Two almost bear patterns from a partial Symocyon of a sesamoid “thumb” 14 Apr 2010 I’m really sorry for that pun. I’ve been waiting for years… Anyway, Laelaps (Brian Switek) has a lovely report on the panda’s “thumb” (actually, the sesamoid wrist bone being independently used by a bear lineage and a lineage closer to racoons than to bears, result in the giant panda and the red panda respectively) being an adaptation to a tree-dwelling lifestyle before the bamboo stripping behaviour later evolved. Evolution Evolution
Ecology and Biodiversity Liveblogging the conference: Roberta Millstein 14 Mar 2008 Roberta is a great philosopher from UC Davis and she’s talking about the notion of populations. Read More
Evolution The philosophy of classification 29 Nov 2007 The term “radical” is a very loose term. It basically means “something that differs wildly from the consensus” in ordinary usage. So I hope David Williams and Malte Ebach won’t take offense if I say that they have a radical interpretation of the nature of classification. In a couple of… Read More
Evolution What was Darwin’s Origin actually called 29 Jul 201827 Feb 2019 So, I got caught parroting half-remembered factoids, to Down House no less, that the Origin dropped the “On” from the start of the title with the fourth edition. In my defence, I was making use of Darwin Online, the Cambridge University site that collates all of Darwin’s publications and a whole… Read More
Wow. Dennis Miller thinks that joke was obscure. I, on the other hand, am on the verge of being impressed…as soon as I look up a few words…
Interesting, because, IIRC, the corresponding bone on the panda’s ankle is also elongated, which could be explained in view of this tree dwelling past.