Life Science
Wallace, the often forgotten co-discoverer of evolution
Posted by Dr. Dolittle on May 2, 2013 Darwin is the more famous of the two when it comes to thinking about who came up with the theory of evolution. However, a man named Alfred Russel Wallace co-discovered the theory. Alfred Wallace died 100 years ago. In honor of his contribution to the theory of evolution, NPR ran a wonderful story about him…
The Bottleneck Years by H. E. Taylor – Chapter 38
Posted by coby on May 1, 2013 The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 37 Table of Contents Chapter 39 Artificial Biology, April 19, 2056 I was beginning to feel like things were slipping out of control. I don’t know that they had ever been in control, but before Edie started Neurolin, before the Group 2 disaster and before Rhamaposa started talking…
Endlessly Adaptable Animals
Posted by Wesley Dodson on April 30, 2013 
Dr. Dolittle spent a few days at the Experimental Biology meeting of the American Physiological Society, learning incredible facts about animal adaptability. In the Sunday session, researchers showed that metabolic byproducts called ketones can protect against seizures caused by hyperbaric oxygen therapy, while seal pups, who fast for up to three months once weaned, increase…
What I taught in the development lab today
Posted by PZ Myers on April 29, 2013 After our disastrous chick lab — it turns out that getting fertilized chicken eggs shipped to remote Morris, Minnesota during a blizzard is a formula for generating dead embryos — the final developmental biology lab for the semester is an easy one. I lectured the students on structuralism and how there are more to cells…
What I taught today: a send-off with an assignment
Posted by PZ Myers on April 29, 2013 Today was the last day I lecture at my developmental biology students. We have one more lab and one final class hour which will be all about assessment, but this was my last chance to pontificate at them…so I told them about all the things I didn’t teach them, and gave them a reading list…
EU will ban neonicotinoid pesticides to save the honey bees
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2013 
Being a bee is hard. I’m speaking specifically of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, the one that produces the honey you buy in the store. Many insects, and other critters, eat by finding food and then eating it, and then they do that for a while and now and then reproduce by finding a mate,…
Oh, no, not the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis again!
Posted by PZ Myers on April 28, 2013 I think BAHFest — the festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses — has been made entirely redundant. It’s an event to mock the absurdly adaptationist hypotheses put forward by some scientists, and it’s intended to be extravagantly ridiculous. But then, you look at some ideas that are inexplicably popular among scientists, and you realize…it’s a…
Musings from the mind of a mouse
Posted by PZ Myers on April 27, 2013 Casey Luskin is such a great gift to the scientific community. The public spokesman for the Discovery Institute has a law degree and a Masters degree (in Science! Earth Science, that is) and thinks he is qualified to analyze papers in genetics and molecular biology, fields in which he hasn’t the slightest smattering of background,…
It’s another exam day!
Posted by PZ Myers on April 26, 2013 My students are also blogging here: My undergrad encounters Developmental Biology Miles’ Devo Blog Tavis Grorud’s Blog for Developmental Biology Thang’s Blog Heidi’s blog for Developmental Biology Chelsae blog Stacy’s Strange World of Developmental Biology Thoughts of Developmental Biology Biology~ I’ve been terrible about updating everyone about my class the last few weeks — we’re…
Friday Cephalopod: BFFs
Posted by PZ Myers on April 26, 2013 
