Biology:
In Friday's picture quiz, I posted a picture that I took that contained two Hawaiian Monk seals (Monachus schauinslandi), and asked you to take a guess at what percent of the total population of the species appears in the...
Posted on March 3, 2008 12:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I took the picture below at Ka'ena Point, Oahu in January of 2006. In this picture, there are two Hawaiian Monk Seals. (They can be hard to spot, so I've marked the two animals in a second version of...
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Posted on February 29, 2008 9:57 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
On Tuesday, I posted a "can you identify this animal" quiz. I put a picture of an animal up, along with some information about it. The photograph was taken with the animal in captivity, at a location that was...
Posted on February 28, 2008 9:08 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Here's a picture of an animal that I took (and played around with) a few years ago. The DNA sequence that's superimposed over the picture came from that individual, so you can probably use it to figure out what...
Posted on February 26, 2008 5:27 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last Thursday, I presented some data about three populations of an insect and asked you to try and figure out how many species scientists think these populations should be grouped into. On Monday, I added data from two more...
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Posted on February 15, 2008 12:17 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
On Thursday, I presented a species problem taken from a post over at my old blog. I presented data from experimental matings that were carried out among three insect populations, added a little bit of information about the appearance,...
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Posted on February 11, 2008 3:16 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One of the jobs associated with taxonomy and systematics involves trying to figure out whether or not two different populations of organisms should be considered to be part of the same species. Sometimes this is an easy job - it's pretty clear, for example, that polar bears and penguins are very different sorts of thing. Other times, it's a very hard job. The example I'm going to give you in this post is a difficult case, but a real one. I'll give you the details, and you can take your best stab at the question. On Monday, I'll tell you what the "official" view is.
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Posted on February 7, 2008 10:32 AM • 5 Comments •
Over at Evolving Thoughts, John Wilkins has a post that criticizes a recently-published journal article. Normally, I agree with John - in fact, if it's true that the best measure of someone's intelligence is how often their views match...
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Posted on January 24, 2008 1:24 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Bush Administration has once again managed to reach new levels of self-parody. This time, the subject is stem cell research, and they've taken a position on funding new research that incorporates the classic Catch-22 problem. Sadly, though, the Catch-22 lacks anything that bears the faintest resemblance to humor when it's used to block funding for potentially lifesaving research.
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Posted on January 11, 2008 9:45 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Over the last couple of decades, a great deal of research has been done on the effect of global warming on coral reefs. The vast majority of that research has focused on the currently observed and potential future effects...
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Posted on January 8, 2008 3:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Today is the 185th anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace. He's best known, of course, as the young(ish) scientist who, while recovering from malaria somewhere in Indonesia, independently came up with the same ideas about evolution that Darwin had been...
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Posted on January 8, 2008 11:51 AM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Last week, I had a picture of a live spider for you to identify. Most of the guesses came quickly, and were absolutely correct - the spider in the picture was a Spiny-Backed Orbweaver. This week's arthropod might be...
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Posted on October 5, 2007 3:32 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Most of the readers of this blog are intelligent, interested, scientifically literate individuals, but I'm guessing that at least a few of you aren't familiar with one of the nouns in the title. Those of you who do know...
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Posted on September 25, 2007 12:10 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I was out walking yesterday morning when I saw several very large spiders sitting on webs. I had my camera with me, so I shot a bunch of pictures, and got a couple of really nice ones. I think...
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Posted on September 11, 2007 10:19 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When it comes to teaching first and second graders about things, nothing beats the classroom pet. The little kids learn so many important things. They learn about animals. They learn about responsibility, and about the importance of taking care...
Posted on September 4, 2007 5:04 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Mike Dunford is a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he studies evolution. He's also a contributer to The Pandas Thumb. As is the case with everyone else here, his opinions are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of any organization he is affiliated with. 
