It’s been nearly 4 weeks since the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday (this year also marks the 150th anniversary of the publishing of the Origin) and I’ve had some time to reflect. In case you missed it, the bicenntential received quite a bit of popular press, and was accompanied by numerous special journal issues and [...]
Also posted in March 2009 |
Like a lot of hand-wringers, I’ve been lately wringing my hands over the future of the publishing industry. This interview with Richard Nash of Soft Skull has both soothed my worries and stoked some ideas I’ve been thinking about the future of the arts.
What I’ve been thinking is this: As giant media companies [...]
Apparently the blog is working again! Huzzah!
A recent paper in Nature Genetics shows that mutations in two genes tranform an annual plant (Arabidopsis thaliana) that normally grows a few centimeters, fruits, and senesces in a matter of weeks into a perennial – long-lived, large, bushy, and even woody! Their findings are remarkable for a couple [...]
(Part I is here)
There is a used book store here in Bloomington that has piqued my interest for some time. Located on the main square, Caveat Emptor has the appearance of one of those tucked away and little known retail treasures that probably hasn’t changed anything but it’s inventory in 30 years. The owner, seemingly [...]
Also posted in Books, December 2008 |
As you may have noticed, I’ve been a bit absentee the past two weeks. Nothing earth shattering, I was just preparing for a research talk I gave today for the weekly Brown Bag session here at Indiana. No earth shattering results yet, but they are definitely unexpected. The full explanation is long and technical, so [...]
I saw a lecture by Joan Roughgarden today. Joan is Stanford biologist that written a lot in recent years criticizing sexual selection. A litte background. Sexual selection was originally proposed by Darwin (in this book, I believe) to explain exxagerated ornaments (e.g. the Peacock’s tail) that seemed inconsistent with his theory of Natural Selection. The [...]
Also posted in October 2008 |
OK, a little background is in order for this post to make sense. The Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology refers to the mathematical theory that reconciled Mendelian genetics (think green and yellow peas from your high school biology class) and biometry (biometricians tended to study continuous traits like height). The three main players were Ronald [...]
Also posted in September 2008 |
I’m a couple days late posting because my computer crashed this week. I’m actually up in Indianapolis right now to take it to the Apple Store for repair. That’s really neither here nor there though.
I had a good, but brief conversation with History and Philosophy of Science PhD student Matt Dunn last night. He is [...]
Also posted in September 2008 |
The Evolution 2008 conference, where academic researchers from all over the world get together to share their latest data and ideas on evolutionary biology, occurred from June 20-24. I gave a short talk on the last day, but was around for the entire conference sitting through lectures, viewing posters, and schmoozing with grad students [...]
Also posted in July 2008 |
I have started reading Charles Darwin’s 1871 book Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Darwin published this book well after he introduced the idea of evolution by natural selection in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species. Despite persistent claims to the contrary, Darwin initially dealt very little with [...]
Also posted in May 2008 |