Bugs online 9 Aug 2008 This is cool. I always like to find historical documents online; even better when they’re free. The Society for General Microbiology has scanned its journal International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM) back to the first edition in 1951 and made the archival articles free to all. Since the discovery of organisms is a once-off affair, subsequent researchers need access to the item that announced it in peer-reviewed print to be able to be sure they are working on the right species. So more than most sciences, taxonomy is a historical science, and since bugs (the technical term for bacteria, algae, and other microbes) have only really been deeply and widely studied in the past 60 years or so, this counts as “historical material”. Congrats to the SGM, and now for the other professional publishers… Ecology and Biodiversity History Species and systematics
Ecology and Biodiversity Liveblogging the conference: Jon Seger 14 Mar 2008 Jon is a Utah biologist. His talk is on population genetics. Read More
Species and systematics Some more of Whewell on classification 25 Feb 200918 Sep 2017 This is a kind of note to myself, an aide memoire to remind me of the fact that much of the modern narrative about classification in biology before Darwin is not correct. It’s also interesting that Whewell defines systematics, but most interesting is the reinforcement of the prior note that… Read More
Evolution Lateral transfer of genes across the evolutionary tree 18 Jul 2007 In recent years it has becoming increasingly obvious that there is a considerable amount of lateral, or cross phylogenetic, transfer of genetic material. In bacteria, this happens by several mechanisms, such as uptake of gene fragments from cells that have disintegrated, or by mechanisms such as conjugation (“bacterial sex”). Sometimes… Read More
Now THAT is just plain beautiful. This is one journal that lack of free access to has been irritating me, so I’m excruciatingly happy to see them opening up…
Now THAT is just plain beautiful. This is one journal that lack of free access to has been irritating me, so I’m excruciatingly happy to see them opening up…