evolgen
Archives for February, 2006
Asthma in the Office
Posted by RPM on February 16, 2006 Fans of the American version of The Office know that the show glorifies the intersection of I-81 and I-84, also known as Scranton, PA. They also know that Jim Halpert moonlights as the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but that’s for another day. What they may not know is that Scranton has been named the…
How to Walk into a Seminar Late
Posted by RPM on February 15, 2006 I was sitting in a small seminar today (about 20 people in a conference room) when someone walked in about 10 minutes late for the talk. This didn’t bother the presenter, and I’m not even sure if everyone saw this person walk in (I was sitting particularly close to the door). It wasn’t that she…
Tangled Bank #47
Posted by RPM on February 15, 2006 Tangled Bank #47 has been posted at Kete Were. Go get your science on.
Life Science Blog Aggregator
Posted by RPM on February 14, 2006 Stew from Flags and Lollipops has begun a new life science blog aggregator, postgenomic. Here is how he describes it: Postgenomic aggregates posts from life science blogs and then does useful and interesting things with that data. For example, it allows you to get an instant picture of what news stories are being heavily linked…
Sexy Science Poetry
Posted by RPM on February 13, 2006 Nick Anthis points us to the best satire of Valentine’s Day: Valinetine’s Day. The holiday is named after the amino acid valine, and is celebrated with nerdy, yet sexy, poetry. Nick offers up some examples of valinetine poems, such as this one to the theme of tumor suppressor genes: You’ve wounded me, dear; And how…
The Coalescent
Posted by RPM on February 13, 2006 One of the most important developments in evolutionary biology in the past few decades has come without much fanfare outside of a small circle of population geneticists. The early models of population genetics were limited when it came to analyzing the nucleotide sequence polymorphism data that began to appear in the 1980s. New statistical techniques…
Say Hello to Orac
Posted by RPM on February 13, 2006 One of my favorite non-Science Blogs science bloggers has moved over to Science Blogs. If you don’t know Orac, go check out his new site for a little Respectful Insolence.
Confessions of a Darwinist
Posted by RPM on February 12, 2006 The Virginia Quarterly Review has published an essay by Niles Eldredge on its website, entitled “Confessions of Darwinist”. I have no problem with Eldredge referring to himself as a Darwinist, as he is not misusing the term. Eldredge’s essay explains how punctuated equilibrium (the theory that earned him fame) does not conflict with Darwinian evolution…
I Guess I Kinda Have to Post This
Posted by RPM on February 12, 2006 Happy Birthday Chuck
News From the Olympics
Posted by RPM on February 12, 2006 Do you know of any sporting event, besides the Olympics, that is not shown live? This is not 1975. We have the internet and 24 hour sports news channels — you can’t turn on the TV, surf the net, or walk out your front door without hearing the results of any of the major events.…