Evolution

Baby Mamas And Evolution- Polygyny Skews Genetic Variability

There's a sex bias in evolution, according to an article in PLoS Genetics, and it's demonstrated by the fact that women have been more successful on average in passing their genes on to the next generation. "This is because a few males have ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2008 - 8:48pm

Evolution And Plants- Reproducing Early And Often Is Key

There was an idea first proposed in 1916 — that plants with rapid reproductive cycles evolve faster- and a team of Yale scientists writing in Science say they have confirmed it using 2008 computing power. Long involved with the Tree of Life Web Project, wh ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2008 - 3:23pm

Not Aesthetics, Female Eye Sensitivity Determines Mating- And Therefore New Species, Says Study

Eye color and hair color play a role in human partner choice but visual stimuli can also determine mating preferences in the animal kingdom. In many species, the male’s fortunes in the mating stakes are decided by a conspicuous breeding dress. A study of b ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 1 2008 - 11:30am

MicroRNAs Traced Back A Billion Years

MicroRNAs, the tiny molecules that fine-tune gene expression, were first discovered in 1993, but it turns out they've been around for a billion years. Evidence published in Nature by scientists in the lab of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Researc ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 1 2008 - 2:21pm

Molecular, Genetic, Developmental, Morphological- Stickleback Fish Adapts Well To Changing Environment

The stickleback fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, is one of the most thoroughly studied organisms in the wild, and has been a particularly useful model for understanding variation in physiology, behavior, life history and morphology caused by different ecolog ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 10 2008 - 9:31am

Would you let an astrologer evaluate your child's 6th grade earth science curriculum?

Of course not. Then why do we have advocates of intelligent design pseudoscience evaluating the Texas state science standards for evolution? Among the intelligent design proponents evaluating the Texas science curriculum is Stephen Meyer, an armchair non-s ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Oct 20 2008 - 2:13pm

Eye Evolution Smorgasborg

The journal Evolution: Education and Outreach is coming out with an issue devoted to the evolution of the eye, and some of the articles are already online. This journal is non-technical, aimed at both teachers and interested science readers, so you don ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Oct 22 2008 - 8:10pm

Evolution: Education And Outreach Special Issue- Eye Evolution

I was planning to wait until the issue was actually in print, or at least until all the articles were available in preprint, but there is already some buzz starting so here it is. The upcoming issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach, of which I was edit ...

Article - T. Ryan Gregory - Oct 22 2008 - 8:12pm

Small Genomes In Pterosaurs Too.

My colleagues Chris Organ and Andrew Shedlock, who provided evidence that theropod dinosaurs already had (somewhat) reduced genome sizes prior to the evolution of birds (Organ et al. 2007) have followed up their study by estimating the genome sizes of seve ...

Article - T. Ryan Gregory - Oct 23 2008 - 11:55am

Science on Spore.

The current issue of Science features a new installment of "The Gonzo Scientist" by writer John Bohannon. This edition is all about Spore, the game that is based on "evolution" from primordial ooze to interstellar society [Flunking Spor ...

Blog Post - T. Ryan Gregory - Oct 24 2008 - 6:24am