Tag: evolution

Our brains might have more in common with an octopus than we’d like to believe, suggesting that famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ new paradigm is correct

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Almost everyone knows that an octopus is much smarter than we would expect for a boneless creature that lives in the ocean, but next to no one expected they would achieve their intelligence using some of the same genes and chemical processes we do. Octopi and their cephalopod cousins have long been regarded as unusually… Continue reading Our brains might have more in common with an octopus than we’d like to believe, suggesting that famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ new paradigm is correct

I am a lowly amoeba and I just killed the most powerful man in the world, changing all of history in the process

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If Henry V survived, he would have been king of both England and France, forging one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful country on Earth at the time.  After I killed him however, a slow, agonizing death, not suited for a warrior, the world was changed forever. I am an amoeba and… Continue reading I am a lowly amoeba and I just killed the most powerful man in the world, changing all of history in the process

I am a neuron in the human brain, almost the same as that found in a lowly roundworm

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Whether you have heard of Caenorhabditis elegans, your own body and mind work much the same way.  Essentially, your brain is C elegans’ times 331,125,828 or so, having neurons that look both inward and outward, reflecting even upon themselves over and over and over again. I am one of those neurons. I am a neuron… Continue reading I am a neuron in the human brain, almost the same as that found in a lowly roundworm

The origins of evolutionary complexity

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For the first time ever, scientists observe a doubling in the size of a genome with an immediate evolutionary advantage, solving a longstanding riddle that goes back to Darwin himself, and proving that complexity can arise spontaneously and persist through the generations. Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species on November 24,… Continue reading The origins of evolutionary complexity

I am a rock on the Galapagos Archipelago, being a fictionalized account told from the perspective of the volcanic remnant itself

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I am a stranger to humanity, but you live your lives upon my brothers, loving, hating, caring, killing, birthing, burying, and everything else you do only because we are solid enough to build upon and in many cases, build from.  If we were like you, there would be no humanity in the first place.  I… Continue reading I am a rock on the Galapagos Archipelago, being a fictionalized account told from the perspective of the volcanic remnant itself

I am a zombie cricket about to drown myself so the parasite I carry can reproduce

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Though I am undoubtedly an insect, I do not inspire the same fear and revulsion as many of my cousins, unless I am infected with the horsehair worm. Then, my appearance is grotesque, the stuff of nightmares, and my suicidal behavior even more so. I am a zombie cricket about to drown myself so the… Continue reading I am a zombie cricket about to drown myself so the parasite I carry can reproduce

I am a young lion and this is my pride, being a fictionalized account from the perspective of the King of the Jungle

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Lion

For the past three years, I have wandered mostly alone after being driven from the pride of my birth, doomed to lurk at the edge of my elder’s territory, always on the outside, looking in, but all that has changed since I drove off my father and killed his cubs.  I am a young lion,… Continue reading I am a young lion and this is my pride, being a fictionalized account from the perspective of the King of the Jungle

Are we nothing more than massive colonies of self-replicating viruses traveling through time?

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The legendary biologist Richard Dawkins returns to evolutionary theory with his third and fourth big idea, ushering in a true paradigm shift in how we view ourselves, the world, and the DNA that builds bodies to interact between the two. Imagine if you can, extracting the DNA of an ancient eukaryotic cell, the earliest complex… Continue reading Are we nothing more than massive colonies of self-replicating viruses traveling through time?

An atheist on the spirit of Christmas

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For billions of Christians around the world, Christmas honors the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ, who lived to die to purge humanity of original sin in the ultimate sacrifice, but what if you believe in none of that? Why is a holiday to honor what you don’t accept still so important? For billions of… Continue reading An atheist on the spirit of Christmas

A better late than never paradigm shift in molecular biology, long predicted by Richard Dawkins, happening right before our eyes

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Since the 1960s, scientists have focused on a gene’s ability to encode proteins, resulting in a causal chain of gene expression from the initial coding in a strand of DNA, to the extraction of the code into RNA, to the formation of the protein and it’s ultimate expression in an organism. This view now appears… Continue reading A better late than never paradigm shift in molecular biology, long predicted by Richard Dawkins, happening right before our eyes