Link of the day- Truffle Sex

There seems to have been a bit of a dearth of good or interesting scientific news stories over the past couple of weeks (apart from the Mephedrone story- see below), even in The New York Times, which seems to run a lot of good science stories. However, I did find this little gem by Nicolas Wade- "Unearthing the Sex Secrets of the Perigord Black Truffle"-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/science/29truffle.html?src=me&ref=science

It has all you could ever want to know about truffles and their biology but if that doesn't sound very entertaining, let me whet your appetite with this choice quote from the article- [WARNING- This may put you off truffles for life...]

"Don’t the fly’s eggs and larvae degrade the edibility of the truffle? It seems the opposite is the case. “If collected at late maturation stages, the truffles will likely carry eggs and larvae — adding proteins and aroma to the truffle,”"...

- not beautiful, but certainly Weird.

Images of the Day

Welcome to Weirdbeautiful.
Todays images are a series of photographs of outer space from the Science Section of The New York Times -
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/01/04/science/010510_BOOK_index.html?ref=science

Link of the day- ailments

When you think of all the things there are to go wrong in the body, it is all the more amazing that most of the time, they mostly work. In this entertaining article in The New York Times and IHT, Sue Eisenfeld gives a whole load of ailments most people- happily-will never hear of, let alone encounter-

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/health/09case.html?ref=science