Channel Thirteen “Treasures of New York: Pratt Institute” Obviously this a big promotional piece for Pratt, but it did make me appreciate the historical context of Pratt (some of which I was unaware). Seeing the school’s accessible and prosocial origins, I hope that we can move the school back into the same kind of public Read More
A Minor Post, Film, Television, & Video, Pratt InstituteToday I had the pleasure of accompanying my daughter’s fourth grade class to the “Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence” exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Beyond making sure that all students returned home safely, I was also interested in how this exhibit explained bioluminescence as an evolved adaptation. When I teach Evolution, one Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Coevolution, Competition, Convergence, Cooperation, Evolution, Interactions, Marine Ecosystems, Museum design, Museums & Zoos, Mutualism, Phylogenetics, Predation, Sex and Reproduction, TerrestrialScience News “Diet Sodas May Confuse Brain’s ‘Calorie Counter’“
A Minor Post, Health & Medicine, Mismatch theory, Neuroscience, WebScienceShot “These Bears Count” Scientific American The Thoughtful Animal blog “The Average Bear Is Smarter Than You Thought” This finding sheds fascinating light on the question of why counting exists. Because bears are not social animals, it appears that counting is not just about keeping track of fellow group members or assessing the level of Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Behavior, WebScience “Fear of Predation Slows Plant-Litter Decomposition” Nature News “Stressed grasshoppers slow plant decay” More interesting community-level feedback between predators and their prey!
A Minor Post, Decomposition, Phenotypic Plasticity, PredationPLoS One “Detecting Deception in Movement: The Case of the Side-Step in Rugby“
A Minor Post, Articles, CommunicationPLos One “Shorter Food Chain Length in Ancient Lakes: Evidence from a Global Synthesis” What I wonder is: what is the mechanism by which these communities evolve away from their initial “short-and-wide” configuration?
A Minor Post, Articles, Community Ecology, PredationPLoS One “A Comparison of the Effects of Random and Selective Mass Extinctions on Erosion of Evolutionary History in Communities of Digital Organisms“
A Minor Post, Community Ecology, Evolutionary Modeling, ExtinctionPLoS One “Mine, Yours, Ours? Sharing Data on Human Genetic Variation” This problem reminds me a little bit of a similar problem in computational biology: often modelers are reluctant to share their code, considering it proprietary information (although note that code represents “methods” and sequences represent “results”). But if gene sequences and model code are Read More
A Minor Post, Data Limitation, GeneticsPLoS One “Effects of Trophic Skewing of Species Richness on Ecosystem Functioning in a Diverse Marine Community“
A Minor Post, Articles, Community Ecology