biology
bioephemera | March 1, 2009
image by Mike Rosulek
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It's a classic question: if Charles Darwin had known about Gregor Mendel's genetic research, would Darwin have realized it was the missing piece he needed to explain how individual variation was inherited and selected? Was it simply bad luck that Darwin never stumbled on the right experiments? Or was Darwin so constrained by his own perspective on inheritance that he couldn't have seen the importance of Mendel's work, even if he had known about it?
Jonathan Howard has written an intriguing overview of this question. He argues that…
terrasig | February 25, 2009Okay people, these students in Miss Stacy Baker's biology classes and Extreme Biology blog have been rocking my world for quite some time. They've now burst onto the national media and were all the buzz of the recent ScienceOnline'09 conference.
For those not familiar with the story, Stacy Baker is a biology teacher at the Calverton School in Huntingtown, Maryland, who began a website for student activities and class notes back in 2006. With the boundless enthusiasm of ninth-graders and more seasoned AP biology students, the site has become interactive: a blog, Extreme Biology, with videos…
ksharpe | February 24, 2009Originally posted by Brian Switek
On February 22, 2009, at 6:18 PM
It would be fair to say that, until a week ago, I knew virtually nothing about J.B.S. Haldane. I knew he was a British biologist who helped form the subdiscipline of population genetics, but that was about it. Then, unexpectedly, Oxford University Press sent me a copy of What I Require From Life: Writings on Science and Life From J.B.S. Haldane.
What I Require From Life is neither an autobiography nor a comprehensive compilation of Haldane's writings. Instead it is a motley collection of Haldane's short essays written for the…
bioephemera | February 22, 2009
Essays are like cupcakes: they're tasty, abundant, idiosyncratic, and small enough to finish without feeling you've overindulged - which leaves you vulnerable to the self-deception that just one more is a good idea. So here are some weekend reading suggestions for a lazy Sunday.
--At SEED, Carl Zimmer's love letter to natural history museums as functional wonder cabinets:
Gradually, royalty's cabinets of wonders turned into libraries of flesh and rock, where scholars could research the workings of the world. Ole Worm, a 17th-century anatomist, became famous for his collection of narwhal…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2009tags: fruiting bodies, fungi, nature, image of the day
Lichen Fruiting Bodies.
Image: Biosparite, 2009 [larger view].
Is this the sporocarp of a basidiomycete or an ascomycete?
The photographer writes;
I photographed these at the Katy Prairie Conservancy Field Office, about 40 miles west of Houston, where the air is clean enough to permit luxuriant growth of lichens. The photo was taken in late afternoon in October 2007.
oracknows | February 19, 2009Unfortunately, as we have been dreading for the last four months or so since her relapse was diagnosed, my mother-in-law passed away from breast cancer in hospice. She died peacefully, with my wife and the rest of her family at her side. As you might expect, I do not much feel like blogging, and even if I did my wife needs me more. Because I foresaw this coming, however, I do have a series of "Best of" reposts lined up. If you've been reading less than a year or two, they're new to you. If not, I hope you enjoy them again. I don't know when I'll be back, other than maybe a brief update or two…
bioephemera | February 19, 2009For my DC peeps: I've been helping one of my colleagues with an event for college journalists, to be held next Friday at NIH (Bethesda, MD). It's a roundtable discussion on the challenges of covering addiction issues; scheduled guests include Lisa Stark of ABC News, Lauran Neergaard from the AP, and Jacqueline Duda of the WaPo, as well as scientists from NIH, NIDA, the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan. The event is free and open to college students at regional institutions of higher learning.
There is still some space left, so if you know any DC-area college students who…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2009tags: lichens, symbiosis, nature, image of the day
Lichens.
Image: Biosparite, 2009 [larger view].
Lichens are a symbiotic association between a fungus (the mycobiont) with a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont or phycobiont), usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium. The morphology, physiology and biochemistry of lichens are very different to that of the isolated fungus and alga in culture. Lichens occur in some of the most extreme environments on Earth -- arctic tundra, hot deserts, rain forests, rocky coasts and toxic slag heaps. Lichens are widespread and long-lived; however,…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2009tags: Saturnia albofasciata, emerging moth, insect metamorphosis, nature, streaming video
A male Saturnia albofasciata moth emerges from its cocoon in this time lapse video. The cocoon was partially cut away to observe development and movement and doesn't seem to bother the moth. After the moth emerges, he expands his wings by pumping his body fluid into them. The music is "The Voice" by Technician. [1:11]
bioephemera | February 16, 2009While reading the New Yorker yesterday I came across this gem of a quote from the late John Updike, which eloquently expresses one of the ideas I was reaching for in my own Darwin Day post.
The non-scientist's relation to modern science is basically craven: we look to its discoveries and technology to save us from disease, to give us a faster ride and a softer life, and at the same time we shrink from what it has to tell us of our perilous and insignificant place in the cosmos. Not that threats to our safety and significance were absent from the pre-scientific world, or that arguments against…
awild | February 14, 2009Who is supposed to read The Superorganism?
I can't really tell. While I'm enjoying Holldobler & Wilson's latest tome, I am perplexed at the book's target audience. The text switches between broadly anthropomorphic prose clearly aimed for a general audience and obtuse jargon digestible only by the experienced biologist.
I get the feeling that the authors- at least one of them, anyway- desired a technical book more along the lines of Bourke & Franks, while the marketing department at Harvard University Press wished to trade on the authors' name recognition with a glossy coffee-table…
grrlscientist | February 13, 2009tags: The Blue Planet, marine life, evolution, streaming video
Thanks to one of my readers who wishes to remain anonymous, I have the great pleasure to own this fascinating BBC documentary, The Blue Planet [Amazon: $38.99], about those amazing creatures that live thousands of feet beneath the waves. I think you would love this series as much as I do. Narrated by the amazing David Attenborough [8:21]
bioephemera | February 12, 2009Yesterday I prepared to write my Darwin Day post by attending a panel discussion at the Center For American Progress here in DC. The discussion was ostensibly about "evolution, transcendence, and the nature of faith," which led my friend Colin and I to hope for a spirited debate - perhaps even a die-hard creationist who would speak for the three-quarters of frequent churchgoers who don't accept evolutionary theory! But what we got was a predictable, rather boring discussion - at least until David Sloan Wilson arrived and threw me for a loop.
The first two panelists were Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks…
tqa | February 12, 2009
I am amusing myself with several little experiments; I have now got a little weed garden & am marking each seedling as it appears, to see at what time of life they suffer most.--
Charles Darwin
Letter to Joseph Hooker
21 March 1857
A few years ago, I was talking with one of my professors. We'd recently been at a seminar where a National Academy of Sciences member had presented some research. The research in question drew a number of good conclusions about the role of seawater chemistry on the history of life using an experimental setup that featured plastic cups arranged on cafeteria…
gregladen | February 12, 2009Mark Pagel, evolutionary theorist extraordinaire, has published an Insight piece in Nature on Natural selection 150 years on. Pagel, well known for myriad projects in natural selecition theory and adaptation, and for developing with Harvey the widely used statistical phylogenetic method (and for being a reader of my thesis) wishes Charles Darwin a happy 200th birthday, and assesses this question:
How has Darwin's theory of Natural Selection fared over the last 150 years, and what needs to be done to bring this theoretical approach to bear as we increasingly examine complex systems,…
tqa | February 12, 2009Seed's got a video up on their website that outlines the entire history of life on earth. Go watch it. It's really cool, and it'll just take a minute.
gregladen | February 12, 2009In 1833, Darwin spent a fair amount of time on the East Coast of South America, including in the Pampas, where he had access to abundant fossil material. Here I'd like to examine his writings about some of the megafauna, including Toxodon, Mastodon, and horses, and his further considerations of biogeography and evolution.
reposted
In the vicinity of Rio Tercero...
Hearing ... of the remains of one of the old giants, which a man told me he had seen on the banks of the Parana, I procured a canoe, and proceeded to the place. Two groups of immense bones projected in bold relief from the…