Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / May 2006

First, let me say thank you for all those here illuminating
some great topics.
And much clear writing and communicating is available.
I just recently read something about woodlots in which the

Mobile DNA part of evolution's toolbox
The repeated copying of a small segment of DNA in the genome of a primeval
fish may have been crucial to the transition of ancient animals from sea to
land, or to later key evolutionary changes in land vertebrates. The

Replication is not enough.
By itself it leads to Spiegleman Monsters.
Life is more than selfish genes run amok.
It's also genes that do work

Why do bird and butterfly females tend to mate with colorfully
dressed males, whereas female mammals tend to mate with the
winner of a male-male combat?
Perhaps it is a subtle effect of different mechanisms of

Nice Guys Do Finish First In Lizards' Evolutionary Race
Getting beaten up by the neighborhood bully so your buddy can get some tail
may seem like a rough life, but it not only works for some lizards, it also
gives a fascinating peek into hard-wired altruism in evolutionary biology.

The Evolutionary Biology Lecture of the Week for May 1, 2006 is now
available at:
     http://aics-research.com/lotw/
The talks center primarily around evolutionary biology, in all of its

Part of how to gain extra evolutionary psychobiological traction
(i.e. explanatory philosophical traction on this topic) is to borrow
the mathematical technique of "summing over histories" (from the field of
fundamental theoretical physics) and tenuously transplant it