Museums & DNA

Olivia Judson has an interesting column up, Dawn at the Museum. Worth checking out since it talks about DNA extraction from specimens long deceased.

More like this

If you're following the ongoing discussion Tim Sandefur and I are having on whether or not the federal government should fund science at all, there's a new article you should really go read.  Stanford Professor Steve Quake has a guest column up at Olivia Judson's blog that talks about the way we…
A hopeful monster is a mutant born with a genetically determined and large novel trait (compared to its parents) which confers enhanced fitness on that individual. This enhanced fitness increases the likelihood that the new mutant gene that determines this trait will be passed on and spread…
Linepithema flavescens, last seen in 1934 Linepithema flavescens, a small yellow ant from Haiti, is one of the species I re-described as part of my Ph.D. dissertation.  All we know about this ant, apart from the brief notes on the specimen labels, is the external appearance of a few workers. …
Olivia Judson's piece The Selfless Gene in The Atlantic is a pretty good survey of the various theories of the evolution of altruism. If you read Narrow Roads of Gene Land or Natural Selection and Social Theory, nothing new, but if you aren't familiar with the lay of the land it's worth checking…