According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, it appears that February 2015 will be the month in which the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeds 400 part per million: Various sources have been predicting that we would soon reach this symbolic milestone, and it appears that this will be the month when it Read More
A Minor Post, Climate Change, Human limits, Sustainability, WebNational Geographic News “Is Pollution Weakening Polar Bears’ Ability to Mate?” This sounds like fodder for a late-night television laugh line, but this is a pretty scary example of how bioaccumulation of toxins can have important conservation consequences. From a conservation perspective, there is nothing worse than a ubiquitous pollutant reducing the ability of a Read More
A Minor Post, Pollution, Sex and Reproduction, WebDid you know that Facebook performs scientific research? If I told you that Facebook is constantly analyzing the activity of its users, that would probably not surprise you. But does Facebook go the next step by performing manipulative experiments on its users? A recent publication in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Read More
A Major Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Communication, Consciousness, Emotion, Empathy, Ethics, Experiments (General), Happiness, Law, Methods, Psychological Adaptation, Sociology, WebMy good friend, artist Ben Knight, has created a nice chart that captures the difference between two different theories of macroevolution: phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium.
A Minor Post, Art & Design, Divergence, Evolution, Information Design, Macroevolution, Science in Art & Design, Speciation, WebThe Chronicle of Higher Education “What’s So Funny?” I appreciate the different theories of laughter presented here and the way that they are connected to adaptive behavior and ultimately to evolution. Like a lot of other behaviors that I am interested in — most prominently music production and play — laughter is one of those Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Communication, Emotion, Human Uniqueness, Play, WebI am in the process of considering a shift in my web hosting service. I was spurred to consider a shift by Olivia Hu, a former student of mine who is also working on a new theme for this site. My current host is Bluehost. I chose their services four years ago when I first Read More
A Major Post, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Web Design, WebFor the past couple of years I have been playing around with a really cool tool called EnviroAtlas, a project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This past semester I created two classroom activities that use EnviroAtlas, implementing them for the first time in my Ecology for Architects course. The EnviroAtlas tool was in beta-testing Read More
A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Citizen Science, Computer Science, Conservation Biology, Data Limitation, Deserts, Ecosystem Services, Education, Educational Software and Apps, Environmental Justice, Eutrophication, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Invasive Species, Long Term Ecological Research, Macroecology, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Rivers & Streams, Sustainability, Teaching, Teaching Tools, Temperate Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Urban Ecology, Water Supply, WebThe Chronicle of Higher Education “Dolphin Talk and Human Credulity” Great short here (and further evidence that TED Talks entice scientists to lose their heads and say unfounded things). Anyone who has carefully watched a child learn to talk comes to realize what a complex dance between cognition anatomical coordination is involved in language acquisition. It is Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cognitive Ability, Communication, Human Uniqueness, Language Evolution, Linguistics, Phenotypic Plasticity, WebThe Economist “A potent source of genetic variation in cognitive ability has just been discovered” A new gene variant, KL-VS, appears to account for up to 3% of variation in IQ score; this would be a radical discovery given that past gene screens have only found variants accounting for as much as 0.5% variation in Read More
A Minor Post, Adaptation, Articles, Cognitive Ability, Gene by Environment Interactions, Genetics, Intelligences, WebScience News “Babies cry at night to prevent siblings, scientist suggests” What’s particularly interesting here is not just the parent-offspring conflict proposed but also the conflict between mothers and fathers that is implied in this theory. In fact, it seems that the only piece of evidence that has any potential to support this hypothesis is this Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Human Evolution, Parent-Offspring Conflict, Sexual Conflict, Web