Evolution:
One of the latest additions (just two days ago, I think) to the Directory of Open Access Journals is a journal that will be of interest to some of my readers - The Open Sleep Journal. The first volume has...
Posted on May 13, 2008 11:11 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You really think I am going to put this above the fold? No way - you have to click (First posted on July 7, 2006):...
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Posted on May 5, 2008 8:57 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
(First posted on July 21, 2006) Some plants do not want to get eaten. They may grow in places difficult to approach, they may look unappetizing, or they may evolve vile smells. Some have a fuzzy, hairy or sticky surface,...
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Posted on April 28, 2008 4:53 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Anne-Marie wrote an excellent review of Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb. I tend to think that the use of the term "neo-Lamarckism" (just like the use of "neo-Darwinism") is unnecessary as it will raise hackles...
Posted on March 22, 2008 8:36 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
News from SCONC: On Thursday, March 27 at 4 p.m., the Zoology Department at NCSU will host a seminar from Patricia Brennan of Yale University entitled "The Biology of Avian Genitalia: Form and Function." Brennan's work on the genital anatomy...
Posted on March 7, 2008 7:29 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The second issue is now available online. Open Access. Most articles are highly 'bloggable'....
Posted on March 5, 2008 10:17 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I was lucky to be in the car at the right time this morning to catch a story about Mastodons in Manhattan: A Botanical Puzzle, i.e., why honey locust trees in NYCity have long thorns - an interesting story (click...
Posted on February 22, 2008 9:56 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Florida Board of Education passed new science standards....
Posted on February 19, 2008 4:37 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I tried to understand what DNA barcoding is, as everyone is talking about it. And I tried reading a couple of papers about it - I am a biologist, so I should have understood them, but nope, I was still...
Posted on February 19, 2008 9:08 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Karl Mogel interviews Neil Shubin. Paleontology makes testable predictions, with cool results....
Posted on February 13, 2008 6:47 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Karen is excited this morning, reading the enormous Guardian edition full of good Darwiny goodness, chockful of articles by Dawkins and many others, as well as extracts from Darwin's works. The only part I find a little too narrow is...
Posted on February 9, 2008 12:36 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If you liked Sigma Xi last weekend, and if you are in the Triangle on February 8th, and if you are interested in the origin and early evolution of life on Earth (and potentially elsewhere), you will love attending the...
Posted on January 29, 2008 4:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Olivia Judson wrote a blog post on her NYTimes blog that has many people rattled. Why? Because she used the term "Hopeful Monster" and this term makes many biologists go berserk, foaming at the mouth. And they will not, with...
Posted on January 26, 2008 3:40 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A paper published back in September - Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit by Hockings et al. is getting renewed attention these days. Rebecca Walton has compiled links to the recent media and blog coverage of the paper (including those by my...
Posted on January 21, 2008 3:07 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Two grape genomes were published this year, one in Nature, the other in PLoS ONE. Larry Moran explains the methodologies and results of both and discusses the trustworthiness of each. The Nature paper is explained in The Grapevine Genome, and...
Posted on December 29, 2007 12:39 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
On Pilobolous: When I first wrote my post on Pilobolus (here and here) I really wanted to do something extra, which I could not do at the time. If you scroll down that post, you will see I reprinted the...
Posted on December 23, 2007 12:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is there any kid who does not love giraffes? They are just so amazing: tall, leggy, fast and graceful, with prehensile tongues and a need to go through complex calistehnics in order to drink. The favourites at zoos, in natural...
Posted on December 22, 2007 9:36 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A few weeks ago John Wilkins wrote a long and thoughtful 5-part review of a recent paper by E.O.Wilson and D.S.Wilson: The two Wilsons on sociobiology Sociobiology 2: Theoretical foundations Sociobiology 3: Kin selection and pluralist explanations Sociobiology 4: individuals...
Posted on December 4, 2007 7:18 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Or, Happy Evolution Day! It's time for a party! It is easy to look up blog coverage - if you search for "Origin of Species" you mostly get good stuff, if you search for "Origin of the Species" you get...
Posted on November 24, 2007 4:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Another thing I will also have to miss - the Inaugural Event of the 2007-2008 Pizza Lunch Season of the Science Communicators of North Carolina (SCONC), on October 24th at Sigma Xi Center (the same place where we'll have the...
Posted on October 9, 2007 6:09 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Sarah Wallace, Matt Ford, ScienceGoGo and Jason Stajich comment on the fungus that gets its energy from radiation. I've heard of Deinococcus radiodurans before, but this is a fungus! Well, if there is an energy source to tap into, even...
Posted on September 24, 2007 1:54 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Earlier studies have indicated that a gene called FOXP2, possibly involved in brain development, is extremely conserved in vertebrates, except for two notable mutations in humans. This finding suggested that this gene may in some way be involved in the...
Posted on September 20, 2007 3:47 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Too busy with the pseudo-moving right now, so just a quick set of links to other people's good stuff: An amazing, fantastic post on Laelaps about horse evolution (also noted by Larry Moran). While at first glance, this post on...
Posted on September 16, 2007 2:11 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Come see Sapolsky, Deacon, de Waal, Rosenberg, Dennett, Fox Keller and others talk about what it means to be human (or chimp).
Posted on September 14, 2007 9:16 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
One cool thing about being a blogging biologist is that one can write every day about sex with a straight face and then blame readers for "having a dirty mind". But sex is so interesting - life would cease to...
Posted on August 29, 2007 1:09 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If we are not there at the moment of birth, how come we can bond with the baby and be good fathers or good adoptive parents? Kate explains. Obligatory Reading of the Day. Update: Related is this new article by...
Posted on August 28, 2007 1:48 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
John Wilkins just published a paper (..."a review of the centenary festschrift for Mayr...") and got a book accepted for publication (the book grew out of series of excellent blog posts about species definitions - who says that blogging is...
Posted on August 15, 2007 10:19 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A serious one, for advanced courses. I held it in my hands the other day (Jonathan Eisen brought a copy to Scifoo to show). I hope to get one soon. Check it out at its homepage and order yourself a...
Posted on August 13, 2007 2:08 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I may be a little late to this, but better late than never. Laelaps has penned one of those rarities - an exceptionally detailed historical summary of the way people's understanding of human origins changed over time. Bookmark and read...
Posted on August 13, 2007 1:59 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A very interesting new paper was published today in PLoS Biology: Flight Speeds among Bird Species: Allometric and Phylogenetic Effects by Thomas Alerstam, Mikael Rosen, Johan Backman, Per G. P. Ericson and Olof Hellgren: Analysing the variation in flight speed...
Posted on July 17, 2007 11:47 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is a post from June 28, 2005, reviewing one of my favourite new evolution books (reposted here):...
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Posted on July 8, 2007 4:58 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Not really a review of Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio" and "Darwin's Children" but musing (practically SF itself) on the topic of these books (from April 20, 2005, also reposted here so you can see the comments):...
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Posted on July 7, 2007 4:55 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core: Hormones control growth, metabolism, reproduction and many other important biological processes. In humans, and all other vertebrates, the chemical signals are produced by specialised brain centres such as the hypothalamus and secreted into the...
Posted on June 29, 2007 11:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
You probably know by now, but you can access for free (at least for a couple of days) a whole slew of articles about evolution on the Science page of New York Times. Most are excellent, as usual (hey, it's...
Posted on June 26, 2007 9:53 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The best coverage of the paper so far: Neurophilosophy Pharyngula Lab Notes Dispatches from the Culture Wars...
Posted on June 11, 2007 1:17 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A paper in press in Current Biology (press release here) looks at mitochondrial DNA of mammoths and advances a primarily environmental cause for the mammoth extinction. Razib explains why such a black-and-white dichotomy is unhealthy. Looking at a different hypothesis,...
Posted on June 8, 2007 12:50 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Evolution of direct development in echinoderms It's been several years since I last heard Rudolf Raff talk about his work and apparently he's been busy in the meantime. The new stuff is exciting, and PZ knows how to explain it...
Posted on June 2, 2007 2:55 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Is natural selection omnipotent or are there developmental constraints to what is possible and it is only from a limited range of possibilities that natural selection has to choose? The tension betwen two schools of thought (sometimes thought of in...
Posted on May 30, 2007 9:35 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Larry just won the Triple Crown (or a trifecta, betting on the Triple Crown) with the third post in a trio of posts on a very important topic: Facts and Myths Concerning the Historical Estimates of the Number of Genes...
Posted on May 26, 2007 10:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Of course, I was not the only one commenting on the recent duck phallus paper. You should check out the other blogospheric responses, e.g., by Carl, PZ, RPM, Grrrl, Laelaps, Neil, Belle, Zuzu, Guru and many others. Unfortunately, most people...
Posted on May 3, 2007 12:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
...because weird sex does not only happen on Fridays.... Remember this? Many have asked themselves (I did) where does it go, i.e., what kind of female genital tract can accomodate such a large penis. But one person actually did not...
Posted on May 1, 2007 8:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I never thought that I would link to Razib approvingly, but his recent series of posts about evolution of religion are right on the mark. You can start with today's post and follow the links back to his older posts....
Posted on April 23, 2007 10:15 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
My SciBlings Chris Mooney and Matt Nisbet just published an article in 'Science' (which, considering its topic is, ironically, behind the subscription wall, but you can check the short press release) about "Framing Science" Carl Zimmer, PZ Myers, Mike Dunford...
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Posted on April 7, 2007 3:33 AM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
2007 TED Prize winner E.O. Wilson on TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks: As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere....
Posted on April 5, 2007 10:45 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I think I will show this in class in May when I teach the evolution lecture again. Reed adds some caveats I am sure to point out in the classroom. Update: Watched it again. I think I'll stop the...
Posted on April 5, 2007 1:09 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A review of evo-devo (Jenner, R.A., Wills, M.A. (2007) The choice of model organisms in evo-devo. Nat Rev Genet. 8:311-314. Epub 2007 Mar 6.) is starting to make rounds on the blogs. I cannot access the paper (I'd like to...
Posted on March 31, 2007 3:48 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Posted on March 26, 2007 12:08 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
No Sex For 40 Million Years? No Problem: A group of organisms that has never had sex in over 40 million years of existence has nevertheless managed to evolve into distinct species, says new research published today. The study challenges...
Posted on March 20, 2007 4:21 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I hope you see this on time to tune in. Hat-tip: The Beagle Project Blog...
Posted on March 18, 2007 7:02 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
About a year ago, there was a great paper about polyphenism in moth caterpillars. Now, in the new issue of Seed Magazine, PZ Myers uses that example to teach you all about it. Cool reading on one of my favourite...
Posted on March 16, 2007 9:31 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Evolution works according to a very small set of simple rules. If a) there is variation in a trait in a population and b) that variation is heritable and c) one variant is better adapted to the current local environment,...
Posted on February 23, 2007 9:04 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It does not matter if you care or not about Behe's silly creationist claims, but they sure provide great starting points for cool science blog posts. Here, Ian Musgrave uses this tactic to educate us all about the ancient roles...
Posted on February 16, 2007 5:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The latest issue of Conservation Magazine has picked several 'people to watch in 2007', including Randy Olson and Martin Wikelski. Who do you think are 'people to watch in 2007'?...
Posted on February 16, 2007 12:37 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
[Moved to the top of the page. First posted at 1:43am] Last year, I collected the links to notable posts about Darwin Day and posted them here. That was fun, so I decided to do it again. I checked the...
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Posted on February 12, 2007 8:55 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Way back when, while I was still an active grad student, I was a student representative on the departmental seminar committee for about four years (going through four faculty members rotating through the position). So, I pushed for a Darwin...
Posted on February 12, 2007 3:56 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Placing Darwin into the chronology of the history of Chronobiology.
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Posted on February 12, 2007 10:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
OK, this is really ancient. It started as my written prelims (various answers to various questions by different committeee members) back in November 1999, and even included some graphs I drew. Then I put some of that stuff together (mix...
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Posted on February 12, 2007 10:52 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I and the Bird #42 is up on Neurophilosophy blog. Beautiful rendition, formatted like Charles Darwin's diaries from the "Beagle", which - the ship, I mean - as you know (Day 8), is planned to be rebuilt and sailed again,...
Posted on February 8, 2007 3:35 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Two years (January 28, 2005) have passed, but I am still not sure what the correct answer to this question is:...
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Posted on February 7, 2007 10:57 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
For Some Species, An Upside To Inbreeding: Although breeding between close kin is thought to be generally unfavorable from an evolutionary standpoint, in part because harmful mutations are more easily propagated through populations in this way, theory predicts that under...
Posted on February 6, 2007 9:10 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Just quickly for now without commentary: Totally cool paper in the last Science: S. Libert, J. Zwiener, X. Chu, W. VanVoorhies, G. Roman, and S.D.Pletcher Regulation of Drosophila lifespan by olfaction and food-derived odors: Smell is an ancient sensory system...
Posted on February 5, 2007 2:27 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Let's make sure that this really happens....
Posted on February 3, 2007 3:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A few weeks ago I mentioned (and kinda joked about it - see the accompanying images) a study about the adaptive function of the giraffe's neck. Now Darren Naish goes into more detail about the study and does it much...
Posted on February 2, 2007 11:44 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I guess I will bug you about this for the next ten days - my personal pet cause if you want. No takers yet.... Here is the e-mail newsletter about it I got today: Dear All, Beagle Project updates: •...
Posted on February 2, 2007 11:50 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I first saw about this on Pharyngula the other day and I think it is a majestic idea! A group of Brits are trying to build a replica of HMS "Beagle" and, on the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, sail around...
Posted on February 1, 2007 2:20 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The latest re-post of my BIO101 lecture notes (this one originally from June 05, 2006). I know I will have to rewrite everything about the Three Domain Hypothesis, but you also tell me if I got other stuff wrong or...
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Posted on January 25, 2007 10:42 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Most of our anti-Creationist battles are over efforts to infuse Christian religion into K-12 education. One common battlefield is the courtroom where our side has (so far, until/unless the benches get filled with more clones of Priscilla Owen) won. But...
Posted on January 24, 2007 9:45 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Here is a new paper that just came out on PLoS-Biology. What do you think?...
Posted on January 17, 2007 5:00 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have just realized that I keep mentioning David Sloan Wilson a lot (see the list of links below), always in a positive light as I think he is one of the pioneers of modern evolutionary theory (as soon as...
Posted on January 14, 2007 1:34 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
