The Friends of Charles Darwin

Review of Narrow Roads of Gene Land: The Collected Papers of W.D. Hamilton. Vol. II: The Evolution of Sex.

Charles Darwin's theory of human evolution was published long before knowledge of genes was available. But Richard Dawkins reveals that an obscure letter found in a library proves Darwin was already doing research into heredity which anticipated the breakthroughs of the next century.

The mighty Tyrannosaurus rex may not have been as fearsome as its Hollywood image suggests. British scientists say the dinosaur could have been a scavenger, feeding on Jurassic Park leftovers.

All mammals on the island of Madagascar are descended from four ancestral species that sailed from Africa clinging to rafts of plant material, scientists have said.

Dolly the sheep, who became famous as the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, has died. A decision was taken to "euthanase" six-year-old Dolly after a veterinary examination showed that she had a progressive lung disease.

Sir, We, the undersigned, support proposals for the creation of a new public holiday, Darwin Day, on February 12…

US scientists have identified a gene which they say could explain why humans are unique…The gene emerged about the time the path that led to humans, chimps, orangutans and gorillas was splitting off from that of old and new world monkeys.

Darwin's theory of sexual selection is under attack… What worries the minority of scientists who are openly challenging sexual-selection theory is that it is unable to account for much of the diversity of sexual behaviour that exists. If, for example, as sexual-selection theory assumes, mating is primarily about sperm transfer, why do some animals mate between a hundred and a thousand times more often than is needed for conception alone?

As might be expected from a place that nurtured the young Charles Darwin, the [Cambridge Botanic G]arden has also evolved with vigour. Eight decades after its 1762 foundation, it moved to the present site under the direction of Darwin’s mentor, Professor of Botany John Stevens Henslow. Unlike its original incarnation, the professor’s new garden was conceived not as an adjunct of the medical school, but as a place where scientists (a term coined in Cambridge not long before) could study plants for their own sake.

What do Stalin, modern architecture, radical feminism, and most parenting experts have in common? They are all products of the false belief that we are born with empty minds, a tabula rasa. Or so says Steven Pinker in his new book, The Blank Slate. If the aim of science is to explain apparently unrelated phenomena via a single elegant theory, Pinker is obviously onto something big. Any theory that can explain the origins of the Five Year Plan and Le Corbusier must be reckoned with.

Fifty years ago, on 28 February 1953, Francis Crick walked into the Eagle pub in Cambridge, UK, and announced something for which he would later share a Nobel Prize. "We have found the secret of life," his collaborator and subsequent fellow Nobel laureate James Watson later quoted him as saying.

Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured.