SimBiotic Articles and Blog

I recently received an email from a cognitive psychologist asking whether it is plausible that human use of language for deception is an adaptation. In other words, has there been sufficient time since humans began to speak for genetic variants associated with lying to rise to high frequency as a result of natural selection?

There's an intriguing paper in today's issue of Nature. Sergio E. Baranzini and colleagues looked at three pairs of identical twins, two female pairs and one male pair, in which one twin is healthy and the other has the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. The researchers conducted the most detailed genetic analysis of monozygotic twin pairs to date.

We all know that making someone a drawing is a great way to explain scientific ideas. Reviews of textbooks will talk about the quality of the diagrams, and our own virtual biology labs and interactive ecology chapters get high praise for how good the graphics are. Proselytizers of e-learning

When I introduce evolution in class, I tell my students that the strongest evidence that Darwin was right is the success of modern biology. Evolution is the theoretical foundation upon which life science is built. The fact that that life science works so well suggests that its unifying theory has a thing or two going for it.