Category Archives: Evolution
DAWKINS ON HAMILTON
BBC Radio 4 has a series called “Great Lives”. The latest episode focused on the man who was probably the greatest evolutionary biologist in the second half of the 20th century, Bill Hamilton. His scientific papers are rather difficult to … Continue reading
NEW FOSSIL – 1
November 2007 New ape fossil from around 10 million years ago, a close relative of the last common ancestor of humans, gorillas and chimps. BBC summary.
BIG INSECTS
November 2007 One of the main theories that explains the existence of large arthropods in previous epochs is the fact that oxygen levels were sometimes much higher, allowing organisms which depend on passive diffusion, like insects, to grow larger. (This was a key … Continue reading
WHY EVOLUTION IS RIGHT AND CREATIONISM IS WRONG
November 2007 Watch Professor Steve Jones giving his lecture on this subject at the Royal Society. Required viewing. Search for “Steve Jones” in the panel on the right. You can see the slides in the big panel on the left. The video … Continue reading
Filed under Creationism, Evolution, Videos
ROBUST EVOLUTIONIST BLOGGING
October 2007 P Z Myers (University of Minnesota) has a long-standing blog in which he writes – often very amusingly – about evolution, the struggle against creationism and all things scientific. Well worth regular browsing!
Filed under Evolution
NEMATODES IN SNAILS
October 2007 Slightly cheesy US video about the amazing effects of nematode infestation on snail behaviour and its role in the nematode life-cycle. But the close-ups of the snail are pretty cool.
CICHLID SPECIATION
October 2007 My favourite display at Blue Planet Aquarium is of the Cichlids (pronounced SICK-lids) from East Africa. They were looking a bit sad this year. There’s an excellent “Primer” article from Current Biology (open access) about them and the way they are speciating.
Filed under Evolution, Fish, Quick Guides
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PEPPERED MOTH
October 2007 You all probably learnt about the peppered moth (Biston betularia) being an example of evolution by natural selection. The melanic (dark) form increased in frequency with the industrial revolution. A few years ago, doubts were cast on some of the experiments, … Continue reading
THE ENGLISH MONKEY
September 2007 The ouakari lives in the Ogapo jungle in the Amazon and looks like this. For some reason the locals call it “The English Monkey”. Obvious question: why do they look like that? How could you test your hypothesis?
MYSTERIOUS ULTRA-CONSERVED DNA
September 2007 There are huge tracts (some up to 730 bp long) of the *non-coding* mammalian genome that are ultra-conserved over 80 million years, without a single base-pair change. We share these sequences with rats, cats and apes. When these were discovered in … Continue reading
