Nematostella, the starlet anemone, is a nifty new model system for evo-devo work that I’ve mentioned a few times before—in articles on “Bilateral symmetry in a sea anemone” and “A complex regulatory network in a diploblast”—and now I see that there is a website dedicated to the starlet anemone and a genomics database, StellaBase. It’s taking off!
It seems that even the pope is rejecting the idea of intelligent design.
iSpecies doesn’t have any way of automatically knowing about those specialist sites though:
http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/ispecies/?q=nematostella&submit=Go
Speaking of evo-devo phenotypes and other concepts this non-scientist just sort of gets, there was an interesting story on NPR this morning about how some anti-environmental lawyers are trying to get around protection of steelhead trout because they are the same “species” (genotype) as the rainbow trout, which is non-threatened. But they have two distinct phenotypes and behaviors (steelheads migrate out to sea), and no one is sure what leads to the trout becoming one or the other “kind.” I don’t have time to write more about this now, but I did find it an interesting example of evo-devo impacting policy. And of industry exploiting biological ignorance.
The only way to fight anti-evolution on the internet is to make the information found here (and on other ‘insider’ science web-sites/blogs), very available/visible/accessible on the internet.
Elementary, high school, and even undergraduate students don’t read these blogs.
The average American adult has no clue about what science really is, despite the nature shows. It’s just fun facts for them, and they are done. They use the search engines but don’t get curious because the literature is too far over their heads. Thanks for giving me an idea…