Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

New edited volume joins the growing collection of literature dedicated to how cooperation evolves

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

Cooperation and Its Evolution Edited by Kim Sterelny, Richard Joyce, Brett Calcott and Ben Fraser MIT Press

A Minor Post, Cooperation

Once considered clear, the line between ecological and evolutionary time scales is becoming more blurry

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “What Darwin Got Wrong” Great article on the importance of better understanding rapid and/or fluctuating evolution! The number of applications to applied human issues is fascinating.

A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Climate Change, Coevolution, Community Ecology, Fluidity of Knowledge, Freshwater Ecosystems, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Interactions, Invasive Species, Natural Selection, Pollution, Population Genetics, Predation, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Rivers & Streams

In bird reproduction, parasitism and cooperation coevolve

Posted 21 Jan 2014 / 0

Science “How Cooperation Defeats Cheats” Science “Brood Parasitism and the Evolution of Cooperative Breeding in Birds” Live Science “How Birds Cooperate to Defeat Cuckoos” It is fascinating that being a cooperative breeder is both attractive to parasites (because they can achieve better reproductive success by successfully parasitizing the nest of cooperative breeders) and the best way to Read More

A Minor Post, Altruism, Articles, Coevolution, Cooperation, Cooperative Breeding, Phylogenetics

Curiosity and culturomics

Posted 18 Jan 2014 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Erez Aiden Contains Multitudes“

A Minor Post, Articles, Cultural Evolution

Are MOOCs just the clunky starting place for a more evolved form of new teaching?

Posted 18 Jan 2014 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Innovation in 2014: Welcome to the Evolution“

A Minor Post, Articles, Higher Education, Teaching

CNN tackles climate change by explaining public goods games!

Posted 15 Jan 2014 / 0

I almost fell out of my seat when I found this video while searching for a concise source explaining why we don’t have an international climate change agreement. This short television piece is basically trying to explain the dynamics of climate change agreement as depicted by Milinski and colleagues (2008) in their PNAS paper “The collective-risk Read More

A Minor Post, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Film, Television, & Video, Game Theory, Sustainability, Web

Now legal, Northern California’s pot farms join the rest of agriculture in impacting water supply

Posted 14 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR The Salt “California’s Pot Farms Could Leave Salmon Runs Truly Smoked” It is funny because as marijuana becomes legalized it joins tobacco and coffee as a potentially high-impact, low-necessity agricultural product. And I know there are a lot of cigarette smokers, coffee fiends, and potheads taking exception to that last sentence.

A Minor Post, Freshwater Ecosystems, Habitat Destruction, Law, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams, Sustainability, Water Supply

Money Talking about Janet Yellen and multilevel selection

Posted 10 Jan 2014 / 0

WNYC Money Talking “Helping Ordinary Americans Focus Of Fed Under Janet Yellen” Should the economy serve the society as a whole, or only some individuals in that society? Wow is it refreshing to hear a radio segment ask that question!

A Minor Post, Cultural Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Multilevel Selection, Radio & Podcasts

Nice infographic on global and domestic food waste

Posted 07 Jan 2014 / 0

KQED The Lowdown “Rot and Rubbish: The Rancid Truth About How Much Food We Waste“

A Minor Post, Composting, Ethics, Food, Information Design, Political Science, Pollution, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Web

Scientific American “Tiny Plants” article provides a primer on the inter-relationship between ecological and evolutionary change

Posted 07 Jan 2014 / 0

I am always on the lookout for great popular science articles to assign to my students. What makes a popular science article great? Well, to start with it should address concepts that are core to my classes (admittedly, this definition of “greatness” is highly relative to what I decide is important to teach). Concept density Read More

A Major Post, Adaptation, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Coevolution, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Experiments (General), Extinction, Habitat Destruction, Interactions, Macroevolution, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pollution, Resilience, Sustainability, Terrestrial