Why is same-sex sexual behaviour so common in animals? Are teachers biased against overweight children? Find out in ScienceSeeker's picks of the best posts for the week of Nov 18 - Nov 24 #SciSeekPicks #SciComm

In this week's best and brightest from the world of science journalism, find out how the nine to five is ruining our minds and gaze into the void as we explore the possible non-existence of objective reality. ScienceSeeker editors' favourite posts within their respective areas of interest and expertise also cover many other important and exciting topics. Why not have a read, inform yourself, and indulge your scientific curiosity?

• Why is same-sex sexual behavior so common in animals? by Ambika Kamath, Julia Monk, Erin Giglio, Max Lambert and Caitlin McDonough for Scientific American. 

Same sex sexual behaviours may have arisen from an ancestral species that mated indiscriminately.
Credit:Jodie Wilson via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

• Tree-planting programs turn to tech solutions to track effectiveness by Malavika Vyawahare for Mongabay.com.
• Quantum physics: our study suggests objective reality doesn't exist by Alessandro Fedrizzi and Massimiliano Proietti for Mapping Ignorance.
• Q+A: Are nanomaterials ready to save the world? by Britt Faulstick for Drexel News blog.
• Crinkle crankle wall calculus by Bob Jones for John Cook Consulting.
• To save the world's minds, we need to kill the nine to five job by Greg Fish at World of Weird Things.
• International year of the Periodic Table by Lauren Nelson at A Short Scientist.
• Are huge genetic databases leaving marginalized people out of their data? by Rebecca Muir for Massive Science.
• How many doubly manlocked scientists are there?  by Lior Pachter at Bits of DNA.
• Teachers show biases against overweight kids, including giving them lower grades by Emily Reynolds for BPS Research Digest.
• The brain on gratitude by Carmine Chavez-Martinez at NeuWrite San Diego.
• Humans across cultures may share the same universal musical grammar by Ruby Prosser for New Scientist.
• 20 years at Imperial: what have I learnt? by John Tregoning.
• ‘Ice fossils’ from the desert by Richard Lovett for Cosmos magazine.

Check back next week for more great picks!