Evolution
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I am often asked whether I agree with the new group selectionists, and the questioners are always surprised when I say I do not. After all, group selection sounds like a reasonable extension of evolutionary theory and a plausible explanation of the social nature of humans. Also, the group selectionists tend to declare victory, and write as if their theory has already superseded a narrow, reductionist dogma that selection acts only at the level of genes.
The False Allure Of Group Selection
Tough choices. Developing nematodes must choose to mature quickly into reproductive adults or spend extra time as a nonfeeding larva (smaller worm, top ). Credit: Image courtesy of Manuel Zimmer
Is Evolution Predictable?
Human
It didn’t take long for the recent Foundational Questions Institute conference on the nature of time to delve into the purpose of life. “The purpose of life,” meeting co-organizer and Caltech cosmologist Sean Carroll said in his opening remarks , “is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide.”
How Life Arose on Earth, and How a Singularity Might Bring It Down
Before DNA, before RNA: Life in the hodge-podge world - life - 08 January 2012
Take note, DNA and RNA: it's not all about you. Life on Earth may have begun with a splash of TNA – a different kind of genetic material altogether.
Fossil DNA has clues to surviving rapid climate change - life - 31 January 2012
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Prions point to a new style of evolution - life - 15 February 2012
THE rogue proteins behind variant CJD , the human form of mad cow disease , have revealed their benign side.
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Russian hot springs point to rocky origins for life - life - 13 February 2012
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Life began with a planetary mega-organism - life - 25 November 2011
Mechanism of evolution of the primordial metabolism discovered Volcanic-hydrothermal flow channels offer a chemically unique environment, which at first glance appears hostile to life.
Avalanche of Reactions at the Origin of Life
First top predator was giant shrimp with amazing eyes - life - 07 December 2011
Half a billion years ago, sea creatures fled from a terrifying new creature: a gigantic primordial shrimp with pin-sharp vision. It is one of the oldest known animals with compound eyes, the hallmark of modern insects and crustaceans.‘Rigid Swimmer’ and the Cretaceous Ichthyosaur Revolution (part I) | Tetrapod Zoology
You’re reading a blog.Feb. 17, 2012 — A University of Arkansas biologist has created a sketch of what the first common ancestor of plants and algae may have looked like. He explains that primitive organisms are not always simple.
Meet plants' and algae's common ancestor: Primitive organisms not always so simple, researcher says
Complex life may have had parasitic origins.