As I was reading the comment section to “Our Anthropomorphic  Bias” I was struck by the persistence shown by Sascha Vongehr in referring to humans as robots in 4 of the 5 comments he made in a…

The Red Queen hypothesis, a popular idea in evolution named after Lewis Carroll's character who in "Through the Looking Glass" described her country as a place where "it takes all the running you can…

In several posts the question of biological costs is invariably mentioned in discussing evolution.  These costs are normally of the metabolic or fitness type.  Metabolic costs are…

Since 1996, farmers across the world have planted more than a billion acres of genetically modified corn and cotton that produce insecticidal proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis,…

In animals that reproduce by internal fertilization, as humans do, the penis is invaluable, from an evolutionary point of view.  Yet birds have evolved to not need them. Developmentally…

In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by extension, my area of research in genome size evolution) that the subject gets regular media attention. A…

Stromatolites, "layered rocks", are structures made of calcium carbonate and shaped by the actions of photosynthetic cyanobacteria and other microbes that trapped and bound grains of coastal sediment…

As has been mentioned in other articles, evolution is one of the more misunderstood theories ‌in biology.  This isn't because it is complicated.  Its beauty derives from its simplicity, but…

Giant Leap Surplus To Requirements Say Evolution Scientists I must confess that to the best of my knowledge, no scientist used those precise words.  However, the research does indicate that what…

The evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought, according to a new paper. Tetrapods, four-legged…