Evolution

The journal Evolution: Education and Outreach has a great piece on the evolution of whales, complete with pictures. As the piece says, "cetacean origin is one of the best known examples of macroevolution documented in the fossil record." The auth ...

Blog Post - Michael White - May 12 2009 - 6:00pm

Lewontin on Darwin Celebration

Richard Lewontin has a piece well worth reading in the New York Review of Books: There are, however, occasions on which there are orgies of idolatrous celebrations of the lives of famous men, when the Suetonian ideal of history as biography overwhelms us. ...

Blog Post - Michael White - May 13 2009 - 4:22pm

Volcanic Chemistry And Hydrocarbons In Early Earth History

Last week I described how John Oro discovered that five hydrogen cyanide molecules (HCN) could react to produce adenine (H 5 C 5 N 5) one of the primary components of nucleic acids. ...

Article - Dave Deamer - May 14 2009 - 3:16pm

Selfish Gene Theory: It's Time To Ditch The Mantra

David Sloan Wilson is doing a great job in his blog at The Huffington Post, exposing the contradictions that lie at the heart of selfish gene theory. He’s run a series of articles under the umbrella title of Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection, si ...

Article - Steve Davis - May 23 2009 - 10:33am

Biological Meaning of Selfishness, Cooperation, and Altruism – Part 1

It appears that there is still a bit of a controversy and disconnect between the ideas in evolution relating to selfishness, cooperation, and altruism. In this series of articles, it is my intent to explore each of these ideas and demonstrate how they may ...

Blog Post - Gerhard Adam - May 18 2009 - 1:54pm

Nocturnal Owl Monkey Teaches Us Some Things About Primate Eye Evolution

Researchers comparing the fetal development of owl monkey eyes with those of the capuchin monkey have found that only a minor difference in the timing of cell proliferation can explain the multiple anatomical differences in the two kinds of eyes. The find ...

Article - News Staff - May 18 2009 - 5:05pm

Biological Meaning Of Selfishness, Cooperation, And Altruism – Part 2

In the previous post we introduced the idea that indifference was the primary action at work at the biochemical and cellular levels. At this level, it would be hard to express any survival strategy beyond probabilistic, since reproduction is asexual with t ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - May 31 2009 - 3:24pm

Missing Link? Darwinius Masillae Transitional Fossil Has Human-Like Nails And Opposable Big Toes

It's always best not to go overboard but the discovery of Darwinius masillae is pretty darn exciting, because it represents the most complete fossil primate ever found; the skeleton, soft body outline and even the stomach contents. It is phylogenet ...

Article - News Staff - May 20 2009 - 10:07pm

The Not-So-Secret Advantage Of Being Short

Is there an advantage to being short? I think so, but I'm biased, being what the French call quite "petite." Good things come in small packages, I say. But now at least one person with a presumably solid foundation in science backs me up. So ...

Article - Becky Jungbauer - May 20 2009 - 5:24pm

Stirring The Volcanic Pot For A Hydrothermal Origin Of Life

In 1988, Günter Wächtershäuser published a remarkable idea that excited tremendous interest, even being featured in a Scientific American article. It ran counter to prevailing ideas about the origin of life, and suggested new experimental approaches invol ...

Article - Dave Deamer - May 21 2009 - 2:10pm