Yes, I’m on Twitter- alandove: Another reason we need universal healthcare. @DrFriedenCDC "education & income ... keys to better health. Another reason to stay in school!"
- alandove: No, the Lexus with its lights on probably doesn't belong to anyone at this public health meeting.
- alandove: RT @stevesilberman: Taxes, spending and deficits are all lower today than when Obama took office. http://t.co/NGnJlr5l
- alandove: Good: Apple store next door to conference. Bad: they couldn't fix it either. Good: bought Bluetooth keyboard, now phone = laptop.
- alandove: @lhrandall Cool! I've been sitting about five rows back, end of row, house left. Will probably take same seat tomorrow.
- alandove: My new laptop. #oldschool http://t.co/UK1oPLAQ
- alandove: Just arrived in ATL to cover 2 conferences, and my brand new MacBook Air suddenly and completely croaked. No words for how much this sucks.
- alandove: The journey of a thousand miles should begin with an empty bladder.
- alandove: RT @profvrr: This Week in Virology (TWiV) episode 183 is up: Bats out of hell http://t.co/8ukXCDCq
- alandove: Plenty happens if you listen to HF radio frequencies. "We keep hearing about these ... sunspots and nothing happens!" @sciencegoddess
Tag Archives: evolution
Darwin Day Blast from The Archives
I can’t let Darwin Day pass without a post, but I’m also a) on deadline for some paying work and b) dreadfully lazy by nature, so I’ll take the blogger’s easy way out. Reaching back into the Dovdox archives, I’ll … Continue reading
Ever Since Fish – Traversing the Change-Time Continuum
Recently, I was talking to a researcher about a particular virus, and he mentioned that it has infected us “since fish.” Yes, fish have a time dimension. In two words, he had communicated reams of information: this virus has infected vertebrates ever since the divergence of the common ancestors of fish and mammals – somewhere around 395 million years ago. That implies that all of the species descended from those ancestors should have their own strains of the virus, which will have co-evolved alongside their host species. “Since fish” is a point in time, a testable prediction about present conditions, and a suggestion of how things might change in the future. Continue reading
Deuterostomes Decoded – Stop the Presses!
Discover a new species of mammal, and your work will make front page news. Discover a whole new phylum of life – that’s the second-biggest categorization in biology – and hardly anyone will notice. At least, that seems to be the lesson from this report in last week’s issue of Nature. The researchers even put out a nice press release to put the work in context, but alas, Tom Brokaw doesn’t seem to be taking the bait. Continue reading
The Chicken from the Egg
You may be working for the New York Academy of Sciences if…
1) Your podcast interview with a Nobel laureate is interrupted by a gentleman sticking his head in the door to say "hello."
2) You aren’t bothered by the intrusion, because the gentleman is himself a Nobel laureate.
3) After the interview, you walk down the hall to join a very small but astonishingly high-powered gathering: the two Nobel laureates, the directors of two major scholarly organizations, a book publisher, the German consul, and little ol’ you.
4) It’s the first time in your life the phrase "someone should have thought to invite the Mayor" enters your head without a touch of irony. Continue reading
Speciation is Hard Work
How much energy does it take to produce a new species? The question had never occurred to me – or to most biologists, I suspect – but it’s the topic of a new mathematical modeling paper that just came out in the ”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.” Normally, mathematical modeling results don’t catch my eye, but this one makes strong, testable predictions and explains some very old observations. Continue reading