Now, here’s a misleading sentence for you: The giant moa has been "rebuilt" by scientists using DNA from prehistoric feathers, revealing the true colours of the extinct bird. It’s from a news story in the Dominion Post, although I first read it in the Herald. At the time I thought this would be a good topic for a […]
Continue readingCategory: genetics
speciation in the here-&-now
One of the arguments commonly levelled against the idea of speciation is that we can never see it happening. That argument is simply incorrect, & some time soon I guess I should at least give you some links to evidence that supports my statement. But in the meantime, I’ve just come across another apparent example […]
Continue readingcan we clone it? yes we can! but should we?
I began thinking about this post when I read a National Geographic article about the possibility of cloning a woolly mammoth. (The print version of the magazine is always good reading, & the on-line version has heaps of extra stuff.) But, just because this now seems to be on the verge of being possible, does […]
Continue readingthe TimeTree of Life
Oh, now this is really cool. There’s a new site available that lets you find out the divergence times for a whole lot of different species (anything that there is DNA sequence data available for, really – it’s based on published data & gives the references along with results). It’s called Time Tree, & it […]
Continue readingviral s*x
Well, viral recombination anyway. I mentioned in an earlier post that viruses can pick up sections of DNA from each other, while within the host’s cells. Now ERV has a post on this, in a lot more detail (& really well explained – she is a great science communicator!).
Continue readingwhat, exactly, is a tree lobster? & why are they interesting?
When I first heard the name ‘tree lobster’, I had an immediate mental image of crayfish climbing trees… But I was wrong – while they’re both arthropods, that’s about as close as the relationship between crayfish & tree lobsters gets.
Continue readingthoughts on xenotransplantation
The daughter said today that having done stem cells, I should also look at some of the other topics you can choose from for your research exercise. She suggested xenotransplantation, as it seems quite a few of her friends have chosen that one. So I’ll have a go 🙂
Continue readinggenetics & family pedigrees
Now, here’s an interesting family pedigree: See if you can work out what’s going on, & then go here to read the full story. (It’s not quite what you might expect.)
Continue readinganhydrobiosis in antarctic organisms
I was vaguely contemplating writing about a question in last year’s Schol paper, to do with antifreeze proteins in polar fishes, when a journal alert popped up in my in-box. It was for a paper entitled How do terrestrial Antarctic organisms survive in their harsh environment? (Wharton & Marshall, 2009). The uni has an extensive Antarctic […]
Continue readingan alien star-child?
Last week one of my students wrote to me about something they’d seen on TV: My friend & I saw this on Breakfast this morning. Although we don’t think it is all true, we are still interested because they talked a lot about the skull’s morphology & how they believe it is the offspring from a […]
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