BBC/British Museum series looks at human history by way of its material culture
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0WNYC “A History of the World in 100 Objects“
Darwin’s lost fossil collection uncovered
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0The Daily Mail Online “Darwin’s lost fossils: Treasures that helped shape theory of evolution found by chance in dusty cabinet“
Herbert Gintis, Michael Doebeli, and Jessica Flack on the evolution of cooperative culture
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0Social Evolution Forum “Herbert Gintis: The Evolution of Human Cooperation“
Research on digital hyenas explores the role that resources play in the emergence of sociality
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0The Beacon Center “BEACON Researchers at Work: Studying the evolution of sociality with real and digital hyenas“
Yeast research yields first experimental evolution of multicellularity
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences “Experimental evolution of multicellularity” Huffington Post “Scientists Demonstrate Evolution Of Multicellularity In Experiment” The New York Times “Yeast Experiment Hints at a Faster Evolution From Single Cells” e! Science News “University of Minnesota biologists replicate key evolutionary step“
Do social networking sites just capitalize on an evolved tendency to embed oneself in a social web?
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0Nature “Social science: Hunter-gatherer cooperation” Nature “Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers” Red Orbit “Ancient Tanzania Had Early Social Network” PhysOrg.com “New study of hunter-gatherers suggests social networks sparked evolution of cooperation” YouTube “Dawn of Social Networks: Hunter-gatherers Provide Clues About the Evolution of Cooperation“
Paul Krugman on the ecological nature of successful industrial economies
Posted 27 Jan 2012 / 0The New York Times “Jobs, Jobs and Cars” What does Paul Krugman know about ecology and evolution? Maybe not a lot, but unlike most appropriations of the ecology metaphor, this one gets things really right: Krugman is correct to suggest that the success of a particular business (or businessperson) depends more on the overall industrial Read More
Michael B. Eisen points out the absurdity of how we publish scientific research
Posted 26 Jan 2012 / 0New York Times “Research Bought, Then Paid For” This op-ed sends the long overdue message that we need, as academics, to shed the shackles of commercial publishing. Peer review does not need a chaperone, and the cost of editing and presenting electronic work is plenty affordable for society (and way cheaper than the current, highly-elitist Read More
Is a prolonged middle childhood the secret to the success of the human species?
Posted 16 Jan 2012 / 0The New York Times “The Hormone Surge of Middle Childhood” I think that what’s particularly interesting about the research described in this article is the role of play in human development: the middle childhood period seems to be a period rich with playful experimentation and learning. It is feasible that this “luxury” allowed adult Homo Read More
Philip Coelho reviews “A Cooperative Species”
Posted 16 Jan 2012 / 0EH.net “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution“