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The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved & Why It EnduresEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
During the first few years of ScienceBlogs there was a lot of talk about religion. Yes, there's talk about religion now, but it's toned down in the wake of the ebbing of the publicity around The God Delusion. Naturally in the wake of the New Atheism a raft of conventional apologetics have been published, The Dawkins' Delusion being a typical example. More recently more nuanced books which wend the middle ground between militant atheism and conventional apologetics have taken center strage. Karen Armstrong's The Case for God approaches this from a philo-theistic angle, while Robert Wright's The Evolution of God is predicate...
Source: Gene Expression - November 19, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Ancient DNA & the moaEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The evolutionary history of the extinct ratite moa and New Zealand Neogene paleogeography: ...We synthesize mitochondrial phylogenetic information from 263 subfossil moa specimens from across NZ with morphological, ecological, and new geological data to create the first comprehensive phylogeny, taxonomy, and evolutionary timeframe for all of the species of an extinct order. We also present an important new geological/paleogeographical model of late Cenozoic NZ, which suggests that terrestrial biota on the North and South Island landmasses were isolated for most of the past 20-30 Ma. The data reveal that the patterns of gen...
Source: Gene Expression - November 19, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Celebrate Darwin's 200th birthdayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
NESCent and SCONC: What: November SCONC-fest When: Thursday November 19th , 6-8pm Where: National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham Please join us to commemorate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of "The Origin of Species." Learn about the wild world of Ice Age carnivores, brainy birds, and other creatures Darwin missed. Our tour guides will be four postdocs on the frontiers of biology. We'll begin at 6pm at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham. Parking is free. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) 2024 W. Main Street, Suite A200 Durham, NC 27705 Map: http:/...
Source: A Blog Around The Clock - November 18, 2009 Category: Medical Publishers Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

FOXP2 in NatureEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Human-specific transcriptional regulation of CNS development genes by FOXP2:...It has been proposed that the amino acid composition in the human variant of FOXP2 has undergone accelerated evolution, and this two-amino-acid change occurred around the time of language emergence in humans...However, this remains controversial, and whether the acquisition of these amino acids in human FOXP2 has any functional consequence in human neurons remains untested. Here we demonstrate that these two human-specific amino acids alter FOXP2 function by conferring differential transcriptional regulation in vitro. We extend these observation...
Source: Gene Expression - November 11, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Language Human Evolution FOXP2 Source Type: blogs

Levels of selection & the full Price EquationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the post below on the Price Equation I stayed true to George Price's original notation in his 1970 paper where he introduced his formalism. But here is a more conventional form, the "Full Price Equation," which introduces a second element on the right-side. Δz = Cov(w, z) / w + E(wΔz) / w One can specifically reformulate this verbally for a biological context: Change in trait = Change due to selection on individuals + Change due to individual transmission The first element on the right-side is explicable as selection upon a heritable trait. w is the conventional letter used for "fitness," so w is populat...
Source: Gene Expression - November 11, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The intersection of public policy, economics, & evolutionEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Next Monday at NESCent: When: Monday November 16, 2009, 10-11:30am Where: NESCent, 2024 W. Main St., Durham, NC 27705, Erwin Mill Bldg, Suite A103 Directions: http://www.nescent.org/about/directions.php What do public policy and economics have to do with evolutionary theory? A lot, say participants in an upcoming meeting at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in Durham, NC. Nearly 30 scholars, policymakers, and entrepreneurs from both the academic and the business worlds will gather at the NESCent headquarters November 13-16, 2009. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss how evolutionary theory can c...
Source: A Blog Around The Clock - November 10, 2009 Category: Medical Publishers Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The Price EquationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In the comments below I referred to the "Price Equation." Here is what William D. Hamilton had to say about George Price's formalism in Narrow Roads of Gene Land: A manuscript did eventually come from him but what I found set out was not any sort of new derivation or correction of my 'kin selection' but rather a strange new formalism that was applicable to every kind of natural selection. Central to Price's approach was a covariance formula the like of which I had never seen...Price had not like the rest of us looked up the work of the pioneers when he first became interested in selection; instead he had worked out everyth...
Source: Gene Expression - November 10, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Microbial SystematicsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The higher taxonomic groups within prokaryotes are presently distinguished mainly on the basis of their branching in phylogenetic trees. In most cases, no molecular, biochemical or physiological characteristics are known that are uniquely shared by species from these groups. Analyses of genome sequences are leading to discovery of novel molecular characteristics that are specific for different groups of bacteria and archaea and provide more precise means for identifying and circumscribing these groups of microbes in clear molecular terms and for understanding their evolution (Xu, 2010).References:Xu, J. (2010) Microbial Po...
Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. - November 3, 2009 Category: Microbiology Tags: Phylogenetic trees Microbial evolution Source Type: blogs

Microbial population geneticsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
is a rapidly advancing field of investigation with relevance to many areas of science. The subject encompasses theoretical issues such as the origins and evolution of species, sex and recombination. Population genetics lays the foundations for tracking the origin and evolution of antibiotic resistance and deadly infectious pathogens and is also an essential tool in the utilization of beneficial microbes.References:Xu, J. (2010) Microbial Population Genetics. Caister Academic Press, Norfolk, UK.Full range of books on microbiology at Microbiology Books (Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists.)
Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. - November 3, 2009 Category: Microbiology Tags: antibiotic resistance Evolution of species population genetics Source Type: blogs

Materialism leads to inequalityEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies: Small-scale human societies range from foraging bands with a strong egalitarian ethos to more economically stratified agrarian and pastoral societies. We explain this variation in inequality using a dynamic model in which a population's long-run steady-state level of inequality depends on the extent to which its most important forms of wealth are transmitted within families across generations. We estimate the degree of intergenerational transmission of three different types of wealth (material, embodied, and relational), as well ...
Source: Gene Expression - October 31, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Remember the lizard menEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Carl Zimmer points me an article about a former anthropologist who has some weird ideas about the origin of man: Since his resignation from the university in 1990, however, Horn has changed his tune. Once a staunch Darwinist and tenured CSU anthropology professor, Horn has devoted the last 19 years of his life to the study of alternative theories of human origin. After receiving a doctorate in anthropology from Yale University and while teaching at CSU, Horn focused his energies on the study of the evolution of non-human primates, his wife Lynette Horn said. He now advocates the theory that modern man is not the result o...
Source: Gene Expression - October 29, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Alberta has no rats!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There's something cool about Canada, I just found out that Alberta is the only large region of permanently inhabited human territory which lacks brown rats. One thing you have to remember is that the brown rat only began spreading within the last 1,000 years (in the process displacing the black rat), and it seems to have arrived in the British Isles only within the last two to three centuries. North America did not have the rat until Europeans arrived, and it didn't show up in Alberta until 1950. At that point the government attempted an eradication program. Apparently this can work because there aren't ecologically congen...
Source: Gene Expression - October 29, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Svante Paabo didn't say what I suggested he said. PerhapsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Dr. Thomas Mailund has posted a YouTube interview of Svante Paabo. Looks like the previous post was off-base, though I'm not really totally sure. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - October 28, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

"What Darwin Said"Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
My co-blogger at Gene Expression Classic, David, has completed a very interesting series today. 1: The Pattern of Evolution 2: Mechanisms of Evolution 3: Heredity 4: Speciation 5: Gradualism (A) 6: Gradualism (B) 7: Levels of Selection Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - October 27, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Svante Paabo believes modern humans & Neandertals interbredEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Neanderthals 'had sex' with modern man:Professor Svante Paabo, director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, will shortly publish his analysis of the entire Neanderthal genome, using DNA retrieved from fossils. He aims to compare it with the genomes of modern humans and chimpanzees to work out the ancestry of all three species....Paabo recently told a conference at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory near New York that he was now sure the two species had had sex - but a question remained about how "productive" it had been."What I'm really interested in is, did we have chi...
Source: Gene Expression - October 26, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Neandertals Source Type: blogs

Celebrate Darwin's 200th birthdayEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
NESCent and SCONC: What: November SCONC-fest When: Thursday November 19th , 6-8pm Where: National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham Please join us to commemorate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of "The Origin of Species." Learn about the wild world of Ice Age carnivores, brainy birds, and other creatures Darwin missed. Our tour guides will be four postdocs on the frontiers of biology. We'll begin at 6pm at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham. Parking is free. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) 2024 W. Main Street, Suite A200 Durham, NC 27705 Map: http:/...
Source: A Blog Around The Clock - October 26, 2009 Category: Medical Publishers Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Henry Markram on TED – video onlineEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We had read that Dr. Henry Markram of the Blue Brain project had given a talk at TED (technology, entertainment, design), but the video wasn’t released until this month. This talk is geared towards a general audience, rather than getting into the specific details of the Blue Brain project, as he has before. It is engaging and includes many suggestions towards the future of neuroscience and AI. Watch it online at the TED website. (Source: neurodudes)
Source: neurodudes - October 22, 2009 Category: Neurologists Authors: Stephen Tags: Animal cognition Axons Cellular learning Computation within single neurons Consciousness / NCC Cortex Dendrites Evolution Ion channels Neural network models Source Type: blogs

The arcs of evolutionary genetics always cross backEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
If you have more than a marginal interest in evolutionary biology you will no doubt have stumbled upon the conundrum of sex & sexes. Matt Ridley's most prominent work, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, covered both the theoretical framework and applied implications of the subject. Ridley leaned heavily upon William D. Hamilton's scientific work, which extended upon Leigh Van Valen's concept of the book's titular Red Queen. The complex interplay between pathogens & multicelluar organisms across the eons is a topic of such breadth and depth that a substantial proportion of the territory in evolutionary bi...
Source: Gene Expression - October 22, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The arc of evolutionary genetics may be irreversibleEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
One of the banes of modern life is the stack of papers in one's "to-read" list. I guess that goes to show how cushy modern life is, as what sort of complaint is that? In any case, I began to consider this after reading Joe Thornton's magisterial response to Michael Behe's giddy excitement over his most recent paper, An epistatic ratchet constrains the direction of glucocorticoid receptor evolution. Thornton dispatches Behe's muddled misconceptions with economy and precision, but after reading the paper, as opposed to cogent summaries such as Carl Zimmer's in The New York Times I'm even more at a loss as to how Behe arrived...
Source: Gene Expression - October 21, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Being Michael BeheEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Reading Joe Thornton's response to Michael Behe, I'm struck by the de ja vu that the exchange induces. I remember reading Darwin's Black Box when it came out, and being confused as to why this was such an awesome challenge to evolution, and following the debates in its wake. Behe seems to think he's pwning everyone, when his arguments from outside of his charmed circle seem a bit flimsy and amateurish.But let's assume that Behe doesn't have any screws loose. There have to be presuppositions which allow for his arguments to seem rock-solid and irrefutable in his own cognitive universe. I know that some readers of this weblo...
Source: Gene Expression - October 21, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution creationism Source Type: blogs

Humans still evolving, etc.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Are Humans Still Evolving? Absolutely, Says A New Analysis Of A Long-term Survey Of Human Health:"There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans," said Stephen Stearns of Yale University. A recent analysis by Stearns and colleagues turns this idea on its head....Taking advantage of data collected as part of a 60-year study of more than 2000 North American women in the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers analyzed a handful of traits important to human health. By measuring the effects of these traits on the number o...
Source: Gene Expression - October 19, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Genetics Source Type: blogs

Humans Evolving Toward Earlier Childbirth?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Here's a study that finds that humans are still under selective pressure. Durham, NC Although advances in medical care have improved standards of living over time, humans aren't entirely sheltered from the forces of natural selection, a new study shows. "There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans," said Stephen Stearns of Yale University. A recent analysis by Stearns and colleagues turns this idea on its head. As part of a working group sponsored by the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, NC, the ...
Source: FuturePundit - October 19, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Trends, Human Evolution Source Type: blogs

At the intersection of evolution & intelligenceEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
If you're at ASHG, a session you might want to attend, Scale Effects and Recent Brain Evolution: Theory and Preliminary Evidence. Here's the abstract:What forces have driven human evolution since the grand human diaspora? In this paper, I argue that the scale effects so central to endogenous growth theory in the field of economics (e.g., Kremer's widely-cited "Population Growth and Technological Change: 1,000,000 B.C. to 1990," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1993) have been important drivers of human brain development since the diaspora. Scale effects have made prominent appearances in recent explanations of continent-lev...
Source: Gene Expression - October 19, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution human biodiversity Source Type: blogs

The Origin of GenesEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The human genome contains some 25,000 genes. Where did they come from? How are new genes formed? Before continuing with the Origins Series and The Origin of Cognition, I wanted to take a step back… Related posts:How to create and manage a quality medical blog? Don’t worry just read the Medical Web 2.0 Guidance... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. (Source: Dr Shock MD PhD)
Source: Dr Shock MD PhD - October 18, 2009 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: vdbroekw Tags: Academic Evolution genes Source Type: blogs

Being a second class citizen means less responsibility!Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
From the comments: Jizya is only a financial tribute / aid to the Muslim State which is in-charge of safeguarding the security of the state and non-muslim's lives and properties on their behalf. Non-muslims pay Jizya BUT they are EXEMPTED from any other taxes which muslims pay in a Muslim State i.e. Zakat, Khums etc. As compared to taxes which the Muslims are subjected in a Muslim state, the amount of Jizya is very low. As such, Jizya should not be interpreted as "Additional Tax" imposed on non-muslims. It is rather a "lesser" obligation as compared to that of a Muslim. I've heard this argument before from family membe...
Source: Gene Expression - October 18, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Friday Foolery #7 Play Doh World, the Safe and UnexpectedEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Seen at the Loom of Carl Zimmer: using Play Doh, Sophia Tintori and Cassandra Extavour talk about multicellularity and the specialization of reproductive cells. The video, made by the evolutionary biologist Casey Dunn, is from Creature Cast, a collaborative blog produced by members of the Dunn Lab at Brown University. The Dunn Lab investigates how evolution [...] (Source: Laika's MedLibLog)
Source: Laika's MedLibLog - October 16, 2009 Category: Medical Librarians Authors: laikaspoetnik Tags: Art Friday Foolery video Advertorials Creature Cast Dunn Lab evolution Friday post multi-cellularity Play-Doh Source Type: blogs

Bay Area Biosystematists: 10/15 w/ undergrads. on their researchEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Gotta love this - education, evolution, science, all rolled into one ...Bay Area Biosystematists Meeting: Thursday, 15 October, 2009at UC Berkeley, 2063 Valley Life Sciences Bldg.Undergraduate Research in Evolutionary BiologyThis will be a first-time-ever-for-BABS panel discussion led by undergraduates, focused on the research experience for undergraduates in evolutionary biology in the Bay Area. Several undergraduate researchers will speak informally about their research, the path they took to get into research, where they hope to go with it in the future, and what their hopes/fears are. Suggestions on how professors and ...
Source: The Tree of Life - October 14, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Tags: evolution education Source Type: blogs

Adopt a GEBA genome program for education - from the DOE/JGIEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The DOE Joint Genome Institute’s Education Program is providing opportunities for colleges and universities across the country to “adopt” bacterial genomes, such as those sequenced as part of the "Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea" (GEBA project), for analysis. This “Adopt a GEBA Genome” Education Program makes available a selection of recently sequenced genomes for use in undergraduate courses. The organisms ideally provide a unifying thread for concepts across the life sciences curriculum. For example, students can analyze the six open reading frames for a given fragment of DNA, compare the results o...
Source: The Tree of Life - October 10, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Tags: education evolution genomics Source Type: blogs

3rd Annual Western Evolutionary Biology Meeting 12/5/09 at BerkeleyEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The 3rd Annual Western Evolutionary Biology Meeting will be at UC Berkeley. This is a meeting of the UC Network for Experimental Research on Evolution (NERE), attendees from the UC campuses will be present, other evolutionary biologists, researchers, teachers and writers are encouraged to participate as well. When: Sat. 5 December FREE registration - deadline, 29 October 2009 Submit Abstracts - deadline 16 October 2009 - or present a poster Where: On the UCB Campus in VLSB, see website for details NOMINATE: Western Evolutionary Biologist of the Year by 9 Oct. 2009See website for details. Open to Researchers, Teachers...
Source: The Tree of Life - October 10, 2009 Category: Medical Scientists Tags: meetings evolution Source Type: blogs

Science to publish Ardipithecus ramidus paperEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
That's what Kambiz Kamrani is saying. Significance: Owen Lovejoy is one of the authors of the paper, and he says that the fossil changes the notion that humans and chimps, our closest genetic cousins, both trace their lineage to a creature that was more like today's chimp and we'll have to be rewriting our text books soon. This is big folks. What this means is that our common ancestor was a bipedal forest forager and that chimps were an evolutionary offshoot. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - October 1, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Origin Of Life: Chemistry + Biology = AbiogenesisEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Thanks for reading :) ... http://prep4md.blogspot.com/ (Source: My M.D. Journey!)
Source: My M.D. Journey! - October 1, 2009 Category: Medical Students Tags: YouTube Evolution Scientific Videos Abiogenesis Source Type: blogs

Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Corey S. Powell, Editor and Chief of Discover Magazine, Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology at Brown University, Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology Yale University, and David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghampton University, discuss how we got to be the way we are.Thanks for reading :) ... http://prep4md.blogspot.com/ (Source: My M.D. Journey!)
Source: My M.D. Journey! - September 30, 2009 Category: Medical Students Tags: YouTube Video Science Evolution Source Type: blogs

Conference travel fellowship for best evolution‐themed blog in 2009Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We are very excited to announce a new sponsor for ScienceOnline2010! It is National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). Among some other ways they will help the meeting get bigger and better than ever, the good folks at NESCent are also going to help two bloggers with travel costs to the conference. Read carefully how you can get one of these two grants: Application deadline: December 1, 2009 Are you a blogger who is interested in evolution? The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) is offering two travel awards to attend ScienceOnline2010, a science communication co...
Source: A Blog Around The Clock - September 30, 2009 Category: Medical Publishers Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Creation finds distributorEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I missed this from last week, Newmarket picks up Jon Amiel's 'Creation'. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - September 29, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Why ligers are hugeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Believe it or not, tigers are not the largest big cat. Ligers are (you might remember ligers from Napoleon Dynamite). Why? It has to do with the weirdness that occurs when you hybridize across two lineages which have been distinctive for millions of years, but not so long so as not to be able to produce viable offspring (in fact, many ligers are fertile as well). Here's the explanation: Imprinted genes are under greater selective pressure than normal genes. This is because only one copy is active at a time. Any variations in that copy will be expressed. There is no "back-up copy" to mask its effects. As a result, imprinted...
Source: Gene Expression - September 28, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Africans & NeandertalsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Two papers in PNAS this week. Human origins: Out of Africa: Our species, Homo sapiens, is highly autapomorphic (uniquely derived) among hominids in the structure of its skull and postcranial skeleton. It is also sharply distinguished from other organisms by its unique symbolic mode of cognition. The fossil and archaeological records combine to show fairly clearly that our physical and cognitive attributes both first appeared in Africa, but at different times. Essentially modern bony conformation was established in that continent by the 200-150 Ka range (a dating in good agreement with dates for the origin of H. sapiens de...
Source: Gene Expression - September 22, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Charles Darwin And The Tree Of LifeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
BBC’s Darwin season featured ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’ – an animation which illustrates an idea that Darwin and his contemporaries used to explain the evolutionary links between living things. This amazing animation was narrated by Sir David Attenborough. You can read the transcript on Scitechbits, thanks Scitechbits. Related posts:Nature Video of David Attenborough on Darwin British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough presents his views on...Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds is an...Will videogames become better than life? Interesting lecture about the development an...
Source: Dr Shock MD PhD - September 19, 2009 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Dr Shock Tags: Academic Darwin Evolution video Source Type: blogs

Tiny Tyrannosaurus rexEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Tyrannosaurid Skeletal Design First Evolved at Small Body Size: Tyrannosaurid dinosaurs comprised nearly all large-bodied predators (>2.5 tons) on northern continents during the Late Cretaceous. We show that their most conspicuous functional specializations--a proportionately large skull, incisiform premaxillary teeth, expanded jaw-closing musculature, diminutive forelimb, and a hindlimb with cursorial proportions--were present in a new small-bodied, basal tyrannosauroid from Lower Cretaceous rocks in northeastern China. These specializations, scaled up in Late Cretaceous tyrannosaurids with body masses approaching 100 tim...
Source: Gene Expression - September 18, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The role of positive interactions in enabling cooperationEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Evolution of coperation is one of my main interests and I think it is a topic that could be very relevant to cancer researchers as I discussed a while ago. Rand DG, Dreber A, Ellingsen T, Fudenberg D, & Nowak MA (2009). Positive interactions promote public cooperation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 325 (5945), 1272-5 PMID: 19729661 Cooperation in nature occurs mostly between individuals that are closely related from a genetic point of view. In most other instances cooperation happens when all the interacting individuals benefit to some extent from their cooperation. Still, in some situations altruism happens if the benefa...
Source: Cancerevo: Evolution and cancer - September 17, 2009 Category: Cancer Authors: David Basanta Tags: cooperation evolution game theory Source Type: blogs

Did iatrogenic harm select for supernatural beliefs?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Toward the end of this episode of EconTalk, Nassim Taleb (Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan) talks about religion and the history of medicine. He notes that one of the benefits of adhering to religious practices was that you probably avoided going to a doctor when you were in trouble -- you prayed to a god or whatever other supernatural entity your religion said would help you out. Why was this a benefit? Because before roughly 50 to 100 years ago, going to the doctor was worse than doing nothing. He bled you, gave your wife a disease by not washing his hands while delivering her baby, etc.Basically, before very recent ...
Source: Gene Expression - September 17, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Medicine Evolution Evolution of God Religion Source Type: blogs

The origin of the NeandertalsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The origin of Neandertals: Western Eurasia yielded a rich Middle (MP) and Late Pleistocene (LP) fossil record documenting the evolution of the Neandertals that can be analyzed in light of recently acquired paleogenetical data, an abundance of archeological evidence, and a well-known environmental context. Their origin likely relates to an episode of recolonization of Western Eurasia by hominins of African origin carrying the Acheulean technology into Europe around 600 ka. An enhancement of both glacial and interglacial phases may have played a crucial role in this event, as well as in the subsequent evolutionary history of...
Source: Gene Expression - September 16, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The right-handed apeEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Via Anthropology.net, The prehistory of handedness: Archaeological data and comparative ethology:Homo sapiens sapiens displays a species wide lateralised hand preference, with 85% of individuals in all populations being right-handed for most manual actions. In contrast, no other great ape species shows such strong and consistent population level biases, indicating that extremes of both direction and strength of manual laterality (i.e., species-wide right-handedness) may have emerged after divergence from the last common ancestor. To reconstruct the hand use patterns of early hominins, laterality is assessed in prehistoric ...
Source: Gene Expression - September 16, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Cognitive Science Source Type: blogs

Apes and AngelsEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In January I offered my take on The 10,000 Year Explosion and called it a most A Most Dangerous Book. I suggested that Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending had fired an early salvo in a battle that is going to reshape or destroy our culture, and probably our world, in the next 20-30 years (the time frame is mine.) The book does not aim to solve the "Nature vs Nurture" conundrum but presents evidence from the field of population genetics to support their theory that, contrary to conventional wisdom in evolution and sociology, evolution has been s...
Source: ShrinkWrapped - September 15, 2009 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: ShrinkWrapped Tags: Anti-Semitism Evolution Intelligence Liberalism Post-Modernism Source Type: blogs

Monday T-Shirt Rescue and Linkfest.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
I've been doing internet chores all day, one of which was to get started on fixing my Zazzle stores. They've been improved, you see. And you know what that means... a lot of work. So I figured I'd try to get started on turning a pile of designs into some sort of coherent organized form.And of course, I found some old designs I rather liked. Most of these have been used in blog posts over the last several years, but some haven't, and some are topical again.I'm interspersing with stories I thought worth a thought, with an eye toward there be some vague relationship...Spafford 2.0 Template by webcarveMany t-shirt designs avai...
Source: Graphictruth - September 14, 2009 Category: Autism Tags: civil unrest zazzle t-shirts evolution civilization politics Source Type: blogs

Conflicted researcher Joan Luby & Barbara Geller: bipolar in preschoolers, depression tooEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
(Source: soulful sepulcher)
Source: soulful sepulcher - September 10, 2009 Category: Mental Illness Tags: 1999- 2008: OCD: ADHD: Childhood Bipolar Disorder: The Evolution of a Diagnosis 1999- 2007: OCD: ADHD: Childhood Bipolar Disorder: The Evolution of a Diagnosis Source Type: blogs

Creation, Charles Darwin biopicEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Creation, a biopic about Charles Darwin, premiers tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trailer below.... Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - September 9, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

The dog as pigEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There's been some buzz over a recent paper, mtDNA Data Indicates a Single Origin for Dogs South of Yangtze River, less than 16,300 Years Ago, from Numerous Wolves. This is tracing the maternal lineage, and suggests that that lineage is most diverse in southern China (just as human lineages tend to exhibit the most diversity in Africa). Here's the abstract: ...We therefore analysed entire mitochondrial genomes for 169 dogs to obtain maximal phylogenetic resolution, and the CR for 1,543 dogs across the Old World for a comprehensive picture of geographical diversity. Hereby, a detailed picture of the origins of the dog can fo...
Source: Gene Expression - September 8, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

Mothers & OthersEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
At Cognition & Culture, a review of Sarah Blaffer Hrdry's new book, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. I really liked her previous work, Mother Nature, so I'm definitely going to check this out. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy was a prominent source in Ullica Segerstrale's Defenders of the Truth: The Sociobiology Debate. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Gene Expression)
Source: Gene Expression - September 7, 2009 Category: Geneticists and Genetics Commentators Tags: Evolution Source Type: blogs

100 To 200 New Mutations Per PersonEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We've each got our own unique genetic mutations. Each person has 100-200 new genetic mutations that their parents did not have. Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and colleagues... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - September 4, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Trends, Human Evolution Source Type: blogs

Genes Found Unique To HumansEmail this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
3 genes have been identified that appear unique to humans and we might have a total of 18 genes unique to us. In this work, David Knowles and Aoife McLysaght... (Source: FuturePundit)
Source: FuturePundit - August 31, 2009 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Randall Parker Tags: Trends, Human Evolution Source Type: blogs