Evolution

Intelligent Software Design Vs Evolution

Do our genomes look designed? Let's address this point, hoisted from the comments of this post: Actually, shared genetics between chimps and humans is agnostic with respect to evolution or "intelligent design". In software engineering, you o ...

Article - Michael White - Jul 14 2009 - 12:10pm

Caught In The Act? Two Bird Populations Undergoing Speciation

Speciation, where different populations of the same species split into separate species, is central to understanding evolution. As would be expected in a complex process like evolution, it's difficult to observe in action.  A new study in American Na ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 15 2009 - 2:37pm

Elite Athletes Are Getting Bigger

It's not a secret to you if you have watched football for the last 40 years;  a guy once almost big enough to be a linebacker can't even be a safety today.   Elite athletes are getting bigger. Specifically, while the average human has gained abou ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 17 2009 - 9:53am

The Indiana Jones Method Of Science

Science is occasionally a life-threatening career choice, particularly for those scientists who risk shipwreck, starvation, disease, and large, arctic carnivores to unlock the mysteries of the life's past. Sean Carroll, in Remarkable Creatures, looks ...

Article - Michael White - Jul 18 2009 - 2:49pm

Partial Penetrance- How Evolutionary 'Leaps' Might Have Happened

How evolution can bridge the gap between two discrete physiological states is a question that puzzles biologists and therefore delights critics. Most evolutionary changes happen in tiny increments; an elephant grows a little larger, a giraffe's neck ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 20 2009 - 2:50pm

Dog Breed Matters If You Want To Communicate

Researchers who make generalizations about the effects of domestication and dog-wolf differences in the utilization of human visual signals, take note; a new study says dog breeds selected to work in visual contact with humans, such as sheep dogs and gun d ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 23 2009 - 11:43pm

Memes, Selfish Genes And Darwinian Paranoia

I’m reviewing a book by philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith entitled “ Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection.” (This is not the book review, forthcoming.) Godfrey-Smith makes an excellent argument at some point in the book (chapter 7, on the ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Jul 26 2009 - 10:01pm

In Evolution, Extinct Relatives Mean Your Chances Are Not Looking Too Good Either

It doesn't take a catastrophe to end entire lineages. (Well, for the dinosaurs it did.) But an analysis of 200 million years of history for marine clams found that vulnerability to extinction runs in evolutionary families, even when the losses result ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 6 2009 - 4:15pm

The Evolution Of Death-Defying Garter Snakes

Garter snakes like to eat newts. Newts don't like to be eaten, and to deter snakes from eating them, they have evolved a seriously lethal neurotoxin. This toxin, called tetrodotoxin (TTX), is chemically similar to that found in pufferfish, and a few m ...

Article - Michael White - Aug 14 2009 - 9:31am

Hamilton's Rule- Again

Not only is Hamilton's Rule not a rule, it isn't even a strong suggestion.  The relationship c < rb (1), doesn't begin to qualify as a meaningful description of anything. The first problem one encounters is that all the variables are hig ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Aug 19 2009 - 3:58pm