Peacocks communicate via the (ultra)sounds they make with their feathers
Posted 20 Jun 2012 / 0Science News “Peacocks ruffle feathers, make a rumble“
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Communication, MSCI-363, Biological Origins of Sound & Music, Web“Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence” exhibit at the American Museum on Natural History
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0Today 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, TerrestrialIn case you were a skeptic: bears can count
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0ScienceShot “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, WebFreaked out grasshoppers just do not contribute to decomposition in the same manner as their more relaxed brethren
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0Science “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, PredationPeter Turchin on the “Dark Side of Cultural Evolution”
Posted 18 May 2012 / 0Social Evolution Forum Peter Turchin “The Dark Side of Cultural Evolution” I love the evolutionary nuance unravelled in this post: both the idea of “staged traits” and the strong assertion that traits are produced by networks of genes are critical subtleties often ignored by evolutionary hypotheses. I am a bit skeptical, however, about the assumption Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Cultural Evolution, Mismatch theoryBBC covers the up side of the North Pacific plastic “garbage patch”
Posted 09 May 2012 / 0BBC News “Big rise in North Pacific plastic waste” Two unsurprising findings here: The amount of plastic garbage in the ocean has dramatically increased over the past 40 years; and Some organisms are going to utilize this new resource to their advantage.
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Marine Ecosystems, Pollution, WebNPR drops dumb Bell Curve segment
Posted 03 May 2012 / 5This morning, National Public Radio’s Morning Edition featured a segment entitled “Put Away The Bell Curve: Most Of Us Aren’t ‘Average’“. I am generally vigilant about stories which make broad claims about human traits and their genetic and environmental underpinnings, and this particular segment triggered my alarms to scream. Analyzing a new study on “academics writing papers, Read More
Adaptation, Genetics, Radio & PodcastsThe beginning of sex as we know it
Posted 20 Jan 2011 / 0This month’s edition of Scientific American features a cover article entitled “Dawn of the Deed” by John A. Long. Long describes how fossil discoveries he and his colleagues made several years ago have changed the way we understand the evolution of copulation. While there has long been evidence that the sharks have practiced internal fertilization Read More
Adaptation, Paleonotology, Sex and ReproductionScientific American “Controlling the Brain with Light”
Posted 09 Nov 2010 / 0Neuroscience represents a sort of “last frontier” in biology: despite decades of research into the nervous systems of a diverse set of organisms, scientific understanding of how the web of neurons we call a brain creates complex emergent patterns of cognition and behavior remains limited. Part of the challenge faced by neuroscience has to do Read More
Adaptation, Ethics, Experiments (General), Genetic Engineering, NeuroscienceRobert Trivers and colleagues on Nowak, Tarnita, and Wilson’s “The evolution of eusociality”
Posted 13 Oct 2010 / 16One of the most difficult things about being the only full-time biologist on the Pratt Institute campus is that I do not have the opportunity to discuss serious science in my field with colleagues or guest speakers. To help alleviate this problem, I have my friends who are at serious research institutions on the lookout Read More
Adaptation, Altruism, Articles, Behavioral Ecology, Cooperation, Data Limitation, Evolution, Game Theory, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Sociology, Superorganisms, Talks & Seminars