A recently published study has used microsatelite markers to discover that domesticated cats originated in the Middle East, a finding that reinforces earlier archeological research. The abstract reads: The diaspora of the modern cat was traced with microsatellite markers...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 10:55 PM • • 0 TrackBacks
Unlike Razib, my reading of Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory isn’t progressing. This is for a number of reasons but primary among them is a busy week service-wise coupled with other reading that must take priority if I’m going...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 10:23 PM • • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Mammals
This is a grey-faced sengi, Rhynchocyon udzungwensis, a new species of giant elephant shrew that has been described in the February issue of Journal of Zoology (Lond.) (on whose editorial board I sit). It's a 700g beastie, so it...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 2:06 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Just a brief notice that my ASU colleague Quentin Wheeler has named a species of whirligig beetle after Roy Orbison. Orectochilus orbisonorum, which resides in India "is unique among Indian Gyrinidae and Orectochilus lacordaire, in general, since the ventral surfaces...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 12:53 AM • • 0 TrackBacks
DESIGNING DARWIN - Prize competition Organized by the British Society for the History of Science Outreach & Education Committee The year 2009 sees both the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth (on 12th February) and the 150th birthday of his most...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 7:55 PM • • 0 TrackBacks
Apparently there are some questions you just can’t ask. The cdesign proponentsists maintain that the truth is being stifled by their not being allowed ask "difficult" questions of evolutionary biology. Yet we need to remember that supporters of intelligent design...
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 10:36 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Razib notes "I’m sure you know that Marx was a keen follower of Darwin’s theory." Eh, no. Not so much....
Read on »
Posted by John Lynch at 9:03 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks