“Man is ruled by gravitation, and rest on mother earth. A water-beetles finds the surface of a pool a matter of life and death, a perilous entanglement or an indispensable support. In a third world, where the bacillus lives, gravitation is forgotten, and the molecular shocks of…
A really amazing diagram of the entire history of life on Earth.
James F. Crow dies at 95
I’m not sure if you any of you are aware but James F. Crow, one of the giants of evolutionary genetics passed away on Jan. 4, 2012. From the hyperlink above
“ Over a career that has spanned more than 50 years, Jim and his collaborators have studied a variety of traits in Drosophila, dissected the genetics of DDT resistance, measured the effects of minor mutations on the overall fitness of populations, described the behavior of mutations that do not play the selection game by Darwin’s rules, and investigated many other subjects. His theoretical work has touched virtually every important subject in population genetics. Jim developed the concept of genetic load, has contributed to the theory of random drift in small populations, has studied of the effects of non-random mating and age-structured populations, and has considered the question, “What good is sex?”
Also despite his enormous contributions to the field, he was also well known for his mentorship. For example, he advised a number for the renown Japanese evolutionists like Motoo Kimura (known for Molecular Neutral theory). In addition, he played a pretty mean violin too! Here’s also a hyper link to James F. Crow and the Art of Teaching and Mentoring
Laurence Pringle’s children’s book on evolution, Billions of Years, Amazing Changes: The Story of Evolution came out recently, and the introduction is written by Jerry A. Coyne. COOL! Ironically, I feel like some adults on the right could use this. If they’re going to criticize evolution at the very, criticize it correctly!
Here’s an overview of the paper:
The Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) is a remarkable imitator, apparently assuming shape and behaviour similar to models as diverse as poisonous Lionfish, Soles and Sea Snakes (Norman et al. 2001). All of those models share in common stripped brown and beige or black and white colour patterns. During a diving trip to the Lembeh Strait (North Sulawesi, Indonesia) in July of 2011, the third author filmed a Mimic Octopus for about 15 min and recorded an unexpected relationship: the Black-Marble Jawfish (Stalix cf. histrio) followed the Mimic Octopus for several minutes, remaining very close to the octopus’ arms… The colour of the Jawfish matched the banded pattern and colour tone of the octopus.
Stunning high-speed video of birds and insects pollinating flowers
Do yourself a favor on this humpday, and take a four minute break to enjoy some of the best evolution has to offer.
Stunning, to say the least!
Evolution in Action
Central Africa’s roiling, rapid Lower Congo River is home to an extraordinary assortment of fish — many truly bizarre (see above). In this video, we follow Melanie Stiassny, Curator of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, as she and her team search the Lower Congo River’s mysterious depths for an evolutionary driver that may help us understand why so many species have evolved in this particular region.”
Source : GrrlScientist
The Monarch Butterfly’s Genome has been sequenced!
This is a bit of old news but still has not lost it’s appeal. Here’s the article’s overview if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing.
“Each fall, millions of monarch butterflies from across the Eastern United States use a time-compensated sun compass to direct their navigation south, traveling up to 2,000 miles to an overwintering site in a specific grove of fir trees in central Mexico. Scientists have long been fascinated by the biological mechanisms that allow successive generations of these delicate creatures to travel such long distances to a small region roughly 300 square miles in size.”
YAY COOOOL!
I’m thinking of transforming this to an Evolutionary Biology Blog. I’ve seen a couple Evolution blogs but they just show cliche Darwin Photos and kind of watered-down information. A really interesting one with sources and new updates on Modern Evolutionary Theory would be really engaging. Would you guys concur or nay?
