Tag: evolution

Evolution and Gene Regulation in Chicago

Happening at the U of Chicago today is the ASBMB meeting “Evolution and Core Processes in Gene Regulation”. The attendees here are an eclectic mix of evolutionary geneticists, systems biologists, developmental biologists, and hard core biochemists. So far the result has been fascinating, as Ian Dworkin over at Genes Gone Wild tells us.

Follow the meeting over at #genereg, where Ian has done a great job summarizing the talks in real time.

I’ll try to chime in occasionally during today’s talks (@genologos) and put up some more in depth thoughts on my favorite bits here.

Science Caturday: How do you teach your cat about evolution?

Pascal_innerfish_lolFirst, Pascal the cat thought the book was a guide to eating fish. Then, he thought it was a guide to eating Tiktaalik, a fish with leg-like limbs that is closely related to the ancestor of all land-dwelling vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and dinosaurs).

No, Pascal. Your inner fish is the anatomical similarities you have with fish, because you share a common ancestor with them deep in the past. Though you may think you’re a superior being to your pet hooman, you share the same common ancestor with him, from the first life on Earth until sometime in the Jurassic Period, when all mammals were about the size of your cat toys.

Crying

Human population structure is such that it would require either (or both) a strong selection pressure or a big increase in fitness for natural selection to dominate the evolutionary dynamics. I submit as evidence that humans were not subject to intense selection pressure from predation one word: crying, specifically the crying of small children.

The idea that a primitive band of reproductively successful humans could remain hidden from things like leopards boggles the mind of this father. And, I have thought this for a long time, before I had children. It is in no way related to the fundamental conflicts generated by bed time and potty training in the mind of a two year old child. Nothing at all.

An argument between Dawkins & Wilson

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal features an argument between Richard Dawkins and EO Wilson, with a cameo by Michael Lynch.


*I fear this may be a very inside evolutionary biology joke which greatly oversimplifies the positions held by all three individuals.

Decoding ENCODE

On Sunday, I participated in a panel discussion of the ENCODE project and issues  related to it, with the folks from ScienceSunday via Google+ Hangouts. Ian Bosdet and I joined hosts Rajini Rao, Buddhini Samarasinghe, and Scott Lewis. to talk about ENCODE and make it accessible to those without a decade of post-graduate training in genomics If you have a spare 78 minutes, the discussion can be viewed on YouTube.