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Category Archives: Evolution 101
Evolution 101: Group Selection
This week’s Evolution 101 post is by MSU graduate student Thomas LaBar. Many organisms live and interact within groups. Beehives, wolf packs, and bird flocks are just a few of the groups that exist in the natural world. Humans also … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged altruism, animal behavior, Evolution 101, group selection, kin selection
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Evolution 101: Digital Evolution
This Evolution 101 post is by MSU graduate student Armand Burks. When scientists study the process of evolution in living organisms, two of the key limiting factors are that of time and the amount of data available. In practice, it … Continue reading
Evolution 101: Beauty is in the Genes of the Beholder
This Evolution 101 post is by MSU graduate student Anselmo Pontes. What do you think when you see a woman painfully balancing on sky-high heels? How about when you overhear the lame pick up lines guys come up with to … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged competition, Evolution 101, female choice, sexual selection
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Evolution 101: Synthetic Biology
This week’s Evolution 101 blog post is by UW graduate student Bryan Bartley. Synthetic biology is a new frontier in biological research where scientists and engineers are creating living systems out of molecular chemistry. In the last half century, the … Continue reading
Evolution 101: Fitness Landscapes
This week’s Evolution 101 blog post is by MSU postdoc Arend Hintze and MSU graduate student Randy Olson. While fitness landscapes are generally thought to be more of a theoretical construct, they are in fact quite tangible and underly every … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged Evolution 101, fitness, fitness landscapes, mutations
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Evolution 101: Natural Selection
This week’s Evolution 101 post is by an interdisciplinary group of BEACONites, all of whom rely on the principles of natural selection in their research: MSU graduate student Nikki Cavalieri (Zoology), MSU postdoc Prakarn Unachak (Evolutionary Computation), and NC A&T … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged crossover, Evolution 101, mutations, natural selection, speciation
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Evolution 101: Host-Parasite Interactions: Of Mice and Cheese and Men and Zombies
This week’s Evolution 101 Post is by MSU graduate student Alita Burmeister. Hollywood loves a good parasite story—from zombies and vampires to Alien and Star Trek II — nothing creeps audiences out like a parasitic infection that controls its host’s … Continue reading
Evolution 101: Epistasis
This week’s Evolution 101 post is by MSU postdoc Bjørn Østman. Bjørn also blogs at Pleiotropy. What is epistasis? Epistasis is a measure of the strength of epistatic interactions. Epistatic interactions are non-additive interactions between alleles, loci, or mutations. That is, … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged epistasis, Evolution 101, fitness, fitness landscapes
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Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics
This week’s Evolution 101 blog post is by MSU graduate student Byron Smith. Evolution is often thought of as a constant, gradual change in the characteristics of a species based on how well those traits are adapted to a static … Continue reading
Evolution 101: Maternal Effects
This week’s Evolution 101 blog post is by MSU graduate student Emily Weigel. This is a moment to thank your mom. Mothers have more of an effect on their offspring than one might first think. In addition to the DNA, … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution 101
Tagged Evolution 101, fitness, inheritance, Maternal effects, video
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