Perhaps the best-known fossil of Homo erectus is the one known as the Nariokotome boy (or Turkana boy) – a boy who, when he died at around 9 years old, already stood nearly 160cm tall. Members of this tall, long-legged species are generally regarded as being the first of our genus to move out of Africa […]
Continue readingGene targeting technique wins a Nobel Prize
Just a quick link to an article this time – the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine has been awarded to the scientists who developed the technique of gene targeting. This has allowed scientists to 'knock out' single genes, & by doing this to work out their function. My favourite science blogger, Orac, has just posted […]
Continue readingFurther food for thought
After I posted Food for thought?, I got a message from a student saying that she'd seen the study reported on the Documentary Channel. She thought the results looked good, but commented … it never stated if they had a control, possibly placebos, so that it can be assesed whether some of the children merely concentrated more […]
Continue readingFood for thought?
We hear a lot, these days, about eating healthy foods (& not too much of anything!). If you read the ads, and sometimes news items, you'll find some particular foods promoted as being particularly good for you. One of these is fish oil, rich in omega-3 oils and supposedly good for brain development, among other […]
Continue readingNew paper on floresiensis
Ever since the 'hobbits' (Homo floresiensis) were discovered in 2003, on the Indonesian island of Flores, there has been an on-going debate about their exact relationship with our own species. One interpretation of the fossils sees them as members of our own species, with the most complete individual (LB1) having suffered from microcephaly (ie an abnormally small […]
Continue readingDiet and your genes
Modern molecular biology has allowed us to look ever more closely into the genetic changes associated with human evolution. A recent research project used this technology to examine a possible relationship between diet and genome.
Continue readingCharles Darwin, I presume?
As I was reading the Saturday morning paper, a full-page ad caught my eye. Auckland War Memorial Museum is hosting an exhibition on Charles Darwin, and it opens on September 29. Yep, I'll be going!
Continue readingmarathon man, part deux
Possession of an Achilles tendon is only one of the things that sets humans up for endurance running. Bramble & Lieberman (2004) note that long-distance running requires a whole suite of adaptations for skeletal strength, stabilisation, thermoregulation, and energetics. I'll summarise some of their comments here.
Continue readingmarathon man?
I was looking through the SciTech Daily website (a good place to go for new reading in a whole range of science areas) when I saw the link to an article on the evolution of running in Homo. Followed it, read the article – & thought, this is really interesting.
Continue readingThe nature of natural selection
If you've gone through the Schol Bio exam papers from previous years, you'll have noticed that evolution is one of the key themes in every paper. So I thought it could be useful to spend a bit of time on concepts relating to natural selection, one of the drivers of evolutionary change.
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