A while ago I had a longish phone interview with the website Random Rationality, which they transcribed and put up a few days ago. It’s mostly about evolution, but covers other stuff too. You’ll learn, for instance, what time of day I wrote on this site, (I have a “strict regiment,” one of several transcription […]
“Crypsis,” as you should all know by now, is just a fancy scientific word for “camouflage.” Often cryptic animals will hide from predators by mimicking their background, but here’s a case in which one part of an animal mimics the other. Have a look first and see if you can figure out what’s going on. […]
One goal of the young science of “Darwinian medicine” is to understand how infectious microorganisms might actually manipulate the host’s behavior to facilitate the microorganisms’ own transmission. This is nothing new to evolutionists—we have several examples of larger parasites, like flukeworms or fungi, making their hosts behave in a way that helps the parasite complete […]
You can never predict what slant a science reporter will produce after interviewing you for a piece—especially a piece on evolution. The truth of evolution, and the solidity of the modern “neo-Darwinian” version, is old news, and reporters are always looking for some new “hook” to sell their stories. What better hook can there be […]
From xkcd, true facts about birds: Even better: cats prey on dinosaurs! h/t: Michael, Marella, Chris
by Greg Mayer UPDATE: Bill Bailey’s Wallace programs are available on Youtube here and here (thanks to Alex and ant for the links); and George Beccaloni has stopped by in the comments to let us know that there is a campaign to buy Wallace’s house for use as a heritage and study center– so now […]
One of the most prominent results of evolutionary psychology research is “the Cinderella Effect,” made famous by the work of Margo Wilson and Martin Daly (you can find one of their summary papers here). Although I don’t pretend to be an expert on the extensive literature on this phenomenon, it’s pretty much what the name […]
The journal Evolution and Education Outreach is a valuable resource to anyone interested in or teaching evolution. Fortunately, it’s just been made an open-access journal, so anyone can read it free online (link is here). While perusing the articles, I found one that I thought was really good for not only teaching students about macroevolution, […]
by Greg Mayer Coelacanths are one of the three surviving groups of sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fishes, and along with lungfish, one of the two groups that have remained fish in the vernacular sense (we tetrapods, the third surviving group, have of course become legged). The coelacanths also have a tremendous back story: known in the fossil […]
UPDATE: The deadline for entries, as I’m travelling today, will be midnight tonight (i.e., Friday night) Chicago time. _________ The Scientific American ”Brainwaves” site has a group of really funny letters (written by Mara Graunbaum and Ferris Jabr) called “Dear evolution: letters of gripe and gratitude”. In most of them, animals write to evolution to carp […]
