Category Archives: BEACON Researchers at Work

BEACON Researchers at Work: Measuring fitness in the Long Term Evolution Experiment

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by Michigan State University graduate student Mike Wiser. If there’s one thing you can really depend on about life, it’s that it’s constantly changing. Many of us learned in our biology classes … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Hemichordate Global Biodiversity and Evolution

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Washington postdoc Charlotte Konikoff. Research in the Swalla lab broadly focuses on elucidating chordate origins and evolution. If you are reading this, you are a chordate. More specifically, … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Bidding Strategy in Learning Classifier Systems Using Loan and Niching GA

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by North Carolina A&T State University graduate student Abrham Workineh. Nature has given some degree of inherent intelligence to living things.  One definition of  intelligence is the ability to learn from experience, … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Microbial communities, huh, yeah! What are they good for?

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Idaho postdoc Mitch Day. Many labs in BEACON and beyond study microbial communities. There are many ways to approach the problem, but the first is always deciding what … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Engineering solutions inspired by fish schooling

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by NC A&T graduate student Patrick Wanko. Consider today’s car, with its extensive sensors, diagnostics, processing and data storage, and communication capabilities. A far cry from the highly mechanized vehicles of … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Developing artificial intelligence

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU postdoc Arend Hintze. When I am asked what I do, I normally smile apologetically and say something like “Theoretical Biology” or “Computational Biology,” and with a wink of my … Continue reading

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

Kay Holekamp blogs about hyenas at the New York Times

BEACON PI Kay Holekamp is writing for the New York Times’ Scientist at Work blog this summer about her fieldwork in Kenya. Read her first post here, and click here to keep up with all of her fascinating entries!

Posted in BEACON in the News, BEACON Researchers at Work | Leave a comment

BEACON Researchers at Work: The "Mating" Game

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Emily Weigel. What would a fish say if it could talk? How about, “Hey, baby. What’s your sign?” Male threespine sticklebacks court females in a constant game … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Autonomous foraging, speciation and open-ended evolutionary experiments in 3D physically realistic worlds

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by Keck Graduate Institute graduate student Nicolas Chaumont, who is currently a visiting scholar at MSU. Everybody I’ve talked to who is aware of Karl Sims’ work on the evolution of … Continue reading

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

BEACON Researchers at Work: Speciation in Digital Organisms

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by MSU graduate student Carlos Anderson. That the structure and laws of our universe enabled the origin of life is an incredible coincidence. Without the gravity that aggregates matter into galaxies, stars, … Continue reading

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