Evolution

Darwinism And Mating- The Evolution Of Sexual Selection

Almost 140 years ago, Charles Darwin formalized what many people already believed- mate selection isn't pure chance;  it's a deliberate process that  involves numerous factors, including biological ones. Darwin scored a scientific bullseye but a ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 15 2009 - 5:18pm

PNAS has a Darwin Extravaganza

Now online, PNAS has a special evolution issue, based on a talks given at a conference, with pieces by Daniel Dennett, Francisco J. Ayala, Michael Ruse, Elliot Sober, and more. Some of the titles: "Darwin and the scientific method" "Natural ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Jun 16 2009 - 4:58pm

Life's Beginning: Cycling To Complexity

There must have been an abundant source of free energy on the early Earth that could produce the polymers required for natural experiments leading to the origin of life. What was it? ...

Article - Dave Deamer - Jun 17 2009 - 11:23am

Fossil Vs DNA Smackdown- 'Dental Hominoids' And How Humans Are Closer To Orangutans Than Chimps

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the Buffalo Museum of Science say we've been making a mistake using DNA to contend that humans are most closely related to chimpanzees.  The fossil record says otherwise, they report in the Journal of ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 18 2009 - 11:16am

Fossils Don't Beat DNA

I have a hard time believing this is for real: ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Jun 18 2009 - 1:34pm

A Fossil More Amazing than Ida

More incredible finds from the Messel Pit: "These 49 million-year-old freshwater turtle fossils are believed to have died of poisoning during copulation." (Photograph: Jonathan Blair/Corbis, published at The Guardian Online.) ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Jun 18 2009 - 3:21pm

Copy Number Variation Could Explain Evolutionary Shifts- Study

Rearrangements in genomes, genes and exons can result from a glitch in DNA copying that occurs when the process stalls at a critical point and then shifts to a different genetic template, duplicating and even triplicating genes or just shuffling or deletin ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 24 2009 - 2:00am

How the KT Event and Dinosaur Extinction Shaped Your Genome

A new journal is out- Genome Biology and Evolution. To my surprise, it actually looks quite good, with high-quality pieces. I generally don't see many new journals I like, but this one fills a needed niche. A lot of genome papers bear on evolution, bu ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Jun 23 2009 - 11:42am

Compartments And Cycles: Testing An Origin Of Life Hypothesis

    Part of the enjoyment of doing research is that ideas pop into your head all the time. Everyone has ideas, but the hard part is to choose which should be subjected to critical tests that have the primary aim of proving them wrong. That’s the most effi ...

Article - Dave Deamer - Jun 28 2009 - 11:25pm

Is This Your Brain On Evolution?

David Brooks takes on evolutionary psychology and gets it sort of right: The first problem is that far from being preprogrammed with a series of hardwired mental modules, as the E.P. types assert, our brains are fluid and plastic. We’re learning that evolu ...

Article - Michael White - Jun 26 2009 - 12:39pm