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Contrary to popular belief, music and science are a match made in heaven. Advertisers know that cheesy viral music videos are the best way to target a scientific demographic. And don’t rule out scientists themselves! There are a lot of nerdy and talented composers and singers out there. Unfortunately, more traditional musicians don’t seem to care [...] Update 12-4-2010: A discussion on the degree of non-functional vs functional phosphorylation started on Google Buzz. As I couldn’t find a way to embed the discussion, I’m linking to it here. Some rebels have no cause. It turns out that some phosphorylations are pretty causeless too! Phosphorylation: Because all the Hip Kids are doing it. Phosphorylation is one [...] The 19th century must have been an exciting time to be a biologist, or a natural historian, adhering to the terminology of that time. These were the naturalists who unearthed fossils of giant reptiles and discovered what living cells are made off under their microscopes. One of the finest natural historians to have [...]
This evolutionary tree of life has a problem. Yes, it beautifully illustrates that we are related to all life on earth, from bacteria to plants and birds. Still. there’s something wrong with it. The problem is that it is constructed from a human viewpoint. You can see that humans occupy a [...] Currently I’m reading Richard Holmes’ excellent Age of Wonder. In his book, he chronicles the lives of gentleman scientists and ambitious amateurs of the Romantic generation. These people defy classification: they could be both botanists and explorers, astronomers and inventors, poets and scientists. What they shared was an unquestionable love and wonder for nature. The [...] A tree of life showing the common ancestry of life on earth is one of the most powerful metaphors in science, one which stood the test of time remarkably well. The concept of a taxonomic tree as a means to arrange species can be attributed to the German naturalist Pallas in 1766. At his time, [...] |
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