The Smithsonian Magazine (one of the highest quality science magazines out there) has
some great pictures of various hominins by sculptor John Gurche.
Go take a look at the past 4 million years of human evolution, from Australopithecus afarensis to Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, and Hobbits.
Hat tip to
John Hawks.Read the feed:
Do scientists hate scientists who talk to the public?
From an
old piece by Jared Diamond:
Do boys and girls learn differently? Differently enough to justify sex-segregated classes and schools?
The ACLU says no and is
involved in a case in Louisiana:
I seem to have developed a reputation for hating networks, but really, it's just tough love. Complex, adaptive, self-organizing networks are fascinating (and inspired the title of this blog), and they deserve a rigorous scientific treatment. Decentralized control mechanisms are incredible, and, although they're all around us, they go completely against our instincts for good, hierarchical design for control systems. How does a cell adapt to environmental signals, in the absence of a brain or CPU? And how do we make our own, human-built networks as self-adaptive and robust as biological ones? In other words (for those of you who've endured lengthy lectures on the subject in physiology class), how do you effectively engineer homeostasis?
Check out the
Super Star Edition at Mauka to Makai, which, this month, is almost as exciting as watching Shaun White and Apolo Ohno.
There are a bunch of posts commemorating Darwin's birthday, which note his obsession with Barnacles, his efforts to decide between getting married and getting a dog, and how he was lampooned by Victorian cartoonists.
Read about shark evolution, smart crows, Archbishop Desmond Tutu's genome, teaching evolution and more. With each issue of the Carnival of Evolution, I discover great blogs I've missed or forgotten about. Go check it out.
Read the feed:
Melville on Science vs. Creation Myth
Non-coding DNA Function... Surprising?
Yep, This Should Get You Fired
No, There Are No Alien Bar Codes In Our Genomes
