Author Archives: Danielle Whittaker

BEACON Researchers at Work: Perspectives on Evolutionary Medicine and Public Health

MSU LBC Students Attend Inaugural Meeting of the International Society for Evolutionary Medicine and Public Health Tempe, AZ, March 19-21, 2015 On Thursday March 19, 2015, six MSU Lyman Briggs College students, accompanied by Dr. Jim Smith (LBC Biology), traveled … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Peering into the Cooperative Brain

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Chelsea Weitekamp. An unlucky vampire bat returning to roost at night with an empty belly can solicit help from a roost-mate to avoid … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Listening to the hyenas

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Kenna Lehmann. Have you ever seen a group of hyenas take down a zebra? Or fight off a pride of lions? Ok, probably not, so you’ll have … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolution in Action Exhibit at MSU Museum

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU Museum Education Specialist Julie Fick. Intro Museums mean different things to different people. For me, the MSU Museum was a place where as a child I explored the halls … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Soft robots

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Thassyo Pinto.  During my childhood, my favorite toys were the ones that I could create using scrap parts. When that was not fun enough, I used to … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: The Original Social Gaming

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin postdoc Tessa Solomon-Lane. I can trace the beginning of my fascination with social behavior to the summer I was ten. That summer, I started volunteering … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Same behavior, same genes?

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin research associate Rebecca Young.  From an early age I spent my time outside – chasing lizards, riding horses, and begging to go to a zoo. … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Long-Term Ecological Research Sites as Evolutionary Experiments

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolutionary Optimization and the Open Source Community

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Brian Goldman. I teach computers to be better at guess, check, and revise. At least, that is the short version of my research. More precisely, I develop optimization algorithms … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: How the chicken crossed the sea

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU postdoc Eben Gering. Biotic invasions (the Disney version) Some ecologists have likened invasive species to the army of enchanted brooms in Disney’s Fantasia. In the movie, Mickey Mouse portrays … Continue reading

Posted in BEACON Researchers at Work | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment