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POPSE.O. Wilson Returns to the Hive With Superorganism Tome Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color.Many prominent biologists, led by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, said no, there was no such thing as a superorganism: Evolution worked on the genes of self-serving individuals only, not groups.
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POPSGossip more powerful than truth 
The researchers then took the game a step further and showed the students the actual decisions people had made. But they also supplied false gossip that contradicted that evidence. In these cases, the students based their decisions to award money on the gossip, rather than the hard evidence, showing such information is a powerful tool, Sommerfeld said. "Rationally if you know what the people did, you should care, but they still listened to what others said," he said. "They even reacted on it if they knew better." Researchers have long used similar games to study how people cooperate and the impact of gossip in groups. Scientists define gossip as social information spread about a person who is not present, Sommerfeld said. In evolutionary terms, gossip can be an important tool for people to acquire information about others' reputations or navigate through social networks at work and in their everyday lives, the study said. One example could be using gossip to learn tha
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POPSSwitzerland places ban on humiliation of plants I can see this is going to be a new source of jokes on late night television talk shows. I can understand the intent, concerning putting limits on the genetic modification of food crops. And we do need to maintain a large diversity of plants to prevent the loss of plant life due to our current trend towards monoculture. Overall, I think this is a good thing.
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POPSMass Extinction Event On the Horizon? Mass Extinction Event On the Horizon? Nope, were in it now. Any scientist studying some aspect of the environment will tell you that humans are having a massive impact and that the Earth's ecosystem will not tolerate this forever.
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POPSA biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the ID camp i just don't want stuff that isn't scientifically reasonable being taught in science classes. it's fine for parents to tell them their science teachers are lying to them, but at least give the adults of the future a chance to learn the basics of science instead of stunting them with ID gibberish
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POPSIt Takes One Village To Save A Species "A breakthrough in protecting the species came in 1997 when he helped local villagers build a pipeline to secure clean drinking water. Shortly thereafter, a farmer from the village freed a trapped langur and brought it to Dr. Pan."
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POPSThe Edge of Life Moving ever closer, scientists will someday create what we call life. No, it won't have bolts protruding from its neck and have a special interest in little girls and flowers but it will satisfy the properties of life. Should be interesting. I suspect it will outrage some folks of a religious persuasion.
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POPSBiologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life "We've made more progress on how the membrane of a protocell could grow and divide," Szostak said in a phone interview. "What we can do now is copy a limited set of simple sequences, but we need to be able to copy arbitrary sequences so that sequences could evolve that do something useful." By doing "something useful" for the cell, these genes would launch the new form of life down the Darwinian evolutionary path similar to the one that our oldest living ancestors must have traveled. Though where selective pressure will lead the new form of life is impossible to know.
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POPSProbability overrides the intuitive. "The reason that our folk intuitions so often get it wrong is that we evolved in what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins calls “Middle World”—a land midway between short and long, small and large, slow and fast, young and old. Out of personal preference, I call it “Middle Land.” The middle, the plain is a big bias that shapes and limits one's perception.
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POPS-Are Humans Destroying the Planet's Web of Life? Very sobering, disturbing article. Just put global climate disruption aside and think about what we humans are doin to the life in the oceans and the air and land, the forests, the over fertilizing, the plastics...it's abominable and has to be changed or we die.
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POPSCrows recognize human faces I saw this presentation at a recent ornithological meeting. Further experiments used more elaborate masks and unsuspecting volunteers. The results were amazing!
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POPS"It was THIS big! Honest!" "They hadn't no more than closed the door than the cat hit the cricket and took off," Mr Hayes told the Hickory Daily Record. - what a quote!
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POPSColossal squid was 'lethargic blob' So they caught one squid, and now they think all squid are the same. Giant Squid don't travel as well on the surface. If it was getting shorter, I wonder how big she was before she started to brood?.
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