Posted 03 Aug 2014 / 0
Did 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, Web
Posted 30 May 2014 / 0
For 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, Web
Posted 17 Mar 2014 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Animal Magnetism” I still think that we would be appalled and offended if we could literally read the inner emotional dialogue of a cat, but I have to agree with the main contention of Barash and Lipton: that animals have feelings and connections with each other — and sometimes with Read More
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Belief, Consciousness, Data Limitation, Divergence, Emotion, Fluidity of Knowledge, Hypothesis Testing, Neuroscience
Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0
NPR Morning Edition “When Big Carnivores Go Down, Even Vegetarians Take The Hit” Science “Status and Ecological Effects of the World’s Largest Carnivores” Both of these articles are great for introducing the idea of trophic cascades as well as how trophic inefficiency implies that large predators require large ranges containing abundant prey.
A Minor Post, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Data Limitation, Ecological Modeling, Keystone Species, Long Term Ecological Research, Predation, Radio & Podcasts
Posted 07 Jan 2014 / 0
I am always on the lookout for great popular science articles to assign to my students. What makes a popular science article great? Well, to start with it should address concepts that are core to my classes (admittedly, this definition of “greatness” is highly relative to what I decide is important to teach). Concept density Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Coevolution, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Experiments (General), Extinction, Habitat Destruction, Interactions, Macroevolution, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pollution, Resilience, Sustainability, Terrestrial
Posted 25 Oct 2013 / 0
The New York Times “Skull Fossil Suggests Simpler Human Lineage” It is interesting how terrible fossils are: generally, they represent only a part of one individual who was part of one population in one place at one point in time. Not the best data ever! So when some predator(s) on hominids dumps five carcasses in the Read More
A Minor Post, Data Limitation, Homo species, Human Evolution
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
PLoS 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, Genetics
Posted 19 Jun 2012 / 0
PLoS One “From Sensor Data to Animal Behaviour: An Oystercatcher Example” Miniaturization is going to make observing previously-unobservable animal behaviors possible.
A Minor Post, Articles, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Experiments (General)
Posted 09 Nov 2010 / 0
Neuroscience 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, Neuroscience
Posted 13 Oct 2010 / 16
One 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
