Category Metathesis

The Fertility of Miró
Originally posted on Metathesis:
I have never quite gotten surrealist, post-modern art. (Left to my own devices I happily spend my museum visits floating around the impressionist era.) I look at abstract symbolic paintings and feel that I miss the intended emotion or meaning—as if the painters and their devotees speak a language I cannot…

Perils of Click-Bait Science Communication, or There’s Many a Slip ‘twixt the Cup and the Lip
Originally posted on Metathesis:
Science communication plays an integral role in bridging the gap between academia and the public. Science writers have the tricky job of distilling complex ideas into digestible pieces, and explaining highly-specialized experiments in a way the public might find interesting. Research highlighted in the media can become part of a larger…

Austen & Darwin, Love Doctors? A Valentine’s Day/ Darwin Day Tribute
Originally posted on Metathesis:
A few months ago my Google Scholar alert for mate choice turned up a paper not about insect courtship behavior or sexual selection, but Jane Austen.[1] The only time previously I had ever thought about Austen and evolution together was while I wrote lab reports and wished I could watch Pride and…

A Scientist Walks into an English Blog: Language, Gender, Feminism, and the Science of Sex
Originally posted on Metathesis:
I spend my day thinking about sex. Mostly, sex between male and female fruit flies. I am curious about what happens after they finish doing the deed and sperm move through the female reproductive environment on their journey to the egg. Interested in the changes that occur within the female after…