Monday Science Links

This week's toasty bowl of sciency goodness:

• Michael at Wishydig posts on acceptance of variant forms - when is it too soon?


• Grrrlscientist at Living the Scientific Life posts on the physics of feather colors - did you know blue birds aren't blue, they just look like it?
  


• Mark Liberman at Language Log posts on a dialect coach and a journalist's take on candidates' speech and how it's not backed up by the actual data.


• Cosma Shalizi at Three-Toed Sloth posts on the heritability and mutability of intelligence - he warns that it's long and not funny, but it's clear, and important.


• John Hawks at his Anthropology Website posts on what the Neandertal FoxP2 gene means - if anything, and if we can tell.

Enjoy!