My latest column for Seed, Variant Genes-in-Waiting, is now online. If you subscribed, you would have already read it earlier this week.
By the way, my mom subscribes, too, and she gives it a thumbs up. I’ll have to find out what she thinks about my next column, which is all about beetle testes (and that’s all you get to know about it—you’ll just have to wait).
Mandible size?
PZ- I love your column. It is the first thing I read when my SEED arrives!
You can, of course, disemvowell this comment at you pleasure, but it comes with a white flag raised. That really was a fascinating article. Well done.
Ha! I had JUST finished reading it before I saw this post. I originally learned about it from the “top science stories” column…
anyway, the facts were interesting, but hardly surprising. I’m probably going to get a bunch of angry replies, but I think it was kind of dry. I think the column was a bit too matter-of-fact, and could be spiced up a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading it, but I think you could have done better PZ.
I agree with #2. I make a beeline for the Pharyngula article when SEED comes. Evo-devo is fun to read with you writing it, PZ.
My copy hasn’t shown up yet. Have y’all already received yours in the mail? Its getting frustrating going out to my PO Box every other day and not seeing it when I know it should be out…
My copy arrived on Monday, as did my mother’s in Seattle. I don’t know that Seed themselves can do much to address variation in distribution.
It’s sort of a “Darwin’s Radio” sort of concept, no? Maybe there’s still hope for mankind, hidden away deeply. Maybe Bush, as he has moved the planet toward ruination in so many ways, will turn out to be the vehicle for our deliverance? Not sure I’ll look all that great, however, when green.
Noooooooo! Not Darwin’s Radio! That book was crap, scientifically.
It does say that there is more variation in our genomes than we probably appreciate, though — it’s masked by canalization, but shaking up new combinations can unveil novel phenotypes, some bad, some good, in whatever new environment we face.