... TagViewer (entries by tag)
... TagViewer (entries by tag)
The PBS Nova show has a great new website for their ongoing series dealing with various aspects of Evolution. Among other things to explore, an interactive map of the Galapagos Islands featuring Gigapan ultra-high definition scrolling panorama images.
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, NOVA, PBS, Gigapan
The discovery of a new fossil in Egypt that appears to be a younger relative of the “Ida” fossil announced a few months ago (with great fanfare and publicity) has cast considerable doubt on whether Ida is an ancestor of human beings: New Primate Fossil Poses Further Challenge to Ida. ...
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, Anthropology, Common Ancestor
Airing tonight on the Discovery Channel at 9 pm (Eastern and Pacific), Discovering Ardi — a documentary on the investigation leading up to the historic announcement of the Ardipithecus ramidus fossils. Set your TiVos and your Eye TVs; this looks like a must-see. [Video] The scientific investigation began in ...
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, Anthropology, Common Ancestor, Ardipithecus, Video
Carl Zimmer has a great post at The Loom on the historic announcement this week of the discovery of Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last. At first, Ardipithecus ramidus was yet another scrappy pre-Lucy fossil. The first report offered details about part of a 4.4 million-year-old jaw bone–a remarkable jaw ...
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, Anthropology, Common Ancestor, Carl Zimmer, Ardipithecus
“Missing link” is really the wrong term to use for this newly-announced fossil discovery (it implies a single link between humans and their ape-like ancestors, when the truth is far more complex and fluid), but if it will set creationists’ heads spinning I’ll accept it: Oldest ‘Human’ Skeleton Found — ...
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, Anthropology, Common Ancestor
Here’s evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on the Colbert Report, promoting his new book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (which I give my highest recommendation). Comedy Central Video
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, richard dawkins, Creationism, Stephen Colbert, Video, Humor
Evolutionary biologists have long wondered whether it was possible for evolution to reverse direction; in other words, whether the proteins that make up an organism could “devolve” back to a previous shape or purpose. Carl Zimmer has an interesting piece on new research that strongly suggests evolution is a one-way ...
I got this book for my beloved Kindle a few days ago: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins. I’m about a quarter of the way into it, and I already have no hesitation about recommending it highly to anyone interested in arming themselves with ...
Kindle, Creationism, richard dawkins, Biology, Natural Selection, Science, Evolution
A fascinating piece by science writer Carl Zimmer looks at the evidence that climate change is forcing surprisingly rapid evolutionary changes in some species of plants and animals: First Comes Global Warming, Then An Evolutionary Explosion. In 1997, Arthur Weis found himself with an extra bucket of seeds. Weis, ...
Evolution, Science, Natural Selection, Biology, Carl Zimmer, Climate Change, Global Warming
A team of scientists at Caltech has published a study that sheds new light on how major changes can occur through the process of natural selection: How Evolution Can Allow For Large Developmental Leaps. ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — How evolution acts to bridge the chasm between two discrete ...
For Mother’s Day tomorrow, the National Geographic Channel has a fascinating show in the works, titled In The Womb: Extreme Animals, exploring the reproduction of four different animals with real-time 4D ultrasound images. Here’s a video clip of the section dealing with a penguin fetus and its extraordinary method of ...
The Discovery Institute has created a fascinating 3D high-resolution CT scan of the famous “Lucy” fossil (Australopithecus afarensis): Lucy 2.0: Famous Fossil Hominid Goes Digital. Oops, sorry ... did I say “Discovery Institute?” I meant the University of Texas. Everyone knows the Discovery Institute isn’t interested in actually doing scientific ...
Evolution, Biology, Science, paleontology, Lucy, Fossil, Hominid
Amazing paleontological discoveries this week: A new species of early whale, in the form of a pregnant female with a near-term fetus: Laelaps : Maiacetus, the good mother whale. An enormous boa constrictor that lived about 60 million years ago in Colombia, nearly 50 feet long and weighing more than ...
At Texas A&M University, new research into yeast cells has resulted in the first direct experimental observations of evolution occurring in real time: Evolutionary process – new evidence emerges. New evidence from a study of yeast cells has resulted in the most detailed picture of an organism’s evolutionary process ...
Here’s an interesting list of the Top 10 Signs Of Evolution In Modern Man. 10. Goose Bumps (Cutis Anserina) Humans get goose bumps when they are cold, frightened, angry, or in awe. Many other creatures get goose bumps for the same reason, for example this is why a cat ...
Biologists have discovered that a rare pink iguana found only on a single volcano in the Galapagos Islands is a surprising example of ancient evolutionary diversification—and Charles Darwin never even saw it. Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos islands in 1835 but didn’t make it to the northernmost volcano, Volcan ...
12 Elegant Examples of Evolution, compiled by the editors of Nature to celebrate the upcoming 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Dinosaurs of a Feather. Archaeopteryx, found in 1861, was long thought to be the first bird. Then it was recognized as something closer to a dinosaur with feathers ...
Evolution, Biology, charles darwin, Creationism, archaeopteryx
Scientists studying the human genome, with the help of massively parallel arrays of supercomputers, are uncovering a world of information that is far more complex than anyone dreamed—and far more mysterious: Now - The Rest of the Genome. Over the summer, Sonja Prohaska decided to try an experiment. She ...
Here’s a mind-expanding article by Michael Specter that appeared in The New Yorker last December, on a discovery about the way viruses infiltrate human cells and affect the coding of human DNA. The Human Genome Project has shown that our DNA contains many traces of extinct retroviruses that copied themselves ...
LGF, Evolution, Science, DNA, Viral Evolution, Biology, Frankenstein