evolgen | September 6, 2006A lot of people at ScienceBlogs and around the blogosphere have been chattering about the death of Steve "Croc Hunter" Irwin, but here at evolgen we know who the real killer was:
We're on the ball like the Boulder District Attorney's Office. Now, we're off to arrest Kevin Vranes for sexually harassing the football team. They lost to Montana State, Kevin. Montana State!
evolgen | September 6, 2006ABC News has an article by mathematician John Allen Paulos on how creationists misuse probability in their anti-science arguments. This article is inspired by the Science article on public acceptance of evolution. I especially like how he distinguishes between a priori and a posteri probabilities:
Now if we shuffle this deck of cards for a long time and then examine the particular ordering of the cards that happens to result, we would be justified in concluding that the probability of this particular ordering of the cards having occurred is approximately 1 chance in 10 to the 68th power. This…
evolgen | September 5, 2006As I was working on my computer (in my office) this afternoon, a small critter was flying around my head. Based on my current location (in a building housing at least 3 Drosophila labs) and my previous whereabouts (our lab's fly room), I surmised that this was most likely a member of genus Drosophila. My suspicions were confirmed when, at 7:45pm (about 3 hours after I first noticed the pest), she (I think it was a she from the quick glance I got) landed on my computer monitor. Upon closer inspection (although not long enough to adequately surmise the sex) I noticed the fly was too lightly…
evolgen | September 5, 2006I got all excited when I read the following article title in the week's issue of PNAS:
Abnormal sex ratios in human populations: Causes and consequences
I hoped the authors would discuss meiotic drive and segregation distortion. It turns out they're concerned with son preference and sex-selective abortion. I guess stuff like this doesn't really interest them.
evolgen | September 5, 2006Razib pointed out this blog article on theory in biology. The author deals with three, self defined, points:
Unifying theory in biology.
Theory vs. experimental biology.
Justification through medical applications.
His first point, that biology (or a given biological discipline) lacks a unifying theory, is a bit silly and comes across as physics envy. But even physics doesn't have a unifying theory, with different models for small objects and large objects. In his second point, he argues that there is a rift between theoretical and experimental biologists. He is correct, there is a rift…
evolgen | September 4, 2006
Stew, of Flags and Lollipops and Postgenomic, is compiling a new statistic for his blog aggregator: the hotness of science bloggers. Head on over to Flags and Lollipops to vote for the hottest science bloggers.
I scrolled through for a bit and could not find a picture for evolgen. I'm not sure where the pictures come from, but Tim Lambert's deltoid looks like a thong and John Lynch is represented by a picture of Bert and Ernie. And this picture is freakin' awesome!
evolgen | September 4, 2006
Welcome to the fifth edition of Mendel's Garden -- the blog carnival devoted to all things genetical. In this edition, we have 17 articles from 14 blogs on biomedical research, evolutionary genetics, and molecular and cell biology. The entire collection can be found below the fold.
Biomedical Genetics
Ruth Schaffer at Eating Fabulous reviews how genetically engineered tomatoes may help fight human disease. Ruth also writes for The Biotech Weblog, where she has written a post on genetic markers that can be used to predict premature birth.
Hsien Hsien Lei, who blogs at Genetics and Health,…
evolgen | September 3, 2006In case you don't know why, check this out. Even Stephen thinks you better watch your back:
evolgen | September 1, 2006Bio::Blogs #3 has been posted at business|bytes|genes|molecules. Bio::Blogs is a blog carnival that deals with computational biology. Next month's edition will be hosted by Sandy. If you write something about computational biology this month, send a link to her.
evolgen | September 1, 2006I'm slowly turning into a cyclist. I currently own three bikes, but that number may change when I buy the fixed gear I've been longing for. I bought a mountain bike a couple of years ago for commuting to and from campus. It's a little over a mile from my front door to my building, but I lost the patience required to walk that distance and driving was out of the question. I was now riding a bike regularly for the first time since the eighth grade. Last summer I picked up a used Cannondale CAD3 road bike from a guy who had only ridden it indoors on a trainer. The bike was in near mint condition…
evolgen | September 1, 2006Reminder: Today is the last day to submit a post for the upcoming edition of Mendel's Garden. Either email me (evolgen [at] yahoo [dot] com) or use the Blog Carnival submission page.
evolgen | August 29, 2006The Panda's Thumb is compiling a chapter by chapter rebuttal of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. This book is part of a series of shoddy academic endeavors that includes The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History; they could remove the word "politically" from the cover and capture a more accurate representation of the contents within. PZ Myers has posted his reply to the chapter on embryology here, and he points out:
"It really is a ghastly, badly done book, and unfortunately, while it only takes one dishonest fool to spin a lie, it takes a whole…
evolgen | August 28, 2006
This is a reminder that I will be hosting the fifth edition of Mendel's Garden. Mendel's Garden is a blog carnival devoted to genetics. If you have written a genetics related entry on your blog and would like it to be included in the carnival, either email me (evolgen [at] yahoo [dot] com) or use the Blog Carnival submission page. You may submit entries relating to quantitative genetics, molecular genetics, evolutionary genetics, developmental genetics, or anything else genetical in nature. The deadline for submission is this Friday (September 1).
evolgen | August 25, 2006As a fledgling scientist, I am not privy to the process of grant view. It may as well occur behind a green curtain, and all I get to see is the hologram of the intimidating wizard in the form of an email announcing that I did or did not get the tiny morsel of cash I so politely requested (sorry for the bad Wizard of Oz metaphor). But real people review those grants, and those real people have personalities. Some are surly and dominant. Others are polite and passive. In fact, we can draw parallels between reviewers and American Idol panelists, as this Correspondence to Cell cleverly does:
A…
evolgen | August 25, 2006Last week's Phylogeny Friday introduced the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. The bacteria and archaea are commonly referred to as prokaryotes, although that creates a paraphyletic taxon. Today, we will focus on the eukaryotes (organisms with nuclei and organelles). This taxon contains plants, animals, fungi, and a bunch of other lineage with which you are probably not familiar. Recently, a group of Canadian researchers reviewed our current understanding of the evolutionary relationships of the eukaryotes, creating the following phylogeny.
The eukaryotes can be…
evolgen | August 24, 2006A couple of people are talking about this Wall Street Journal article which claims that Republicans are popping out more babies that Democrats, and this disparity will lead to an relative increase in the frequency of Republicans. It's been pointed out that the statistics and logic behind this argument are flawed, and the math in the article is atrocious.
Depending on your political persuasion, the outcome suggested in the article may be viewed as a good thing or a bad thing. Regardless of the political direction you'd like to see our country take, however, I think we can all agree that we'd…
evolgen | August 24, 2006The Chronicle of Higher Education reported earlier this week that the U.S. Department of Education neglected to include "Evolutionary Biology" in it's list of eligible majors for the new Smart Grant program (the NYTimes and New Scientist also report on this, as does the NCSE). This drew extra attention because the omission left a blank space where the option had been removed. Blank spaces were also created when they eliminated the "Exercise Physiology" and "Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Technology" majors from the list. This leads one to believe the Department of Education…
evolgen | August 24, 2006In last week's edition of Phylogeny Fridays, I mentioned an essay that argued that biologists should refrain from using the term "prokaryote" because its definition is entirely negative. The author, Norman Pace, writes, "no one can define what is a prokaryote, only what it is not." Furthermore, I pointed out that prokaryotes are a paraphyletic taxon (a statement that drew some criticism in the comments), and that alone should lead to the disuse of the term.
In a letter to Nature, Bill Martin and Eugene Koonin point out that there is a positive definition of prokaryotes:
Prokaryotes are cells…
evolgen | August 24, 2006Jim Crow has published a perspective in Genetics on his favorite reviewers from 1952-1956 when he was associate editor of the journal. He prefaces it by writing:
As far as I can ascertain, the editorial correspondence from that period is lost, so I am writing this from memory. Naturally, my recollections of events half a century ago are fallible, but I think I remember the essence. The identity of reviewers was confidential, so some of what follows is a breach of that confidence. I do not know whether there is a statute of limitations, but it seems reasonable that after half a century some…
evolgen | August 23, 2006To be filed under: "Every dude who's gone swimming in a cold pool in the Hamptons could have told you that."
Polar bear genitals are shrinking:
The icecap may not be the only thing shrinking in the Arctic. The genitals of polar bears in east Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants.
Scientists report this shrinkage could, in the worst case scenario, endanger polar bears there and elsewhere by spoiling their love lives and causing their numbers to peter out.
Is it possible that the shrinkage could be due to the fact that they live in the arctic? You know, where…