Old Weblog - November 2005
Mice are rarely the source of romantic inspiration, but it now appears that male mice may serenade potential mates with melodies approaching the complexity of bird song.
Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published 150 years ago, but evolution by natural selection is still under attack from those wedded to a human-centred or theistic world view. Edward O. Wilson, who was raised a creationist, ponders why this should be, and whether science and religion can ever be reconciled.
Public schools in the US state of Kansas are to be given new science standards that cast doubt on evolution. The Board of Education's vote, expected for months, approved the new language criticising evolution by 6-4.
The fossilised remains of a crocodile that ruled the oceans 140 million years ago have been discovered in Patagonia.
Big Macs in Bejing, Wal-Mart stores across Brazil, The Simpsons in Arabic on Egyptian TV: Such is the homogenized nature of modern culture. But it isn't only human society that's becoming increasingly globalized. Biologists say wildlife, too, is growing more alike everywhere you go. Researchers warn that human impacts on the environment are fuelling the global spread of animals and plants, which are replacing regionally distinct species.
If Tenebrio molitor mealworm beetles' immune systems are so seriously challenged that the beetles may die, they divert their resources into producing sexual pheromones.
It sounds like the plot to a particularly misguided TV makeover show, but when a British sea captain brought four South American Indians back to Britain, and enrolled them in school, his plan was to help spread civilisation across a "dark continent".
Monitor lizards—commonly kept as pets—and iguanas produce venom, according to surprising new research that is rewriting the story of lizard and snake evolution.
A fossil reptile discovered in Brazil may be the oldest known creature that resembles a modern turtle.
A study of fossil dinosaur dung has for the first time confirmed that the ancient reptiles ate grass. Grass was previously thought to have become common only after the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.
A lizard whose fossilized bones were discovered near Dallas, Texas, 16 years ago is a missing link in the evolution of extinct swimming reptiles known as mosasaurs, a new study says. The ancient lizard, named Dallasaurus turneri, measured three feet (about a meter) long and lived 92 million years ago in shallow seas that covered what is now Texas.
A new exhibition on Darwin's life and work is a defiant gesture against US biblical literalism.