Wanna know the difference between this kid and a chimpanzee? So do evolutionary biologists . . . And with the use of genetic studies, scientists recently have figured out two additional ways that we Homo Sapiens differ from our common primate chimp ancestors from six to eight million years ago. They have to do with […]
Genetic Differences Between Children and Chimpanzee’s Read More »
Evolutionary history is the focus of my posts for a while, and what better place to start than CRISPR? Last week, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna’s work in using CRISPR for gene editing made news headlines – this is the first time the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two women. The future
CRISPR Gene and The Nobel Prize in Chemistry Read More »
This is St. George Jackson Mivart, and he ruffled the feathers of proponents of every side of the evolution debates of the 19th century. The second slide is a fossil of a ancient species called Archaeopteryx, and its ruffled feathers were at the center of evolutionary debates of the 19th century.Mivart was raised Anglican but
St. George Jackson Mivart and the Archaeopteryx Read More »
This is Marie-Claire King (born 1946), and just reading about her accomplishments makes me tired. Besides earning her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, she has six other honorary doctorates in science from the most prestigious universities in the world. From her work in discovering the genetic foundations of breast cancer, schizophrenia, and hearing loss, to her
Marie-Claire King and Genetic Studies Read More »
A few days ago I did a post featuring a fossil of a creature called Archaeopteryx, famed for having traits both bird- and dinosaur- like: it filled in a gap in the evolutionary record. The photo you see here is of the paleo-biologist Neil Shubin with a model of a creature whose fossils he found.
Neil Shubin and the Tiktaalik Read More »
Historians are frequently enchanted by things discarded as useless by the general public. But I think anyone interested in evolution would find the study of non-gene coding DNA fascinating, including the scientist featured here. This is Susumu Ohno, one of the United States’ foremost geneticists and evolutionary biologists, and he came up with the term
Susumu Ohno’s “Junk DNA” Read More »
“The Persistence of Memory” is one of artist Salvador Dali’s most recognizable paintings. The surrealist style is perfectly adapted to depicting the ways our minds preserve our memories — they are suggestive, dreamlike, warpable. For however imperfect or relativistic our memories might be, we owe them for much of our sense of identity.How we humans
Salvador Dali and the Arc Gene Read More »
Charles Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection as the key driver of evolution has been demonstrated many times over. However, in the century and a half since his lifetime, scientists have added onto his theories as various scientific discoveries have been made. Perhaps no one has reframed the picture of Darwinian evolution as much as the
Lynn Margulis and Eukaryotic Cells Read More »
The two pictures shown here accompanied two of the most important “aha!” moments in history. The first is “Photo 51,” taken under the laboratory research of Rosalind Franklin. It shows an X-ray diffraction pattern of DNA, and Franklin, Watson, and Crick used it to figure out the molecular structure of life itself.The second is a
Famous Images From Science Read More »
I have another person to add to my list of imaginary attendees in my hypothetical dinner party. Might I introduce to you one Margaret Lucas Cavendish (d.1673)?.Margaret’s life shows just how much human potential has been wasted by limiting women’s access to education. She gleaned hers through conversations of the men around her — her
Margaret Lucas Cavendish Read More »
The lunar crater you see here is Aristarchus, and we’re not going to be be able to get any closer than that to an accurate portrait of the eponymous Ancient Greek astronomer because most of his writings — as well as any contemporary sculpture or paintings of the man — are lost to the sands
Aristarchus’s Model of the Universe Read More »
“I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this,” says the main character of Andy Weir’s _The Martian_, and proceeded.to use every bit of his resourcefulness to harness the power of knowledge to save himself. That movie is fictional, but actual scientists have done this (Hello, COVID-19 vaccination developers, I’m talkin’ to you there).
Clair Patterson and Lead Poisoning Read More »
These two images reflect the ancient Colorado peoples, who lived as the earliest nomads of the region. Some exciting research from this area is challenging entrenched ideas about how our human ancestors lived.The mammoth skeleton is from the very first peoples, known as the Paleoindians. Dating as far back as 13,000 years ago, archaeologists have
Ancient Colorado Peoples Read More »
Those of us who love travelling to new places enjoy the sensation of adventure and the way it makes us open to learning new things, but few of us today risk our lives for such experiences. However, Maria Sibylla Merian was different. In 1699, this affluent 52-year old divorced mother of two left her affluent
Maria Sibylla Merian Read More »
Behold the Wonderwerk cave in South Africa, yet another place on my travel bucket list and also an archaeological site giving evidence for one of the most important inventions humans ever came up with: cooking.Ashes and bone fragments from Wonderwerk have been found from a million years ago, suggesting that our distant relatives, Homo Erectus,
Wonderwerk Cave of South Africa Read More »
This sweet painting by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller from 1854 is called _Grandmother with Three Grandchildren_. In it , three cheery young girls surround a seated older woman, eyes gazing on some scrap of paper she is holding. All four females are comfortable with each other, and wear relaxed and happy expressions. The image of
The Grandmother Thesis Read More »
66 million years ago, there was a Very Bad Day for nearly everyone on the planet. That’s when the asteroid responsible for ending the age of the dinosaurs crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula and destroyed about 78% of all species.This picture from Trinidad Lake State Park in Colorado shows one of the places where the
The Asteroid that Killed the Dinosaurs Read More »
This is Ilya Ivanov, sometime known as the “Red Frankenstein” because of his experiments with inter-species breeding.In the early days of communist Russia, Ivanov earned a reputation for developing artificial insemination techniques that allowed him to develop hybrids of closely-related species: “zeedonks” (zebra with donkey), “zubrons” (European bison with cows) and sundry blends of rabbits,
The “Red Frankenstein” Read More »
Epidemiological studies is a fascinating blend of science and history. There’s a lot of ways we can benefit now from the study of past disease. The pock-marked friars shown here might well have been suffering from an illness that most folks today are blessedly free from: measles.Measles is a human virus (MeV), but, like SARS-COV2,
Epidemiological Studies Read More »
It’s difficult to make a hero out of Edward Jenner, the doctor who developed one of the earliest types of vaccinations (for smallpox), but did so by experimenting on a nine-year old kid (James Phipps, the son of Jenner’s gardener). That kind of callousness fuels the fire of all sorts of negative stereotypes about scientists,
Barry James Marshall and His Ulcers Read More »
