Archives for February 9, 2009
Darwin and The Gauchos
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 We’re half way through Darwin Month, and only a tiny ways through the voyage. Need to hurry up! So, let’s skip ahead a bit and hit the Gauchos….
Earliest Animals
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 A Much Earlier Start for Animals Where did all the animals come from? … The problem with the earliest animals, from a paleontologist’s perspective, is that they lacked hard parts. … The answer lies in the unique molecules they left behind…. one such molecule [c]alled 24-IPC, … is only produced by Demospongiae, a class of…
Darwin South of the Tropics
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 Eventually, the Beagle headed south to the area of Uruguay and Argentina, still on the Atlantic Coast, where extensive mapping of the coastal waters was required.
A very interesting new blog …
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 … has emerged on the blogosphere. Anna’s Bones is about bones, evolution, and everything in between. Which I guess means cartilage. She started out as a Social Anthropologists but then she go’ bettah. And she’s a godless liberal. Check out Anna’s Bones.
Texas Teacher suspended for being “Liberal” and an “atheist”
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 For the past few days I have been in contact with Mr. Richard Mullens a school teacher in Brookeland Tx. Brookeland Tx, is an incredibly “Conservative” area of Texas, and only 16 miles up the road from Jasper Tx. the scene of several incidents of racial violence and murder. Mullens has been the victim of…
Blogospherics: Cool Science
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 How diversity creates itself – cascades of new species among flies and parasitic wasps at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Dave has: Australian wildfires and risks of increased erosion rates Personalized Genetics: Too Soon, Too Little? from Laika’s MedLibLog Giant killer lungfish from Hell at Laelaps. Sexual Siblings: Socio-Ecological Reproductive Strategy from Ecographica
Crazy Baby Breeder Lady’s Mother Speaks Out
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 The mother of the woman who used a fertility doctor to give birth to octuplets, despite already having six young children, called her daughter’s actions “unconscionable” in an interview posted online Sunday. details I’m not sure my hypothesis of a race effect has been fully falsified, but the alternative hypotheses of edginess due to the…
Fires in Australia: Hundreds Dead
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy We shall now have a moment of silence from the Global Warming Denialists. (By the way, did you notice? No praying or exortations to a creator or savior during this report. That was nice.)
Bugs (Darwin)
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 When reading the Voyage, it is impossible to miss the observation that much of the time Darwin was engaged in adolescent boy behavior: Pulling the heads off insects, noting how long they would wiggle after cut in half, closely examining the ooze and guts, occupied much of his time. Obviously, careful observation and a strong…
Fact vs. Theory
Posted by Greg Laden on February 9, 2009 Genie Scott’s new edition of Evolution vs. Creationism is especially useful for people in the trenches in this so called ‘debate’ because Scott manages to touch on virtually every point of argument you will run into if you are, say, a life science teacher. For instance, the role of ‘theory’ vs. ‘fact’ and ‘hypothesis’ and…
, which is now available for the 
