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evolgen | December 20, 2006It's evolgen. E-V-O-L-G-E-N. Think "evil jen".
One thing our blog is not is "evolvgen". Notice the extra "v". We do, and we don't like it. You may like calendars with nekkid people or studying some insignificant primate. But, whatever you fancy, whatever floats your boat, whatever tickles your noodly appendage, please leave off the second V.
We've been known to change our name in the past. Don't make us do it again.
evolgen | December 12, 2006My call for ecology blogs went better than expected. I expected next to nothing, but I got more than nothing -- at least enough to consider it further away from nothing than next to it. Anyhow, I have compiled a list of blogs below the fold. They are grouped into those that deal with the science of ecology and those that deal with conservation, environmentalism, bird watching, etc. Some of the blogs were on the boarder between science and other, and I can't give a great explanation for how I decided where to put them. The order is somewhat arbitrary; it's the order in which I put toghether…
evolgen | December 9, 2006There are certain scientific disciplines that are well represented in the blogosphere. Bioinformatics comes to mind. As does physics. But these are computer savvy people who probably spend quite a bit of time hooked up to the interwebs. How about scientists that need to get their hands dirty? Like ecologists.
Does anyone know of any good blogs by ecologists about ecology? Not conservation or environmentalism, but ecology. Like population dynamics, landscapes, nutrient cycling, predator-prey interaction. I've got a couple in mind, but I want to hear your suggestions.
And if you're an ecology…
evolgen | November 28, 2006Everyone's jumping on this meme, but I'm not gonna do it. Ooops . . . Looks like I just did it. Anyway, blogging's been light recently. Hopefully I can get my act together and have some posts up later this week. And by "get my act together" I mean procrastinate from doing real work by writing blog posts.
They're also all doing this meme. Turns out, I'm a "SoCal surfer". Makes sense -- I grew up a few blocks from the ocean. Of course, it could be worse. I could have grown up in Huntington Beach. Then I'd really sound like Spicoli.
What American accent do you have?Your Result: The West
Your…
evolgen | November 21, 2006Two years ago today (November 21, 2004 at 11:23 AM) I launched evolgen in its original incarnation. The first post, entitled "First Post", celebrated the occasion:
This is the first post to the evolgen blog. Not much to say other than there is more to come (hopefully).
The first evolutionary genetics post didn't happen until January 9, 2005. For two months evolgen existed in name only, plus four posts on topics ranging from restless legs syndrome to dinosaurs. I eventually got my act together, increased my posting frequency, submitted posts to blog carnivals (mostly Tangled Bank), and left…
evolgen | November 10, 2006I stole this picture from the front page of my university's student newspaper:
The Dog Fucker looks pissed. His wife is forcing a smile. And his daughter looks like she's about to cry. I feel bad for his daughter. Imagine growing up in a house where the biggest concern is that you don't fuck the pet dog. On top of that, her parents dress her in clothes to match her doll's outfit. That's just sick.
evolgen | October 17, 2006Ben wants a house band, but he doesn't think it should be Phish. I agree. Phish sucks. A good house band should accompany a night of drinking. Let's just say Phish is the appropriate accompaniment for a mind altering substance not called alcohol. So who should be the ScienceBlogs house band? As much as I would love to nominate Sonic Youth (and I did in our back channel), I'm gonna have to nominate someone else. To find out who, click through to below the fold.
The Weakerthans (Les Plusfaibleque)
They're Canadian, which means they know how to drink. What else is there to do in Canada…
evolgen | September 22, 2006Five nurses and one doctor have been imprisoned in a Libyan jail since 1999, accused of infecting more than 400 children with HIV. They were condemned to death in 2004, but the verdict was overturned. Their retrial is due to wrap up very soon, and they await their new sentencing. The problem: the scientific evidence indicates that the medics were not responsible for the infections, but the Libyan courts threw out that evidence. For more information, please read the news item in Nature as well as this editorial.
The blogosphere has been quite active in the cause to free the Tripoli six (the…
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 | August 22, 2006Mr. Thoughts from Kansas, Josh Rosenau, has joined the ScienceBlogs conglomerate operated by Seed Media Group. That gives us two blogs involved in thinking (Wilkins the philosopher has the other one), to go with our three evolution blogs (Evolution Blog, Evolving Thoughts, and evolgen). Josh is a graduate student, working on a PhD in Ecology and Evolution. By my count, we now how have six seven bloggers working on PhD's in the life sciences (Josh, Bora, Jake, Mike D, Shelley, Nick, and myself), along with two life sciences post docs (Alex and Evil Monkey), plus Wilkins who's a biologist by…
evolgen | August 18, 2006Nature Reviews Genetics has published a terrible review of genetics blogging. And it's not just because they don't link to yours truly. The author links to Alex and Paul Zed, which means she knows about the ScienceBlogs empire network. I guess she didn't poke around long enough to find evolgen or Gene Expression. Maybe she saw them and wasn't sure if they were genetics blogs; it's not like the names give them away.
The article sucks for the most part because it's an exercise in shoddy research. The author attributes Mendel's Garden to Hsien-Hsien Lei. Hsien hosted the second edition, but the…
evolgen | August 12, 2006Yeah, I know it's been over a week since my last post. I don't need you to remind me. I've been busy reading really bad writing grading lab reports. I can't write for shit, so if I think your writing sucks, you've gotta be a really bad writer, and you need to learn how to write . . . really kick ass run on sentences. Thankfully I'm done with my teaching/grading responsibilities for the year. That means more time for research. And blogging. Real science posts will begin appearing on Sunday and continue through the rest of the week. If anyone out there cares.
evolgen | July 16, 2006Here is some light reading for your Sunday:
Mosquitoes sing to each other by flapping their wings. This paper reports sexually dimorphic responses to wing beat patterns in mosquitoes (PZ Myers has a good review). This leads me to wonder whether we can study intra- and inter-specific differences in flight behavior and response, which then gets me wondering whether we can find QTLs responsible for these differences. And (this should come as no surprise to those who know me) I also wonder whether these QTLs will map to within inversions for sympatric species pairs more so that allopatric…
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 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 | 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 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 16, 2006Phylogeny Friday will take a hiatus for an undetermined length of time. Don't worry, it will be back. I just need to focus on other things besides digging through the literature for trees.