The fascinating find of the oldest hominid skeleton so far prompts a new evaluation of human evolution: The new fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus — known as ‘Ardi’ — offer the first substantial view of the biology of a species close to the time of the last common ancestor, estimated to be at least 6 million… Continue reading

Following up on my earlier post about common misconceptions students have with natural selection, this sample from a recent paper by Abraham, Meir et al starts with a sample illustrating the source and “frequency of student use of misconceptions about natural selection in pretest open-response questions”. (click on the picture to make clearer)

In hand from Amazon, the mass market paperback of Mike Flynn’s outstanding Eifelheim. Of course, unlike my trade paperback version, this one ain’t autographed, so I’m going to have to buy Mike a round at the next Boskone and persuade him it’s good luck to write the same autograph twice….

The Zombification of the Publishing Industry continues…Nothing makes me more cynical about the whole book publishing industry than this. I mean, at least the young-adult vampire serials on the bestsellers lists involve semi-original characters. The author actually does have to do some real work. I get that. But this plundering of literary classics is the… Continue reading

A.C. Grayling weighs in on the Polanski affair: In line with these thoughts, and with the regret that comes from having to acknowledge yet set aside two things, namely the existence of human frailty and the contribution gifted individuals such as Roman Polanski make to society, I conclude that it is right that the United… Continue reading