New chromosomes, junkie ants, British cats, and the aquatic elephant hypothesis.

LOTS OF GOOD stuff appearing in the blogosphere this past week. PZ Myers has a post on how chromosome counts change and can contribute to speciation. Emile writes about beetles that chemically enslave ants. On the paleontological side of things Darren Naish wraps up his series on British cat species and Brian Switek reports on a new study showing that elephants are descended from aquatic ancestors, with links to blog coverage at other sites.

I will post tomorrow about the results of an experimental addition of links to gene networks in bacteria and later this week a survey of some of the genes involved in developing multicellularity in volvocine algae.