Also check the short posts section, which contains shorter posts aimed at answering single questions.
Note: Newest posts are at the top!
How we will probably build the “Tree of Life”.
Another evil-awesome behaviour-modifying parasite, but for rats.
By diffusion.
A compilation of evolution-related posts from July 2012.
A group of isopods that includes the famous tongue biters and gigantic deep sea monster, Bathynomus.
What it would be like. Crazy and unrealistic.
A talk I gave on the scientific method, with examples pulled from palaeontology.
- Konservat Lagerstätten: Eckfeld Maar; Herefordshire;
A series describing various sites of exceptional preservation. Listed in post order.
- Phenetics: Phenetic methods, The Utility of Phenetics
It may be a dirty word, but it’s still in use in biology, so might as well explain it.
No pictures.
Slides and explanatory text of a talk I gave at the University of Nicosia for Cyprus FreeThinkers.
- Building Cladograms: Introduction, Building a Character Matrix; Plotting in Mesquite, Phylip, R; Analysing in Mesquite, R; Polishing the Tree; A Phylogeny of Creation Myths
Build your own phylogenetic trees! Inspired by a doofus’s claim that science is elitist and can’t be engaged in by laymen.
- Beetles: The most successful animals!, Introduction, Archestomata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga [Staphyliniformia, Scarabaeiformia, Elateriformia (Lampyridae), Bostrichiformia, Curcujiformia (Curculionoidae, Belidae, Cleridae)], Chemical Defence
Beetles are awesome.
Gradients and fields are terms we hear in morphogenesis. This post is about how these ideas developed over time.
- Animal Navigation: Visual Navigation in Ants; Celestial Navigation
Posts on how animals find their way around.
- Flies: Morphology, Culicoidea,
I hate flies, but they are pretty damn diverse. I go through all the (important) taxa in this series.
- Climate: The very basics;
A series on climate in the past 1 Ma and the future.
An overview of these kickass animals.
Plus a pet hypothesis.
Listing the criteria.
What do you get when you mix an irrational obsession with illusory patterns and attempts at proper systematics?
Getting some more requests out of the way. Mole crickets are cool, too bad they’re so rare to see.
- The History of Life: Origin of Life, Neoproterozoic Palaeoclimate, The Rise of Animals, Terrestrialisation, Mesozoic Vertebrates, Flower-Insect Coevolution, Tertiary
A slide dump with notes of a talk series held in Cyprus. Italics are supplement posts.
- Easter Day Special: Regeneration!
What better way to inject some reason into this idiotic celebration?
The basics of weed, marijuana, hash, pot, etc.
Happy Darwin Day! Go play with a beetle.
Another typical post with random facts barely following a coherent guideline.
The evolutionary theory behind the origin and maintenance of sexual reproduction.
Annelids are really quite cool. Also, there is mention of horny headless midgets.
Arthropods leave all sorts of traces on plants. What information can we get from them?
- Human Evolution: What Are Humans?, Australopithecus
A series of posts which is not really planned and not consecutive. may be incomplete for a while!
Make your own identification key! Also, a very simple intro to the chrysids.
The basic jist of this. Nothing about humans, though!
- Insect Flight: Phylogenetic Intro, Early Fossil Record & Physiology, Origins & Aerodynamics
Flight is the key to the success of the insects. How, why, where, when did it evolve? Read and find out. I hope.
- Vertebrate Heads: Phylogenetic Intro, Development
The head of the vertebrates is a long-standing mystery – not as fought-over as the arthropod head, but I digress. A requested series about their development.
A requested introduction to odonates (the original request was for dragonfly phylogenetics, but nothing to teach there!)
A short, requested blurb about encyrtid wasps.
Many animals share the same core genetic regulatory mechanisms. What does that mean for evolution and phylogenetics? A lot of developmental biology and zero pictures ftw!
Parasites can directly and indirectly affect their insect hosts’ behaviours. Here’s how and why.
- Deep Sea Bonanza!: The Deep Sea as a Biome; Life in the Deep Sea; The Effects of Climate Change; Abiogenesis at Hydrothermal Vents.
A requested series on the deep sea. The titles should be self-explanatory.
A short introduction to how insect brains look like and a discussion about insect behaviour and implication for the general study of animal cognition.
One of the few times I talk of research with direct practical uses. Please don’t get used to it.
An introduction to how the environment can affect development, with a small word on epigenetics. Also, I confirm that I am, in fact, not Richard Dawkins.
A look at how a bee senses the world and how flowers attract insects.
I was drunk when I wrote this.
- The Molecular Clock: Hypothesis, Practice, Rocks vs. Clocks, Usefulness?
Just what is the molecular clock? Does it work? If yes, why do we need fossils?
Why do we use molecular data? Is it correct? Is morphology and palaeontology doomed?
- The Steinheim Snails: Background, Analysis
The very first independent proof of evolution from the fossil record!
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Thanks :) Now to find the time to write more posts :P
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