Tree of Life Web Project The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists and nature enthusiasts from around the world. On more than 10,000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about biodiversity, the characteristics of different groups of organisms, and their evolutionary history (phylogeny). Each page contains information about a particular group, e.g., salamanders, segmented worms, phlox flowers, tyrannosaurs, euglenids, Heliconius butterflies, club fungi, or the vampire squid. ToL pages are linked one to another hierarchically, in the form of the evolutionary tree of life.
Genetics and the tree of life We traditionally think about the tree of life in terms of Kingdoms: plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc. Genetics has really revolutionized the way we think about the tree of life and, because our classifications should reflect ancestry (that is, who is more closely related to whom), it has actually called into question a lot of our traditional classifications. Most biologists split up life into three domains: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eucarya (the last of which includes animals, plants, fungi, etc.). The three domains of life. From Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom. Science writer Carl Zimmer has an interesting post on his blog about how the newest genetic data may even call this classification into question by adding a fourth domain. There’s a lot of debate about whether eukaryotes actually split off from within the archaea, or just branched off from a common ancestor. New research is looking at tons of genes from these sorts of organisms. References Wu, D., et al. (2011). Like this:
Biodiversity Heritage Library Current Book List General Index Search Charles Darwin's Library Charles Darwin’s Library is a digital edition and virtual reconstruction of the surviving books owned by Charles Darwin. This BHL special collection draws on original copies and surrogates from other libraries. It also provides full transcriptions of his annotations and marks. How to use Charles Darwin's Library A Darwin’s Library transcription pane faces each page that Darwin marked or wrote notes on. Entries in the pane have line numbers, such as lines 5-7. In books scanned from Darwin’s personal copies you will see his writing. Click the banner to reach the Current Book List and the General Index. The pane uses a very few specialized terms and symbols: The transcription pane uses special characters to represent some elements of Darwin's annotations. Support Transatlantic Digitisation Collaboration Grant, Phase 1 sponsored by: United Kingdom United States Contributors Cambridge University Library (
Orchidée 54 Origins by Lucas Laursen Charles Darwin may have had his biggest impact on biology, but he began his scientific career as a geologist. So it’s appropriate that earlier this year, retired geologist John Ramsay, who had long studied the famed biologist’s life, accepted a commission to compose a Darwin-themed string quartet. Darwin “did some pretty fundamental geological mapping," says Ramsay, drawing a parallel to his own geological career, during which he has drawn maps of the Scottish Highlands, South Africa, and the Swiss Alps. Ramsay says he and Darwin also share a penchant for putting "ideas that spring from other parts of one's life" into their current work. He notes that Darwin applied lessons from Earth's landscape to biology, adapting, for example, Charles Lyell's theory of gradual geological change to living things. At the beginning of the piece, a disorganized Earth takes shape, with the core, mantle, and crust emerging into distinct musical themes.
International Darwin Day Foundation Charles Darwin Spotlight | Learn Science at Scitable Like so many great scientists, Charles Darwin was first drawn to science as a young boy by his intense interest in the diverse animals and plants that filled his surroundings. Later, despite his father's urgings to pursue a career in medicine, young Darwin found himself drawn to careful, empirical observation of nature, particularly through his cherished hobby of collecting beetles. His empirical instincts were further developed at the University of Cambridge through deep study under contemporary naturalists, such as John Stevens Henslow, founder of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden (1831), and through reading progressive philosophers, such as William Paley, author of Natural Theology (1802). By the time he was serendipitously invited to accompany Captain Robert FitzRoy on a voyage of the HMS Beagle, Darwin had become an astute and insatiable scientist, primed for significant discoveries. Who could have imagined how significant his discoveries would be?
The Illustrated Guide to Epigenetics Illustrations by Joe Kloc This month marks the ten-year anniversary of the sequencing of the human genome, that noble achievement underpinning the less noble sales of 23andMe's direct-to-consumer genetic tests. To commemorate the scientific occasion, we've created an illustrated introduction to one subfield of genetics likely to produce even more dubious novelty science projects someday: epigenetics. What is epigenetics? FIGURE 1: Through a process called mitosis, a single cell (A) splits into two cells (B) with identical genetic information. FIGURE 2: DNA coils around proteins called histones, forming a nucleosome. How does the epigenome work? Molecular "caps" called methyl groups can be attached to genes in order to effectively block them from giving instructions to the cell (FIGURE 3). FIGURE 3: Methyl groups attach themselves to base pairs of a gene, changing the way the gene is expressed.In these two ways the epigenome controls which genes ultimately get expressed.
The Beagle Project Blog: Pics in space One of the most exciting science projects we plan to do aboard the new Beagle is to correlate ocean surface biological surveys with images of our position taken at the same time by our astronaut friends aboard the International Space Station. The premise of such a study got a big boost this week when Nature published special News Features and Commentaries on earth monitoring. The issue includes an essay by Stewart Brand of the Long Now Foundation. Way back in 1966 Brand promoted 'the idea of photographing the "whole Earth" from space, hoping that it would stimulate humanity's interest in its mega-habitat.' And oh, how it did. On Christmas Eve, they transmitted the first images of the whole Earth that anyone had ever seen. Stewart Brand was right in 1966, so let's listen carefully to him now. Throw in a charismatic tall ship with a scientific legacy like the Beagle's and we might find ourselves even closer to achieving Brand's vision.
The Beagle Project Blog: Brigs in Space! Beagle and NASA in transatmospheric link-up. Well, folks, to say it's been a good week for the Beagle Project would be a bit of an understatement. First we had confirmation that we've been granted charitable status (and are therefore eligible to receive Gift Aid among other things); then we had a brilliant turnout at the House of Lords reception given for us by Lords Hunt and Livsey; but oh, how we've saved the best for last... The International Space Station as she flies above the ocean this summer. The HMS Beagle Trust are now the very proud owners of signed NASASpace Act Agreement. Yes, you heard that right: The Beagle Project and NASA are an item. We're going to be working with NASA on a joint science, education and outreach programme centred on a direct link between the International Space Station and the new Beagle as she retraces the 1831-1836 voyage that carried a certain young naturalist around the world. You can read all the details in our press release. ~Karen and Peter
The National Academies In the News: Your Inner Fish – A Scientific Adventure Have you ever wondered why people look the way they do? Why our hands and feet have five digits instead of six? Why we stand on two legs instead of four? It took 350 million years of evolution to produce the amazing machine we call the human body and in Your Inner Fish, a three-part series based on the best-selling book of the same name, author and evolutionary biologist Dr. Neil Shubin looks into the past to answer these and other questions. Follow that adventure now on PBS Darwin's Insights Continue to Inspire the Academy's Work The ideas of Charles Darwin and the concept of evolution by natural selection continue to have a profound influence on modern biology – they permeate almost every area of scientific exploration. In 2010, the National Academy of Sciences awarded its most prestigious award, the Public Welfare Medal, to Dr.