Fascinating new finding that a slight change in the FOXP2 gene may explain why we have the tools to speak, and our primate relatives do not: Two tiny changes in the sequence of one gene could have helped install the mechanisms of speech and language in humans. In 2001, a gene called FOXP2 was found… Continue reading
When scientists go bad… But one fraud outstripped them all, eclipsing the others with its sheer audacity. Between 2000 and 2002, Jan Hendrik Schön, a researcher at Bell Laboratories, published more than 20 articles on electrical properties of unusual materials. He shot to the very top of the booming field of “molecular electronics”—a wonder field… Continue reading
Mark Chu Carroll writes that David Berlinski is up to his old tricks.
Allen MacNeill at Cornell has just completed a series of online videos to celebrate Darwin’s achievement. Check it out.
David Sloan Wilson reports: The newest issue of Science Magazine includes a lovely demonstration of multilevel selection by Omar Tonsi Eldakar, my former graduate student, who is currently at the University of Arizona’s Center for Insect Science. Readers who have been following my “Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection” series will be well prepared to… Continue reading