SimBiotic Articles and Blog

Earlier I mentioned examples of critters that lie to get what they want. Last week in American Naturalist Jakob Bro-Jørgensen and Wiline M. Pangle reported a new—and at least half interesting—example.

Here's a question from my daughter's physics homework. A balloon with a weight tied to it just barely floats. If the balloon is pushed down under the surface of the water, then released, the balloon will: a) float back to the surface; b) sink; c) neither sink nor float.

Are the fittest always the ones who survive? I'm thinking of "fitness" in its everyday meaning, not its technical meaning. We might expect that the strongest, most muscular individuals would be least likely to be captured by predators. But that's not always the case.

If you are blind and studying any of the sciences, there are a lot of obstacles in your way. One of them is the textbook. Somehow, you must get the printed page converted to something you can hear, or feel, in order to read it.