evolgen | July 10, 2006I've missed the last two Ask A ScienceBlogger questions. My lack of answers were due to a combination of being busy and apathy toward the questions -- more busy with the science education question and apathy for the science policy question. But this week's question is on cloning, so I kind of feel obligate to post a response (being a genetics blog and all) despite not really being interested in the topic. So, they're asking us:
On July 5, 1996, Dolly the sheep became the first successfully cloned mammal. Ten years on, has cloning developed the way you expected it to?
Ten years ago, I was in…
evolgen | July 6, 2006Hsien Lei is continuing her interview series at Genetics and Health. Interview #6 is with Psychologist Deborah Serani. When asked how genetics figured into her education, Dr. Serani replied:
My family was very science-based given that my dad was a Chiropractor.
I have a hard time following her logic. You'd think being "science-based" would steer someone away from quackery, or being a fake doctor would push someone from science.
evolgen | July 6, 2006The Nature Genetics blog, Free Association, links to evolgen (at the old URL -- update your links dudes). We've pointed this out before. It's nothing new. Now Nature, the big dog of science publishers, is ranking science blogs. Here is the story. Pee Zed is numero uno (big surprise), but the entire list is heavy with ScienceBlogs blogs. Blogs. Sorry, had to throw that third "blogs" in there. It's called being clever. We're still getting the hang of it.
(Via Nature Newsblog.)
evolgen | July 5, 2006France's diminutive goalkeeper Fabien Barthez and Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford:
evolgen | July 3, 2006Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is one of the most used markers in molecular ecology1. A good molecular marker for population level studies should be neutral, so that researchers can use it to infer things like:
Population size and changes in population size (expansions and bottlenecks);
Population structure;
And phylogeographic relationships.
A recent meta-analysis of mtDNA polymorphism revealed that there is no relationship between levels of diversity and population size. The authors of that study explain the lack of a relationship on recurrent selection on mtDNA genes, which affects the entire…
evolgen | July 3, 2006Thank you to everyone who donated to the evolgen Donors Choose Blogger's Challenge. We have reached our goal of $500, which means Donors Choose will chip in an extra 10% for every dollar contributed. Everyone who forwarded their confirmation email to this address will be entered in a drawing to win some great prizes. There still are ten unfunded projects listed on the evolgen challenge page, so I will keep the challenge up for an undetermined period of time. Go here to donate to those unfunded proposals.
Finally, I would like to extend a big THANK YOU to Janet for organizing this fund raising…
evolgen | July 2, 2006Imagine being both a science dork and computer nerd. We call those people bioinformaticians and beg them to debug our pitiful little programs for us. If we're lucky, one of them has already written a program that performs the exact data analysis that we need. That saves us feeble bad programmers much time and keeps our frustration at a minimum. Alas, they rarely write a program that does exactly what we need, so we often need to figure out how to manipulate their code to do what we want.
Some bioinformaticians have gotten together and started a blog carnival (who does that?) and named it Bio…
evolgen | July 2, 2006The second edition of Mendel's Garden has been posted at Genetics and Health. Go get your genetics on.
evolgen | June 29, 2006The ScienceBlogs Donor's Choose Blogger Challenge is nearing completion. You have until July 1 to donate to the evolgen challenge and forward your confirmation email to this address if you want to win any of the awesome prizes.
If we reach our goal of $500, Donors Choose will kick in an extra 10% for every dollar contributed -- we're 42% of the way to our goal. Let's see if we can make a big push in these last few days. Janet has compiled a list of blogs that are close to their goals, but she left evolgen off the list. We're just as close (if not closer than those other guys), so you should…
evolgen | June 29, 2006They showed us the movie Flock of Dodos at the Evolution Meeting. Randy Olson (the director) was also there to field questions. So was Eugenie Scott. Someone asked about scientists boycotting the Kansas Kangaroo Court. Olson thought it was a bad idea because it made it look like the scientists couldn't deal with the "criticisms of evolution". Scott defended the boycott by arguing that because the school board's decision was predecided, scientists would have only legitimized Connie Morris and her posse of ignorance. In case you care, I agree with Genie.
I think Flock of Dodos is a movie worth…
evolgen | June 28, 2006I got back from the Evolution Meeting late last night. The first thing on my docket was clearing flies so I could collect virgins this morning. The rest of this week will be spent getting myself back up to speed. I had some fruitful discussions at the meeting, attended some interesting talks, and met some cool people. I even got to talk to a couple other ScienceBloggers (Mike and Carl). Also the Kitzmiller session was quite good -- and an excellent respite from the heavy science stuff in all the other session. If your brain's been working hard thinking about science, creationism is the best…
evolgen | June 26, 2006I said, "You probably won't see any new posts until later next week." Well, today is later this week than yesterday. Also, this post hardly counts as anything new. As you will see, it's a link to all the evolgen content you should have already read. If you haven't, read it. It's good. We like it, that's why we link to it.
When some blogs go on vacation, they repost old content from the archives. At evolgen, there are not archives, only Zuul. Actually, there are archives, and you can find them here. But those are just archives of posts that have been posted since we moved to Los Bloggos de…
evolgen | June 25, 2006Blogging's been light recently. I spent the last week frantically preparing my talk for the Evolution Meeting. I was analyzing data until late Thursday evening. Then, I still needed to finish putting together my talk. We spent Friday driving to the meeting, and I gave my talk yesterday morning (Saturday). It went well -- I got a packed (albeit, small) room and had enough time for two questions (one coming from a guy whose research I deeply admire).
You probably won't see any new posts until later next week. I'll be spending my time listening to other people talk about their research and…
evolgen | June 22, 2006
Hsien Lei will be hosting the second edition of Mendel's Garden at Genetics and Health. Submission information is available here.
evolgen | June 20, 2006In case you forgot, the evolgen DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge is still going on. My great readers have donated $135 towards public science education (as of 8:00am on June 20). That's 27% of the way towards our goal of $500. There are still many proposals left to be funded, and I don't think anyone would complain if we surpass our goal. You have until July 1 to contribute to the ScienceBlogs Blogger Challenge if you would like to be entered in the contest to win great prizes.
Click here to contribute. Any size contribution would be greatly appreciated by the students and teachers involved.
evolgen | June 20, 2006Two months ago, I wrote about Teri Markow resigning as President of the Society for the Study of Evolution in protest of the appointment of the new Editor in Chief. Long story short, Markow was unhappy that women were not considered for the editorship of the Society's journal, Evolution. Don Waller, the current president of the Society, and Sally Otto, Vice-president and Associate Editor of Evolution, have both published letters to Nature (available here and here) in which they take issue with the journal's coverage of Markow's resignation. Waller points out that the Society actively…
evolgen | June 19, 2006Humans have been genetically engineering agricultural crops ever since plants were domesticated. Notice the difference between maize and teosinte. Or how about what we have done to create modernwheat. By either imposing an artificial selection pressure on a few important loci (in the case of maize) or encouraging larger, polyploid individuals (wheat), we have been manipulating the genome of plants for a long, long time. More genetic manipulation of agriculture below the fold.
The difference between the genetic engineers of yore and those of today are the tools at their disposal. The molecular…
evolgen | June 19, 2006The Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity [sic] (aka, Doctors Doubting Darwin) are planning to Resolve the Conflict between Darwin and Design. Something tells me the conflict will not be resolved using rational discourse, but rather apologetics and obfuscation. I have reproduced a list of physicians and surgeons to avoid below the fold.
(Via Red State Rabble.)
This list is updated at least monthly and was last updated on June 15, 2006. Members are listed
alphabetically.
Name Medical Practice City and State
Dr. Katherine A. Anderegg Pathology Sullivan's Island, South Carolina
Dr.…
evolgen | June 18, 2006The first ever edition of Mendel's Garden, a blog carnival devoted to genetics, has been posted at The force that through... If you would like to contribute to the next edition, you can find information here.
evolgen | June 18, 2006Alan Packer at Free Association, the Nature Genetics blog, reports that Kossack Wesley Clark was once a fly pusher. During the Cold War (aka, before my time), gifted students were taught genetics in an accelerated course. They got to perform experiments using irradiated Drosophila melanogaster. As a stickler for details, I've got a couple errors to point out in the General's story:
And so, in the Federal Radiation Project, they talked to us and they taught us about genetics with the, the species was Drosophila melanogaster, which is the common fruit fly.
I feel like a broken record, but…