Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Why socially-progressive scientists should not make bets…

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “A Bet, Five Metals And The Future Of The Planet” This is an excellent piece that encapsulates the argument between “population pessimists” and “technological optimists”, an argument that seems to have been won by the technologists. It is frustrating how much damage has been done by people like Paul Ehrlich. His overconfidence Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Carrying Capacity, Conservation Biology, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Sociology, Sustainability

Cod gone on Cape Cod

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “Why The Cod On Cape Cod Now Comes From Iceland” It is fascinating how “cultural” the alteration of this fishery turns out to be. Somehow “Cape Dogfish” just does not have the same ring.

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Conservation Biology, Cultural Evolution, Marine Ecosystems, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainable Harvesting, Wild Foods

Concentrated factory farming of livestock massively alters the phosphorus cycle

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution” This short feature provides a clear example of how human agricultural practices massively modify nutrient cycles, decoupling what used to be inseparable: where animal feed is grown and where animals are raised. This separation means that we no longer have closed-loop agricultural systems. I would suggest Read More

A Minor Post, Closed Loop Systems, Composting, Economics, Ecosystem Ecology, Eutrophication, Food, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams, Soil Ecology, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism

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