Evolution

Hips Don't Lie: What Neil Shubin And Shakira Know In Common

The evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought, according to a new paper. Tetrapods, four-legged animals, first came to land about 395 million years ago- ...

Article - News Staff - May 20 2013 - 10:30am

Giant Leap Surplus To Requirements Say Evolution Scientists

Giant Leap Surplus To Requirements Say Evolution Scientists I must confess that to the best of my knowledge, no scientist used those precise words.  However, the research does indicate that what was previously thought to be a large change is the result of ...

Blog Post - Patrick Lockerby - May 15 2013 - 10:00am

The Power Of Evolutionary Theory

As has been mentioned in other articles, evolution is one of the more misunderstood theories ‌in biology.  This isn't because it is complicated.  Its beauty derives from its simplicity, but often the nuances that are overlooked.   We hear about " ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - May 23 2013 - 1:05pm

It's Stromatolites Versus Foraminifera, With The Fate Of Earth At Stake

Stromatolites, "layered rocks", are structures made of calcium carbonate and shaped by the actions of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and other microbes that trapped and bound grains of coastal sediment into fine layers. They showed up in great abu ...

Article - News Staff - May 28 2013 - 5:11pm

Genome Reduction In Bladderworts Vs. Leg Loss In Snakes

In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention. ...

Article - T. Ryan Gregory - Jun 6 2013 - 6:00am

Bmp4: Why The Embryonic Chicken Penis Stops Growing

In animals that reproduce by internal fertilization, as humans do, the penis is invaluable, from an evolutionary point of view.  Yet birds have evolved to not need them. Developmentally speaking, birds' penises have gone. Land fowl, which have only r ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 6 2013 - 12:36pm

GMOs Vs. Pests: Results From The First Billion Acres

Since 1996, farmers across the world have planted more than a billion acres of genetically modified corn and cotton that produce insecticidal proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, called Bt for short.  Bt proteins, used for decades in s ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 11 2013 - 10:03pm

Biological Costs

In several posts the question of biological costs is invariably mentioned in discussing evolution.  These costs are normally of the metabolic or fitness type.  Metabolic costs are associated with the existence of a particular trait and the energy necessary ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Jun 25 2013 - 8:00pm

Red Queen Hypothesis Right: Species Are Not In Equilibrium But 'Run To Keep In Place'

The Red Queen hypothesis, a popular idea in evolution named after Lewis Carroll's character who in "Through the Looking Glass" described her country as a place where "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place" ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 20 2013 - 9:06pm

The Robotic Mind

As I was reading the comment section to “Our Anthropomorphic  Bias” I was struck by the persistence shown by Sascha Vongehr in referring to humans as robots in 4 of the 5 comments he made in a discussion with Gerhard Adam. A couple of days later the puzzl ...

Blog Post - Steve Davis - Jul 9 2013 - 2:35pm