fifteen evolutionary gems

Here’s a great set of short articles about evolution. Each one’s only a page long, and talks about a piece of research that (as the authors say) demonstrate the ‘breadth, depth, and power of evolutionary thinking’ (Gee, Howlett & Campbell, 2009). My current favourite is the one about the origins of the vertebrate skeleton, but they’re all good. Enjoy 🙂

(And thanks to PZ for the heads-up! As he says – teachers, put this one in your classrooms.)

4 thoughts on “fifteen evolutionary gems”

  • Grant Jacobs says:

    I had a feeling that you might report this!
    It is a good quick starter leading to some interesting work. I have to admit that when I saw it on PZ’s blog I immediately thought “I bet every key paper will be from Nature”. Advertising themselves, and all that. Sure enough it’s the case…

  • Alison Campbell says:

    Yikes! I must do something unpredictable 🙂 Self-advertising on Nature’s part… guilty as charged, m’lud. But still a darn good intro to some key stuff. & nice to see them making it freely available as well – so much of the original literature is a closed book to schools as they don’t have subscriptions (& teachers don’t have the time to spend up at the uni library looking for stuff).

  • Well, m’lady, we do both like to graze the same blogs… Seriously, I thought it looked a good “fit” to what you like to post here.
    For any non-scientists reading this: while they are advertising in a way, Nature is a very good journal (to put it modestly), although they lean towards trendy science as they have the luxury of picking and choosing their articles in a way that other journals must surely envy.
    While not in the same mould as the list Alison posted, the Open Laboratory winners have just been announced: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2009/01/the_open_laboratory_2008_and_t.php These are the “top 50” science blog articles, selected from a little over 500 entries, which apparently are made into a book. These are science writing efforts, rather than research science and they cover all of science, not evolution, but if you have a spare moment, they might be worth looking at.
    On the subject of access to information, maybe teachers reading this forum should pop up and ask for material they need? It might not be as polished, but they might at least get a pointer or two? I’d like to think I’m not the only scientist reading this!

  • Alison Campbell says:

    Thanks for the Open Lab list, Grant, I hadn’t seen that yet. On the subject of access – yes, of course, always open to requests for material. And I’d add, if anyone’s read a particular post & wants to get hold of the original for teaching (or just for interest), drop me a line 🙂

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