Category Archives: Biology

The 45th Carnival of Evolution is now available!

Posted on by

And it’s just lousy with bugs! This month the Carnival of Evolution hive is infesting Splendour Awaits, weblog of photographer and amateur insect enthusiast Adrian Thysse.

Creep or crawl your way over there and check out all the invertebrate wonderfulnessness!

Note: The Carnival is trying something a bit new this go around by presenting the article summaries and links in Google Docs – Presentation (a slide show format). If you have any difficulties seeing the slide window, please try another browser (Google Chrome worked best for me).

Previous Carnivals of Evolution:

If you missed any of these you’ll definitely want to go check them out!

Creationists are just buggy about bugs

Posted on by

A few months back Frank Sherwin,  “Senior Science Lecturer” at the Institute for Creation Research, launched an amusing attack on evolution that is nigh on word-salad; this time focusing on insects, and how they are supposedly problematic for evolutionary theory.

As usual it is stated with the confidence and the faux authority that is typical of “creation science” practitioners but when you actually look at it and try to make sense of what is being said it quickly becomes apparent that much of it is really unintelligible nonsense.

Read on»

Hyracotherium misinformation at scientificamerican.com

Posted on by

I am going to give another wag of the finger, this time to Scientific American. They posted a number of paintings of reconstructions of various extinct “horses” in a picture gallery titled “Ancient Miniature Horses”, which includes an entry for the famous “dawn horse”, Hyracotherium.

However, the problems lies not in the painting, which is probably a reasonable guesstimate of what Hyracotherium might have looked like in life but rather with the blurb of information included with the painting:

Hyracotherium This genus of small early horse roamed the early woodlands of Asia, Europe and North America some 55 million to 45 million years ago. It was already larger than Sifrhippus, weighing about 22.7 kilograms. But when Richard Owen first discovered Hyracotherium in 1876, it was so diminutive that he thought it was some unknown hyrax species, a group of extant mammals that live in Africa and the Middle East. 

Painting by Heinrich Harder used by S.A.

No, no, no, a thousand times no! It is bad enough when creationists claim that Hyracotherium is merely a hyrax (rather than a ancestral horse) and claim that Richard Owen thought so as well but to have a venerable science publication like Scientific American falling into the same pit of misinformation is extremely vexing.

Read on»

The Proceedings of the 44th Carnival of Evolution is now available

Posted on by

Ladies and Gentlemen… Mesdames et Messieurs… Damen und Herren… The Carnival of Evolution XLIV! This month the carnival is inhabiting The Atavism (great name) and is cleverly set up as a scientific symposium. See for yourself.


Previous Carnivals of Evolution:

If you missed any of these you’ll definitely want to go check them out!

Up close and personal with mountain gorillas

Posted on by

I shared this on Facebook a while back, thought I’d post it here as well―easy content… Seriously though, if you’re not amazed by this then there is something wrong with you.

I love the part were Daddy silverback pulls the young gorilla away from the funny looking hairless ape. I can almost hear him saying; “stay away from that, you don’t know where its been!” Click here for more on the mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei).

Symphony of Science – Evolution

Posted on by

Not my cup of tea* musically but fun just the same:

Hat tip to Michael Barton at The Dispersal of Darwin.

*technically no cup of tea is my cup of tea, as I loathe tea.

The Carnival of Evolution #42 is up!

Posted on by

Oh no, not again…

Yep, it’s time for the Carnival of Evolution (#42)!!!  This month it is being held at The Ocelloid and in case you can’t tell there is a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy theme. So grab your towel, pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and head on over for the latest batch of evolutionary goodness.

It’s either that or Vogon poetry…

Previous Carnivals of Evolution:

Life! Don’t talk to me about life.

Darwin’s Pigeons

Posted on by

This seemed apropos:

[Hat tip to the WhyEvolutionIsTrue channel on YouTube.]

The Carnival of Evolution #38 is up!

Posted on by

And it’s a doozy! I know I say something like that every month and I mean it, but this time it’s truer than ever. This months host is the estimable Larry Moran (Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto) on his excellent blog Sandwalk.

There are lots and lots of great links to evolution related articles for you to peruse (even if none of them are mine because my opus on creationists and arthropods keeps getting longer and longer).

As a bit of housekeeping I am going to list links to the past CoE below so I can clean up the blog a bit (all those green glowy spheres make me feel bad about not being more productive /honest self reflection).

If you missed any of these you’ll definitely want to go check them out!

Inside Nature’s Giants – Polar bear

Posted on by

This is the latest in the wonderful Inside Nature’s Giants television series (U.K.) and while it unfortunately (at least as far as I’m concerned) spends more time on environmental issues than anatomy, it is still definitely worth watching; so here you go, enjoy: