Carnival of Evolution 41

Posted 1 November 2011 by Steve Matheson

The 41st Edition of the Carnival of Evolution is now up at The Mermaid's Tale. This month's carnival is typically diverse in its topics and contributors, and is typically excellent. Watch for cuckoos and other parasites, learn about flapping before wings, explore historical concepts like uniformitarianism, and read about the origins of the human hand. Eyes, nurseryfish, trade-offs, Barbara McClintock. And the suggestion that "evolutionary biology needs better PR." Head over to The Mermaid's Tale and sample the bounty.

6 Comments

DS · 2 November 2011

There is a great paper on invasive species if anyone is interested.

corbsj · 2 November 2011

Read this

http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2011/10/australopithecus-erotimanus-and.html

and could not help thinking about Ray Comfort and Mike making another video.

Atheistoclast · 4 November 2011

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

Steve Matheson · 4 November 2011

Atheistoclast said: Why is a "trade-off" evidence for evolution? Engineers nearly always have to make compromises and trade-offs in their designs. Evolutionary biology does not need better "PR". It needs better evidence and rationale.

Those who –- unlike Atheistoclast -- have read the blog post in question will know that it's not about whether a trade-off is "evidence for evolution." It's an interesting post and well worth a read. Those who think that discussing this with Atheistoclast is a worthwhile pursuit may join him on the Bathroom Wall.

DS · 4 November 2011

Thanks for the link Steve, I found it very interesting. I especially liked the discussion of antagonistic pleiotropy. This is one of the issues can be addressed using evo devo. Antagonistc pleiotropy constrains certain types of phenotypic changes, because the same genes often control development of more than one morphological character. However, the large assemblage of cis regulatory elements associated with many of these master control genes can provide many possibilities for tissue specific changes in gene expression during development. This is one of the reasons why the protein coding regions themselves can be so conserved over evolutionary time and yet give rise to so much morphological diversity. Sean Carroll has written a lot about this phenomena in his book From DNA to Diversity. I would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in such issues.

Atheistoclast · 4 November 2011

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.