Larry over at Sandwalk recently addressed complaints that Richard Dawkins' new anthology of great science writing only includes writing by scientists. Larry has some good comments, and suggests it's appropriate to have an anthology of writing exclusively by scientists. He also lays out what the top three criteria of good science writing should be:

I maintain that the top three criteria for good science writing are: 1) accuracy, 2) accuracy, and 3) accuracy.

A lathe may be a critical machine shop tool for a manufacturing plants, but what tools go into an industrial biological machine shop? Biological tools are in common use in many manufacturing processes, especially nature's best chemists - enzymes that perform highly specific reactions better than even the most ingenious chemical synthesis reactions. Natural enzymes, however, are sensitive creatures, and they are often unable to withstand the harsh environment necessary for an efficient industrial process. To overcome this deficiency, biological engineers often resort to one of the most effective tools in the biologist's machine shop: evolution. A group of scientists at the University of Toulouse, writing in Protein Science, have used directed evolution to engineer a hardier polymer-making enzyme, demonstrating how we can use evolution to engineer biological tools for manufacturing processes.

How do you distinguish a male fly from a female fly? Apparently even flies have problems with this one sometimes, and an interesting paper in PNAS describes a recently evolved gene in fruit flies that reduces the amount of male-male courtship they engage in. A research group based at the University of Chicago found that when you knock out the fly gene sphinix, the flies engaged more frequently in male-male courtship rituals. Flies with their sphinx gene intact will engage in male-male courtship about 1% of the time. But when both copies of the sphinx gene are knocked out, male-male courtship increases in frequency to nearly 8%.

No, I don't mean the bagel shops. Why do towering scientific geniuses seem to be a thing of the past? There are many potential reasons, but one fascinating aspect of the question is addressed by the physicist/historian Silvan Schweber, in his new book Einstein & Oppenheimer.

I believe there are always people like Einstein about. I believe that Julian Schwinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Frank Yang, Steven Weinberg, Gerard't Hooft, Kenneth Wilson, David Gross, Edward Witten, and Frank Wilczek are such people.

Gene Genie #32 is up at Highlight Health, showcasing some great blogging on human genes, genetics, and genetic diseases. Go on over and browse some great Sunday Science reading.