Tagged: biology

“The Meaning of Human Existence”

  Biologist Edward O. Wilson has spent his life studying evolutionary biology, writing books, and winning Pulitzer prizes, among other things. He is still going strong at 85 years old, and recently published “The Meaning of Human Existence,” a book intended to explain and convince the general public of the scientific theory of evolution. Drawing […]

CC106 Integrated Forum: Bird Song

Today, February 13th, at 2 PM in CAS 211 three biologists will meet for an integrated forum on bird song. Although the forum is for the CC106 class, anyone is welcome. Professor Tim Gardner will discuss the physiology of sound and hearing, Professor Frederick Wasserman will discuss the behavioral function of bird vocalizations and Jelle […]

Alumni Profiles: Martha Muñoz

(Core ’05, CAS ’07) Years at Boston University: 4 years Current location: Medford, MA  (but works in Cambridge) Company and Title:  “I’m currently a PhD candidate in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. I’m also affiliated with the Department of Herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.” Recent activities: “I recently ran two legs […]

Biological research by Core Alum Martha Muñoz

Core alumna Martha Muñoz has recently been involved in some very interesting evolutionary research! Here the Core has laid out some of the information Martha provides on her own page: I am studying how behavior can simultaneously impede and impel evolution in different traits in the lizard, Anolis cybotes, a species that ranges from sea level […]

‘Seeds of Hope’ by Jane Goodall

In this article for the Boston Globe, Adam Langer discusses Jane Goodall’s new work. He describes it as: Part reminiscence, part natural history, and part plea on behalf of the natural world, “Seeds of Hope” begins with Goodall’s childhood in Bournemouth, England, where she recalls spending hours in her favorite tree doing her homework, reading […]

Dr. Jelle Atema, from lobsters to CC106

Dr. Jelle Atema of the BU Department of Biology, will be joining the course faculty in CC106: Biodiversity this coming spring. His areas of research interest include sensory biology and biometic robotics, and he is currently involved in studies of the chemical ecology of lobsters, the dispersal of larvae in reef fishes, and navigation in […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on the origin of life

Night followed day in swift succession. On earth at that time a day lasted for only five or six hours. The planet spun madly on its axis. The moon hung heavy and threatening in the sky, far closer, and so looking much bigger, than today. Stars rarely shone, for the atmosphere was full of smog […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on evolution of cellular complexity

Mitochondria are a silly place to store genes.  They are often glibly called the powerhouses of  the cell, but the parallel is quite exact.  Mitochondrial membranes generate an electric charge, operating across a few millionths of a millimetre, with the same voltage as a bolt of lightning, a thousand times more powerful than domestic writing.  […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on evolution of photosynthesis

The word ‘fact’ is always likely to make biologists tremble in their boots, as there are so many exceptions to every rule; but one such ‘fact’ is virtually certain about oxygenic photosynthesis – it only evolved once. — Nick Lane, in his discussion of the evolution of photosynthesis, page 73, in Life Ascending: The Ten […]

Analects of the Core: Lane on eukaryotes and mitochondrial jumping genes

The chimeric ancestor of the eukaryotes apparently succumbed to an invasion of jumping genes from its mitochondria. — Nick Lane, in his discussion of the evolution of cellular complexity, page 115, in Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, a book now studied in CC106: Biodiversity