurks, right at the center.


• PZ Myers at Pharyngula writes on the evo-devo of mammalian molars - but do read the preamble first: the parts of organisms are interlinked by what has historically been called laws of correlation, which are basically sets of rules that define the relationship between different characters. An individual attribute is not independent of all others: vary one feature, and as Darwin said, "other modifications, often of the most unexpected nature, will ensue".


• Phi Plaitl at Bad Astronomy takes on a claim that Earth is tilting: I have received several emails about a website claiming that the Earth is tilting wildly from its usual 23.5º inclination, and that this is causing global catastrophe that has been covered up by the government. Of course.


• John Hawks at John Hawks Anthropology Weblog looks at the genetics of twinning: The NY Times science question this week is, "Do twins always skip a generation?" This one is right up my alley.


• Arnold Zwicky at Languge Log looks at gapless relative clauses commonly encountered in (non-standard) English: As it turns out, non-standard English has (at least) three types of gapless relatives, two with pronouns instead of gaps, and the type above, with neither a gap nor a pronoun.

Enjoy!