Welcome to the Carnival of Evolution #18!
First off – big news here at the Carnival. As you can see, my edition is late again. I can’t seem to find the time to keep up online anymore (thanks alot starfish gene cloning). Thus it is with both disappointment and excitement that I am turning over administration [...]

Okay, so I’m a week late posting the link (sorry!), but the Carnival of Evolution #13 is now live in technicolored form at FYI:Science!.
Quite a selection of excellent articles is up for your perusal – so go over and get some summer evolutionary reading under your belt!Be sure to submit your own writings next [...]

As someone who has been a lifelong fossil collector, I have a terrible, unforgivable sin to admit: I lived for eight years in North Carolina and never knew of the existence of Aurora, NC.
Mind you, since moving here for graduate school, fossil hunting had fallen off of my priority list, largely owing to the fact [...]

I hang out online sometimes with a bunch of like-minded fossil-enthusiasts (The Fossil Forum).
Tonight somebody posted this:
Just watched the new this evening and they were talking about a dig going on right now outside of Glen Rose, on the McFall ranch. The news showed the footprints of the therapod and the human prints together. It [...]

I’m back!!!
Oh…you never realized I was gone?
Ah well, that’s ok, because I AM back – back from a stressful few months of wondering where I would end up, how I would feed my babies (i.e. cats) and their baby-momma (my wife – yeah that does sound rather gross), and several dozen unknowns also thrown into [...]

Yeah – I can’t seem to find the internet lately. I just managed to snatch this little glimpse of it in the pale moonlight in between wake/work cycles, so here I am. I won’t bother giving you more excuses. Besides, Miriam has already used up all the best ones.
However, I need to take this time [...]

Well, as some of you have no doubt noticed, I have been rather absent from the internets as of late. On top of a heavy load of scientific experiments on my plate, I’m also spending almost every waking minute trying to get my house ready to sell for my impending move to Pittsburgh (which includes [...]

If any of you have not read Hoxful Monsters, you should leave me and go there immediately.
I swear – everytime I read a post by Nagraj Sambrani, I find myself at least a tenth of an IQ point smarter (that’s a joke – no IQ debates here…). That adds up!
Nagraj’s latest post (New tree of [...]

As I have recently shown you all, Spring is here in full force in North Carolina.
I love it more than almost anything, but there are two weeks of Spring that are quite hellish for me.  You see, I am incredibly allergic to Oak pollen (most species but not all).
This fact has lead to a tragic [...]

Oh yes, woolly we be. Check out the latest update on our celebratory Darwin beard contest over at Southern Fried Science.
Great Darwin Beard Challenge History:

The Origin: Deep Sea News, Southern Fried Science, Biochemical Soul
Week 1: Biochemical Soul, Deep Sea News
Week 2: Southern Fried Science – Hats

Week 3: Biochemical Soul – Hardcore

Week 4: Biochemical Soul – The [...]

I couldn’t imagine how Miriam Goldstein of The Oyster’s Garter could top her previous hosting of the Carnival of the Blue #21 in which she waxed lyrical and poetic.
However, as I have come to expect from Miriam, she completely knocked the socks off of my expectations with her shiny new edition of the Carnival of [...]

I owe the following example of evolutionary adaptation to the always amazing evolutionary and developmental biologist Dr. Sean B. Carroll, from his lecture “Making of the Fittest” for the Darwin College – Darwin Lecture Series, available at iTunes U (I highly recommend everyone give it a listen).

Imagine that you are a fish – exothermic and [...]

Alright, so Kevin at Deep-Sea News got a little busy this past week “laying down the hardwood.” He claims this involved flooring installation…
Thus I have taken on the reigns of presenting this week’s Great Darwin Beard Challenge images.
For those of you new here (and I know there are several due to my Science Blogging: The [...]

Just a couple of quick notes to my fellow developmental biologists out there:
First, due to my recent post, Science Blogging: The Future of Science Communication & Why You Should be a Part of it, I was reminded through my comments at Larry Moran’s reaction post at Sandwalk that I haven’t met very many developmental biologist [...]

What’s better than children singing? Children singing about science. And to take it once step better, give all the little kiddies British accents.
Apparently these videos have been around for quite some time, but I somehow missed them. Thus I’m guessing that some of you may have missed them as well.
The following are a couple of [...]

There’s one particular event of every summer in the South that I always await with great anticipation: the emergence of the millions of annual Dog Day cicadas (Tibicen canicularis).
It’s not just the event itself that I love. The cicadas are certainly wonders in themselves; but for me, they are more than just insects of the [...]

Stripped of all biologically advantageous or meaningful body hair, there comes a time in every man’s life when he ponders just why the eons of molding, shaping, and changing forces of natural selection have left what little remains.
The answer comes, quite naturally, to all who discover that certain magical stage of hirsute facial existence. There [...]

Earlier this week, thanks to the wonderful science & nature Twitter community, I followed a link from someone now forgotten to an article entitled “7 Symbiotic Wonders of the Aerial World.”
Therein, in symbiotic relationship number one, sat a photograph that I found utterly astonishing:
According to the WebEcoist website which published this list of “symbiotic wonders.”
“It [...]

The next edition of the Carnival of Evolution is now live over at Moneduloides!
It’s clear that moneduloides put alot of work into this edition, which contains a great amount of commentary on each submission.
So waste no more time here – go check it out now!

This week’s installment of the Great Darwin Beard Challenge is live over at Southern Fried Science. We are in week two now, our sandpaper faces replaced by millimeter stubble.
It seems a long way from here to our bushy-bearded Darwinian goals. The “contest” will end on October 1st, the 150th anniversary of the inside cover date [...]

Most biologists at one time or another in their training have learned of the 19th century theory expounded upon by Ernst Haeckel called “Recapitulation Theory“.
The theory’s thesis: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” Don’t worry – it’s not as complicated as the biological jargon might imply.
The idea boils down to a simple one – one that seemed to [...]

Okay, so technically this is Day 5 (I’m two days behind the other guys). But for consistency’s sake, I’ll just fudge the data a little bit and call it day 7, at the risk of looking relatively less manly.
This week’s Great Darwin Beard Challenge update is hosted by Kevin Zelnio of Deep-Sea News.
Just to remind [...]

“In the gloom it came along the branches towards me, its round, hypnotic eyes blazing, its spoon-like ears turning to and fro like radar dishes, its white whiskers twitching and moving like sensors; its black hands, with their thin fingers, the third seeming terribly elongated, tapping delicately on the branches as it moved along.”
- Gerald [...]

For awhile anyway.
As some of you may know, Andrew, the Southern Fried Scientist, and Kevin Zelnio of The Other 95% and Deep Sea News have begun a Darwinian celebratory challenge of manly proportions. Between February 12th (Darwin’s 200th birthday) and October 1st (The 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, according to [...]

Though we are nearing the end of the “official” Darwin Day celebration, considering Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, 2009 is sure to be the Year of Darwin. In fact, a slew of events will be filling the entire month of February and there are [...]