Of Lobsters, Sticklebacks, and Google Chrome

Kele Biology, Class, Development, Evolution, Science Tags: , , 3 Comments

The following is the last take-home essay for my developmental class. This essay is about the concept of modularity and how it is being used in biology today. It’s fairly basic stuff and if you are reading this blog, you probably know most of it already! I do hope you find the comparison to Google Chrome convincing though.

(This time we were urged to write in a more popular form so the writing is at a bit lower level and we didn’t have to source anything. I guess you can take what I say here with a grain of salt then. :P)

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Henry Adams and an Entropic History

Kele Research Blogging, Science and History 2 Comments

Source: Wikipedia

I am fascinated by how people historically viewed the world around them. Not “world” in the sense of politics or the current state of media, but “world” on a more cosmological scale. Changes in cosmological views are why we revere the scientists we do (like Copernicus, Newton, Darwin and Einstein). There is a much greater diversity in these large-scale views, however, and that is what I find so interesting – the views that are not frequently expressed. My favorite example I recently discovered was Lyell’s cyclical conception of the earth’s history which you can read about here, at History of Geology. The cosmological view I will tell you about here is the historian Henry Adams’ conception of an entropic history.

By the way, does anyone know any good books that analyze this kind of idea?

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Book Review: Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B. Carroll

Kele Biology, Book Review, Class, Development, Evolution, Science Tags: , , , 1 Comment

Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Sean B Carroll is an excellent book. Both easy to read and understand in addition to containing some gorgeous pictures, Carroll makes his case for evo-devo clear and to the point. However, the book is not without its flaws, and I would like to discuss them here.
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Alan Turing’s Reaction-Diffusion Model – Simplification of the Complex

Kele Biology, Class, Favorites, Research Blogging, Science 14 Comments

ResearchBlogging.orgThe following post is what I wrote for the first 2-day essay in my developmental biology course. It covers the potential limitations of mathematical modeling in developmental biology – specfically, the reaction-diffusion systems of the computer scientist, Alan Turing. Perhaps the larger point I try to make is that ideas that are initially and blatantly disregarded as irrelevant seem to reappear later on as actually important! The post is a bit bulky but hopefully you find it of interest! Continue reading →

Senior Seminar: The Deterioration of the Mammalian Y Chromosome

Kele Biology, Class, Favorites, Science, Y Chromosome 2 Comments

So I just gave my senior seminar the other day in which I gave a ~40-minute talk on the deterioration of the Y chromosome.

The Case of the Y Chromosome: Will It Disappear and Spell the End of Man? (Google Docs).

I have uploaded my PowerPoint as a PDF on Google Docs for all to view. I even included the typed out notes I had so you can make the leaps between the slides! Hope you like it!

Let me know if you have any questions – I’ll be happy to answer them!

The Mario Genome!

Kele Biology, Evolution, Favorites, Food for Thought, Science 7 Comments

Evolutionary algorithms can be used to solve problems that would take humans forever to do, but they can also be used to see if a computer can match what a human can do. A great example of this is “The Mario Genome,” a program developed by Oddball at the TIGSource forums. What it does is take a group of Marios with certain traits and uses evolution to navigate the course in as little time as possible.

This popped up at Reddit, apparently, but I have no memory of where I found it (sorry!). While I am sort of familiar with the idea of genetic algorithms, and many are cooler than what this does, I think the Mario Genome easily illustrates what the idea is all about to someone with little prior knowledge. The analogies to biological evolution are easily made here.

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Conversation with Arlin Stoltzfus

Kele Biology, Evolution, Food for Thought, Science 3 Comments

In the comments of my August 17th post, Learning mutation bias, Arlin Stoltzfus, Perplexed in Peoria, and I have been discussing the meaning and implications of his work. Since this conversation is buried in a month-and-a-half old post, I thought I would bring it up to the front of the blog for more exposure. Below I will quote the fairly long discussion in full. As Perplexed notes, the conversaion may be hard to follow if you have not read Stoltzfus’ research articles or his blog series at Sandwalk, The Curious Disconnect: The Mutationism Myth.

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Y Chromosome VII: Why Palindromes?

Kele Biology, Evolution, Research Blogging, Science, Y Chromosome Tags: , 8 Comments

ResearchBlogging.orgSynopsis: Last time I discussed the existence of several very long palindromes on the Y chromosome. Why would they be there in the first place? Rozen et al. (2003) argue that the Y chromosome basically recombines with itself through gene conversion! But what’s the evidence for such a possibly game-changing assertion?

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