Big Scarlet A

I’ve pasted a big scarlet A in my profile. For the non-cognoscendi, this is to show to everybody on the planet (well everybody with an internet connection) that I am an Atheist.

Yes, one of those godless creatures that only rely on their own judgement to act morally and make the world a better place, out of personal interest and not for fear of punishment.

With this, I mean not to despise people who feel that belief is important in their life, and certainly I don’t want to stay on the side of those who assert religions are at all costs a bad things. I believe that they have a certain value, if nothing else as a way for humans to cope with a very very complex and indifferent universe. It must have had an evolutionary advantage, otherwise it would not be here. Or to be more precise, what caused religions to develop in our minds must have ALSO had an evolutionary advantage. May be religion is just a side-effect of arts, or story-telling?

Alas, I hope it’s just a short transitory phase in our evolutionary path… Kind of teenagers’ mood swings.

But back to the big scarlet A, you can click on it to get one yourself. Or not. Your choice.

Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?

In fact, from recent genetic studies it is clear how the cutlery center of biodiversity is China, where an endemic population of primordial chopsticks still lives. From these, or a similar concestor, the ancestor of knives emerged, with a successive speciation into steak, fish and butter knives. More recently, a second clade gave birth to spoons and forks, with both adapting to different gastronomic niches and accordingly varying in size.

Has Evolution Stopped, for Homo?

Not at all. If anything, it seems to have accelerated over the course of the past 80.000 Years.

It’s what The Economist reports in this article. The original piece of research can be found in PNAS.

Since I don’t have time to comment today, just go and read it, it’s free.

An interesting personal side-note on the article: it points out how two version of lactose tolerance arose independently in the Indo-European and the African Tutsi populations. So, may be my child(ren) will inherit both versions. I wonder if there are any studies around investigating the effect of the two mutations present at the same time in people’s cells. Will they reinforce each other? Or will they have a completely different effect? I guess it depends on the detailed mechanism of action of the two… I’ll have a look on the world wide wikipedia…

The Decline and Fall of the Animal Kingdom

Carl Zimmer has a new story up on WiReD.

Incredibly interesting piece detailing how the glorious animal kingdom decreased in size and importance in the last decades.

Courtesy of facebook which let me know about it.

What Missing Link?

Evolution

Here is my new Xmas present:

Evolution, by Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu (Auteur), Patrick Gries (Auteur), Jean-Pierre Gasc (Préface). I was in a library in Liege and saw it cover, a snake skeleton, and had a look inside. It contains a huge amount of beautiful photos of different vertebrates skeletons, shot in black and white against a dark background. Just wonderful. It’s 50EUR, but what the hell…

Ali G and Kent Hovind

Always from retrospectacle.

How do Creationists see hominid fossils?

It’s what laelaps wonders about. I thought they just discarded them as more or less deformed humans – or apes, in the one we (erroneously) believe more ‘primitives’.

Why would you want your doctor to have studied evolution?

the 4 best answers are here.

and, from here, congrats to Gregory Simonian for winning!!!

BlogRoll

Check out Tet Zoo for yet another of Darren’s nice pieces on lizards.

He also muses on some huge pig of Georgia, too.

Pharyngula has been absent for quite a while from these pages, but now’s back with a vengeance: from there, a cool movie about insect being slo-mo thrown pies and juices at while flying/walking. Plus, the tragedy of an astronomer incompetent enough to believe in ID.

Secret Sex Lives of Animals is now in my permanent blog roll, go and check Kate’s piece on bedbug piercing each other during sex, strangely reminiscent of Dr Tatiana’s piece on the same subject. She also has more soft porn on Panda (from the BBC).

But the grand stand is for Carl Zimmer, who has two wonderful posts (no, full articles) on Papilloma Viruses evolution and on the completion of the ‘Possum genome and what can we learn from it about our own place in natural history.

Wonderful wonderful job everyone. Kudos!!! I really enjoy your writings!