As the U.S. Navy bombs Guam with dead, poisoned mice in the latest attempt to eradicate invasive brown tree snakes, it's worth taking a moment to sit back and appreciate -- yes, appreciate -- invasive species.

Now, before the environmentalists among you get upset, I'm not suggesting that species invasions are good things but let's put aside our usual feelings about invasive species, and just talk about some really cool animals.

Researchers Patrick Markey and Charlotte Markey, associate professors in psychology at Villanova University and Rutgers University, respectively, were trying to test the idea that testosterone levels rise after a male has won a fight or challenge, and fall after he has lost. This would make evolutionary sense, because he could be hurt or killed, and therefore not breed if he kept fighting even though outmatched.

Step 1.  Go to Google Maps
Step 2.  Click the 'Get Directions' button
Step 3.   Input Japan as the starting location and China as the destination
Step 4.  Click 'Get Directions'

Go to #43.   Laugh.  Those Google guys think of everything.

So Christine O'Donnell lost her election race in Delaware by a ridiculous landslide margin - anyone worried that she could somehow get elected and institute forced witchcraft zones in schools can rest easy.   No Republican took her seriously, in Delaware or anywhere else - that's why she lost so badly.  Sure, MSNBC played her up but it's what they do.

Likewise, Sam Brownback in Kansas is no friend to biology but the governor's office is a lot safer place for him than a local school board, where he could actually do some damage.

In Colorado, Proposition 62, the so-called personhood amendment, would have defined a ‘person’ as beginning at conception and never had any chance of success.  As predicted, it failed easily.

Tired of hearing the same old arguments and having to try and be interesting in drafting a response?   The Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW is here to help, at least on Twitter.

Every five minutes, it searches twitter for those phrases that correspond to the usual arguments about how global warming isn't happening and then replies to the twitterer with a canned response from a database.

Nigel Leck is the programmer who created it.    Read Chris Mims at Technology Review for the details.  

Asexual reproduction is common among invertebrates but rare in vertebrates, though parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops to maturity, can occur.

Now scientists have discovered a boa constrictor that reproduces by virgin birth - read it at Livescience for the details.

Advocates, regardless of ideology, tend to overlook junk science they like and focus their skepticisms on data that reinforces their beliefs.   Nothing typifies that better than claims that eating meat is implicated in global warming to any great extent.   No surprise, in 2006 the UN Food and Agriculture Organization repeated spurious claims that eating meat was responsible for more CO2 emissions than the entire worldwide transportation sector.

Do mummies have a right to privacy?   David Dobbs tackles the issue of ancient remains - it's certainly topical in California, where the culturally untouchable native American demographic insists even remains 10,000 years old belong to their tribe, a progressive fissure that puts an icy chill on science, but also relevant in other cultures.

Remember when Tipper Gore wanted to have labeling for adult lyrics in music?  Frank Zappa and others protested this was a Constitutional violation and that it was the responsibility of parents to decide what kids listen to - yes, pop musicians were against Democrats and actually expected that parents should listen to everything their child might access in advance of them accessing it and... well, it was a silly argument.    Record labels made no different in music sales but it at least gave parents an idea what not to buy for their kids, even if they couldn't keep children from obtaining it themselves.