Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / December 2004

Have any of you evo geeks read Goulds big thick book on evolution. I
dont like to speak ill of the dead, but I believe he muddied the waters
by making a simple but controversial topic way too complex. In a time
that the average creationist has a junior high education, it is bad for

In what ways can evolution explain the existence of music?  There does not
even seem to be a selective advantage to simple pitch recognition.  Is music
better explained through memetics rather than genetics?

The place of metabolism in the origin of life
Frank AL Anet
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los
Angeles, CA 90095, USA

Is there some clear reason why men have evolved to desire oral sex
(either as a giver or receiver)?
[moderator's Uh: Uh. Because sex feels good, and oral sex, despite
what Mr. Clinton apparently believes, is sex? And what about women?

"Perplexed in Peoria" wrote:

N.C.

Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote:-

This is probably very basic but in spite of my efforts I havent found
anything on the net about this.
Is one of each pair inactive, i.e. isnt used for protein synthesis.
If one is inactive, can selection of member for egg or sperm really be

The discovery of methane on Mars...
``Scientists face the fact of Mars methane
 There is methane on Mars, scientists have concluded from the latest
 data.  And one group of researchers argue there may be a lot more

Having shown that expression of nonhousekeeping genes is regulated by signal
cascades originating in the CNS, now let's see how it is possible for the CNS
to manipulatively control the expression of those genes throughout the animal
body, or how it generates that huge amount of ...

MicroRNAs and the regulation of cell death
Peizhang Xua, *, Ming Guob and Bruce A. Haya,
aDivision of Biology, MC156-29, California Institute of Technology, 1200
East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

Does a tree-like phylogeny only exist at the tips in the prokaryotes?
Christopher J. Creevey A1, David A. Fitzpatrick A1, Gayle K. Philip A1,
Rhoda J. Kinsella A1, Mary J. O'Connell A1, Melissa M. Pentony A1, Simon A.
Travers A1, Mark Wilkinson A2, James O. McInerney

Automimicry destabilizes aposematism: predator sample-and-reject behaviour
may provide a solution
Gabriella Gamberale-Stille A1 and Tim Guilford A1
A1 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford

(The title of this post is based on West-Eberhard's view on the relative role
of genes in heredity and evolution as expressed in her Developmental Plasticity
and Evolution (2003), an excellent book that, in Prof. Nijhout's opinion "may
prove to be the most important and insightful ...

im doing a research paper in evolutionary biology.. my paper is about
the evolution, origin, and history of family formicidae.. and im having
these diffuclties in finding resources regarding my topic. can you pls
help me?? tnx!!

The December 11 issue of The Economist magazine carried an article
about lefthandedness.  It suggested that the fact that the left side of
the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa arose
because "long ago in the evolutionary past, an ancestor of humans (and