Evolution
The Huia and Its Sexually Dimorphic Bill
It's time for one of those classic `from the archives' type articles. This one was originally published in July 2008 at Tet Zoo ver 2. Apart from tiny editorial tweaks, it hasn't been updated...
"Evolution"
Curious Complex Contentious Coots
One of the birds I see most regularly here in southern England is the Eurasian coot Fulica atra. This is another of those oh-so-familiar animals that we see so often that we normally pay it little attention...
Space & Physics
Looking for Life In Our Soggy Solar System
Scientists are finding liquid water, the cornerstone for life as we know it, in surprising nooks and crannies of the solar system. Following Wednesday's news that there seem to be hydrothermal vents churning away in the warm, alkaline seas inside Saturn's moon Enceladus, researchers announced airtight evidence yesterday that Jupiter's moon Ganymede also has a [...]..
Mind & Brain
Hype of “Feel-Good Gene” Makes Me Feel Bad
In 1990 The New York Times published a front-page article by Lawrence Altman, a reporter with a medical degree, announcing that scientists had discovered “a link between alcoholism and a specific gene.” That was merely one in a string of reports in which the Times and other major media hyped what turned out to be [...]..
Space & Physics
Have We Got Solar System Habitability Backwards?
Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, Triton, Pluto, Eris…they may all have, or have had, large oceans of liquid water trapped beneath a frozen crust.
Evolution
Neandertals Turned Eagle Talons into Jewelry 130,000 Years Ago
As longtime readers may have noticed, I have an abiding interest in Neandertals. To help me keep up with the latest scientific insights into these mysterious relatives of ours, I have a Google alert set for "Neandertal" (and the alternate spelling, "Neanderthal")...
Evolution
The Atomic Worm-Lizard and Other Aprasia Flapfoots
I'm feeling the urge to blog about lizards. So, today I'd like to talk about the Aprasia species, a group of short-tailed, near-limbless gekkotans that belong to the Australian Pygopodidae family, the so-called flapfoots, flap-footed lizards or pygopods...
Environment
If Apes Go Extinct, So Could Entire Forests
Bonobo poop matters. Well, maybe not the poop itself, but what's in it. You see, bonobos eat a lot of fruit, and fruit contains seeds. Those seeds travel through a bonobo's digestive system while the bonobo itself travels through the landscape...
Call of the Orangutan: The Importance of Play
The past couple of months have been excellent for our data collection, as we've encountered a number of parties of orangutans. This is a more common occurrence in the high productivity forests of Sumatra, where we’re working, than on Borneo, where animals tend to be much more dispersed due to limitations in food availability...
A Blizzard of Astrobiology
Astrobiology has one key advantage when it comes to tooting its own horn – it can lay claim to a diverse range of scientific research as being relevant to the study of life in the universe...
New Books on Dinosaurs 2: Dean Lomax and Nobumichi Tamura's Dinosaurs of the British Isles
Following on from February's review of Matthew P. Martyniuk's Beasts of Antiquity: Stem-Birds in the Solnhofen Limestone, it's time once again to look at another recently published dinosaur-themed book...
Meet Gil Wizen’s Neighbors
Unless you live under a rock, you have likely seen the clean white natural history work of the Meet Your Neighbours project. And even if you do live under a rock, chances are one of the project’s members has found you, removed you to a plastic stage, and snapped a photo...
Environment
After 400 Million Years, Coelacanth at Risk of Extinction
It may have hidden in the ocean for millions of years, but life today poses numerous challenges for the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), the "living fossil" fish that was famously rediscovered off the coast of South Africa in 1938...
Evolution
Meet the Scaly-tail Gliders
Among the weirdest and most fascinating of rodents are the scalytails/scaly-tails, scaly-tailed squirrels or anomalures, properly termed Anomaluridae.
Along the Tiger's Trail: Where Are the Cats Found and Why?
A team of four WCS India Program field members are sweating it out in the rugged hilly terrain of Malenad. Walking neither too fast, nor too slow, they follow a trail, diligently observing and recording signs of tigers and other wildlife along the way...
Evolution
Tiny Cell Grows Giant Death Spike and Lives to Grow Another
Let’s say you’re a small cell engaged in heavy manufacturing. Like most animal cells, you are coated only in a thin membrane made a double layer of fluid fat-like molecules.
How a Goshawk Scalped Me–Twice
A charming article about northern goshawks by James Gorman of the New York Times has dredged up a memory of my run-in with one of these fierce creatures.
Can Faith and Science Coexist? Mathematician and Christian John Lennox Responds
My last column outlined points I made in a February 18 debate at my school, Stevens Institute of Technology, about whether religion and science are compatible.
Vegetable-Breed Time Capsules in Renaissance Whimsy
Just throwing this out there. Has there been an attempt to track the meandering flow of selective breeding of fruits, vegetables and flowers by using still life paintings since the Renaissance?...
How to Study a Complex Microbial World – Part 3: Genes to Genomes
In part 1 of this series, I talked about what DNA sequencing is, and why it’s an important tool. In part 2, I explained some of the technologies that scientists are currently using to actually “read” the letters of DNA sequences from organisms...
