Lee Alan Dugatkin blesses Slate with a piece on Kropotkin
Slate “The Russian Anarchist Prince Who Challenged Evolution” I really appreciate the fact that Dugatkin uses Kropotkin to bring to light that Darwinian evolution has been — even in the time and work...
View ArticleWorking on a VUE concept map of the fieldTest simulation
Jennifer Verdolin, Dylan Moore, and I created the fieldTest simulator several years ago. This individual-based simulation allows virtual animals with the potential to form social groups that defend...
View ArticleMammal monogamy still a mystery, but maybe more than a numbers game
National Public Radio Morning Edition “For Some Mammals It’s One Love, But Reasons Still Unclear” Although brief, I appreciate how this article lays out the three hypotheses for monogamy: Monogamous...
View ArticleSchadenfreude as an instinct born of being a social, hierarchical animal
The Chronicle of Higher Education “On the Failures of Others“
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Evolution 2014: Evolution of cooperation in the high school classroom? You bet!
Will Ratcliff presented an absolutely amazing set of laboratories that explore the evolution of multicellularity (http://www.snowflakeyeastlab.com/). They can be done with high school or college...
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Evolution 2014: Day 0
I started off this year’s Evolution meeting early. The conference is — at its core — a four-day affair. But the days leading into the “official” start on Friday evening feature larger workshops aimed...
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Evolution 2014: Is thyme a facultative mutualist with leguminous plants?
Mary McKenna of Howard University presented work that suggested that thyme plants may be facultative mutualists when associated with various legume species. In work done at the Blandy Experimental...
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Evolution 2014: Could the right symbionts provide protection from chytrid...
Patrick McLaughlin showed work on Bioko Island suggesting that frogs there may be protected from the ill effects of chytrid infection by the presence of bacterial symbionts. These symbionts produce...
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Evolution 2014: Day 2
About five years ago I developed my Evolution course, which is aimed at my non-majors art and design students. I have not taught this course in more than two years, and as it has sat on the shelf I...
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My new favorite concept mapping activity: depicting whole-system ecological...
Concept mapping is increasingly becoming an important part of my overall approach to teaching. I started out using it in my own research, and quickly realized how valuable it can be as a teaching tool....
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Urban tree power
I am not much of an arborist (well, really, I am not an arborist at all!), but I do appreciate trees. Urban trees are especially interesting to me because of their ability to deal with the many...
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WmD Episode #00002 has been released
It took me a lot longer than I would have wished, but I have released the second episode of WmD’s video blog: You can see this episode in its ‘native habitat’ here. The first season of WmD is...
View ArticleRule number one of cooperative bacterial warfare? Be in the majority.
Current Biology “Positively Frequency-Dependent Interference Competition Maintains Diversity and Pervades a Natural Population of Cooperative Microbes” This is another great example of how theory that...
View ArticleEcoMotion studios celebrates Robert Paine’s Pisaster experiments
Click here to view the embedded video. Back at the Evolution 2014 meeting I encountered the great “Drift” animated short, which I still use in my evolution course. Well the producers of that short have...
View ArticleJonathan Haidt on the business advantage of being ethical
Click here to view the embedded video. This is a fascinating talk by Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist situated within one of the most prestigious business schools in the world whose research focuses on...
View ArticleCan understanding cooperation lead to higher-yield crops?
The Scientist “The Evolution of Cooperation” Starting with the title, this short article is not bringing anything all that new to the existing literature on how cooperation evolves. But once I realized...
View ArticleClever study shows how cooperative bacteria sanction — and therefore exclude...
ScienceDaily “Cooperating bacteria isolate cheaters” This kind of study is where the field exploring how cooperation evolves should be headed: model predictions are verified by actual microbial...
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Interdisciplinary artist Ellie Irons to speak at Pratt Institute on November 9th
I am very excited to announce that artist Ellie Irons will speak at Pratt Institute on November 9th, 2017 at 6 pm in ARC Building Room E-02. Her talk is entitled Public Fieldwork & Weedy...
View ArticleIs sexualization of women driven by the structure of our economy?
PNAS “Income inequality not gender inequality positively covaries with female sexualization on social media” This study kind of blew up my head (well, at least blew up the preconceptions in my head)....
View ArticleMom leaves, offspring get buff and work together
Science News “When this beetle mom disappears, her children become stronger and nicer” There are so many cool aspects to this study! First, it is amazing that lab evolution can produce this dramatic a...
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