There's a discussion going on over at Wikipedia regarding the naming convention for articles about plants.  In general, article titles are supposed to be the "most common" name for the thing in…

What images do the words 'traumatic fertilization' conjur? If you are picturing deep-sea squid, you are either a fellow subscriber to Scientific American's daily digest or in dire need…

The peppered moth, Biston betularia, has been used as a classic example of natural selection in action. This moth (like many others) includes both light and dark forms that change in frequency under…

The Formidable Persuasion promotes upside down evolutionary trees by their lack of adherence to traditional Hennigian methodology for phylogenetic reconstruction.  This is a conscientious…

As I discussed in my last post, the principle of limiting similarity suggests that species that can coexist must be somewhat different in their requirements for survival.  This

People can make their own salicylic acid (SA), the principal metabolite of aspirin. SA that gives aspirin its famous action on pain, fever, and inflammation is now looking like a star in its own…

Go ahead and admit it, you would have been stumped if the answer wasn't in the title, right?   There isn't much a Democrat President-elect, an old white Republican war veteran and an insane…

If you set out to answer questions about species diversity, there are two questions you need to consider - how is diversity generated, and how is diversity maintained? The simplest measure of…

Tangerine skies.. Tangerine blossoms, so I thought while wearing my tangerine trench coat in the Netherlands. I had no idea how much the Dutch would be attracted to me ... for my coat. I learned soon…

"You really are a vacuum fluctuation / You're as cuddly as a fractal, you're as fuzzy as multi-instanton knots, Mr. El Naschie." Perhaps those would really be the words had Dr. Seuss…

The Vatican is recasting the most famous victim of its Inquisition as a man of faith, just in time for the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope and the U.N.-designated International Year of…

What happened to tolerance and diversity?   The Raelian movement, a UFO religion who believe we were  created by aliens, were going to promote world peace by having tons and tons of sex but…

A "new respect for science" in the Obama administration? The dissonance is jarring:Obama says: I am confident that if we recommit ourselves to discovery, if we support science education to create the…

From The Evolution&Medicine Review, a notification about the special issue of the Lancet on evolution. (And don't forget the special issue of E:EO!). S1 Foreword Steve Jones Preview | Full…

If you set out to answer questions about species diversity, there are two questions you need to consider - how is diversity generated, and how is diversity maintained? The simplest measure of…

Coturnix at ScienceBlogs.com had an interesting post yesterday on part of the reason they (Science Blogs)  do things the way they do them and the way he says more science writers should - shock…

Beware: green chemistry is soon to serve you green wines. And in boxes, too. Once I read in Chemical and Engineering News a list of the chemicals in either red or white wines. I remember thinking…

To be honest, I don't really care about the answer to this question. But read this Kristof NY Times column, and see if you're convinced of the answer. It's time to practice your critical thinking…

A friend was telling me the other day about a class he plans on taking on the philosophy of science. When I hear philosophy of science, I immediately think Richard Feynman. Feynman was, of course,…

In my recent post on Mexican dry forest, I mentioned the fact that about 80% of the species in the genus Bursera were endemic to Mexico.  Things like that tend to jump out at you.  Why are…