Some pictures to warm the heart of all biologists.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2015/oct/30/flowers-bloom-in-the-atacama-desert-in-pictures

Thanks to Lauren and Will for hosting an excellent pumpkin-carving party on Saturday.

Here is Dave’s pumpkin rendering of a Nasonia head. Good practise for future wasp neuroscience projects….!

Advertising for School of Biology-funded studentships has commenced. We are offering a studentship exploring:

“The behavioural ecology of mating failure: sexual selection and adaptive infertility”

This project will build on work by Liam Dougherty and Ginny Greenway (e.g. see Ginny’s Quick Guide published this year in Current Biology). We are particularly interested in hearing from those of you with interests in behavioural ecology and/or insect reproductive behaviour.

Further details can be found on the findaphd.com link here. The closing date for the first round of applications in Wednesday 25th November 2015.

We strongly recommended emailing Dave first to chat about the project, eligibility, and so on. Not least because we would like to get to know you.

A nice start to the week. Becky has just had her paper on convenience polyandry in Nasonia accepted in Animal Behaviour. And Liam’s meta-analysis on stress and sexual signals led by Fhionna Moore from Dundee has been accepted in Behavioral Ecology. Well done everyone!

We will keep you posted as to when the papers make their way on-line etc.

Becky’s latest baking triumph, a Callosobruchus beetle penis cake.

And here is the real thing…

Liam’s latest paper has been accepted and is now available on-line early in the European Journal of Entomology. In the paper, we describe the occurrence of breakages of the long intromittent organ of Lygaeus simulans across repeated mating events. Using it can lead to losing it.