evolgen
Posts by this author
April 21, 2006
Pharyngula has a good summary of the new Sean Carroll Drosophila wing dot paper. Eventually Sean's gonna try to mess around with a hawaiin species and blow the roof off this mother.
April 21, 2006
It's not the best way to kick of a new blog theme -- on Friday night with a half-hearted entry -- but I promised last week that I would begin Phylogeny Fridays today, so I need to deliver. For the first ever Phylogeny Friday, we have the greatest phylogeny of them all, the Tree of Life. Go…
April 21, 2006
Nature has a news article on the resignation of Teri Markow from her position as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution. I don't know much about what happened other than the stuff in the Nature piece, but apparently Markow was frustrated by the treatment of women within the…
April 20, 2006
The evolution of John McCain:
It was not random. It's further evidence of natural selection. The new form is more fit at tricking voters. But keep in mind, natural selection favors the phenotypes best adapted for a previous environment. This means McCain may actually be less fit in 2008.
April 18, 2006
Read this article. It deals with scientific literacy, politics, and religion in the United States, focusing on stem cells and evolution. Here's a taste:
To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from…
April 15, 2006
I can't draw very well. That's actually an overstatement. I'm a shitty drawer. To say I ain't no Carl Buell would be an insult to Carl Buell and his artistic brethren. I'm worse than the dude who draws toothpaste for dinner. I wouldn't know art if jumped up and bit me in the face. Find out why…
April 15, 2006
From the London Times:
In a series of Good Friday meditations that he will lead in Rome, the Pope will say that society is in the grip of a kind of "anti-Genesis" described as "a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family". He will pray for society to be cleansed of the "filth" that surrounds…
April 14, 2006
After a short, and dirty, run, the evolgen Double Entendre Friday has shuffled off its mortal coil. I just can't keep it up week after week (double entendre not intended). Of course, if I do come across something particular distasteful with a dash of sexual innuendo I'll include it in the list of…
April 13, 2006
William Harris came to my university to perpetuate misconceptions last September. I intended to write a summary of the experience, but I could never muster enough anti-venom to deal with his poison. In lieu of a formal treatment of Harris's bullshit, I've decided to (quite tardily) present a…
April 13, 2006
I tend to blog in spurts. When I have nothing interesting to say (or lack the motivation to put together one of the 'BIG POSTS' I have waiting in the queue) I don't try to fill my blog with, well, filler posts. That's just the way I am. Inspiration tends to come in one big surge, at which point…
April 8, 2006
I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with the Canadian funding agency that rejected Brian Alters proposal to study the effects of intelligent design on the teaching of evolution. I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said already, but I will point you to EvolDir which has posted the…
April 7, 2006
This week's evolgen Double Entendre Friday is brief. It's also not my own idea, and I can't seem to remember where I stole it from (if I stole it from you, drop a note in the comments). Sorry. Here it is:
Two glutamines bump into each other waiting to aminoacylate a tRNA. One says to the other…
April 6, 2006
Andre at BioCurious has checked out the authorship of the Tiktaalik papers and concluded that the grad students got jobbed, PhD comics style:
Another thing I noticed is that only the supervisors are listed as authors on the two papers they published. I know there were many grad students also…
April 5, 2006
I attended a seminar in the Math Department today. The topic was assembling genomes. Even though this is a computationally rigorous field, the speaker glazed over all the mathematically interesting details. Maybe he thought the mathematicians in the audience would be bored by the math. Because…
April 4, 2006
I previously alluded to Junk Non-coding DNA evolving into a gene in my last post on junk DNA. Here is another example of this phenomenon:
Scientists at the University of Illinois have discovered an antifreeze-protein gene in cod that has evolved from non-coding or 'junk' DNA.
...
"This appears to…
April 4, 2006
Seed is sponsoring their first ever writing contest. The topic:
Amidst emerging competitive threats from abroad (China and India in particular) and heated debates over intelligent design, stem cells and climate change: What is the future of science in America? What should the US do to preserve and…
April 3, 2006
It looks like the United States is not the only nation sending molecular markers into orbit. From the New York Times:
The spacecraft is small by world standards -- a microsatellite of a few hundred pounds. Launched in October by the Russians for an oil-rich client, it orbits the earth once every…
April 3, 2006
Following my Sweet 16 optimism, my bracket was blown to shit. I am currently sitting in fourth place in the ScienceBlogs pool, but I last earned points when UCLA made it to the Final Four. Teutonic Thunder (whomever that may be) has won the pool regardless of who wins tonight (we think). He or…
April 1, 2006
I read blogs and news via their site feeds using Bloglines (a web based newsreader). This has gone without a hitch for the year or so I've been using the service, but I have been thinking of switching to program that actually runs on my computer. Today, Bloglines stopped updating my feeds,…
March 31, 2006
Our plan to have the House Budget Committee approve an amendment to increase the NIH budget failed. Our next chance to ensure the NIH budget is increased will occur on the House floor. If you have yet to contact your US Representative about supporting life-sciences research, please do so by…
March 31, 2006
Help! I need some more double entendres. Help! Not just any double entendres. Help! You know I need some biology double entendres.
When I first proposed this wacky idea I figured I'd add funny biology terms to my list as the weeks went by. Well, I exhausted my original list quite rapidly, and now…
March 30, 2006
The Coalition Against Biopiracy has announced their winners for the 2006 Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy, and they're a hoot. We already knew that Darwin was a pirate, but now we learn that so are Craig Venter and Google. What are their crimes? Venter is accused of being the "Greediest…
March 29, 2006
As I mentioned previously, the Senate passed the Specter-Harkin Amendment. The House of Representatives is our next target to ensure the Bush's anti-science budget is improved upon. The Genetics Society of America has done an excellent job keeping its members up to date on these political goings…
March 27, 2006
My little screed on junk DNA elicited some good feedback, including a comment from Dan Graur. In a somewhat ill-thought out rant, I implied that anyone who uses the term 'junk DNA' should be ostracized from the scientific community (or something along those lines). I restated my opinion in a far…
March 27, 2006
Alright, already! I took the quiz. 12.5% is like the equivalent of one leg, right? That's not too bad.
12.5 %
My weblog owns 12.5 % of me.Does your weblog own you?
March 24, 2006
I'm running out of good biology related double entendres, and I want to wait a few more weeks before I post those that people suggested in the comments or that I stole from other blogs (don't worry, I'll give you mad props if I jones something off you). So, for this week's evolgen double entendre…
March 24, 2006
The title is, obviously, an overstatement, exaggeration, and blatant misrepresentation. But it gets your attention, don't it? Anyway, Hawks has been questioning whether genomics is really any different from genetics. In this post, he says something that I've been thinking for a while:
"Actually…
March 23, 2006
Alex Palazzo managed to piss off some people with his taxonomy of biomedical disciplines. We have also learned that there are different types of physics geeks and anthropologists. (By the way, don't ever call me a geek; geeks bite the heads off of chickens. I'm a nerd.) I previously attempted to…
March 23, 2006
The term "Junk DNA" is bullshit. There, I said it. The moment I hear someone utter that phrase, I immediately lose respect for him or her. No one whose opinion is worth anything will refer to non-coding DNA as junk. That's why this article bothers me. The title, "Junk DNA may not be so junky…
March 22, 2006
Given my lack of any substantial entries recently, I'd say that I am not. But, if you are, go ahead and add this logo to your blog. Click on the image to find out what it entails.
(Via Notes from the Biomass.)