This Jay Is Evolving in a Very, Very Weird Way

Matt Simon Wired Science
Being on the way to becoming a new species isn’t the same thing as actually speciating. Actual speciation without isolation is quite rare, and even the Santa Cruz Island jays have not actually speciated, and may never even do so. But the implications for long-held evolutionary principles are intriguing. Darwin’s famous Galapagos finches certainly prove that isolation leads to speciation, but now it may be that isolation isn’t always necessary to get species to diverge.

Neanderthals Practiced Sexual Division of Labor

Spanish National Research Council
Neanderthals divided some of their tasks according to their sex. A new study analyzed 99 teeth of 19 individuals from three different sites (El Sidron, in Asturias - Spain, L'Hortus in France, and Spy in Belgium), reveals that the dental grooves in the female fossils follow the same pattern, different to that found in male individuals.

Friday Nite Videos -- February 27, 2015

Portside
Jon Stewart challenges Fox to a lie-off. Beethoven and the epigenome. The evolution of religion. Men in skirts protest violence against women in Turkey. 'Chuy' Garcia for mayor of Chicago.

Baba Brinkman - Religion Evolves

Baba Brinkman, a Canadian hip-hop performer with an intellectual bent, sexy beats and sumptuous lyrics, tackles where religion comes from, what purpose it serves and how it evolves. NYT: "like attending the best Ted Talk ever." See him at the Soho Playhouse in NY, or get his album (pay what you want) here.

Why Do We Die?

PZ Myers Science Blogs
We are all Roy Batty. All of our moments will be lost, like tears in rain…but weren’t they extraordinary moments?

Love Letters to Richard Dawkins

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins reads "fan mail" he has received from some of his not-so-great admirers. Parental Discretion Advised.

The Avian Tree of Life

This animation illustrates the  major branches of the avian tree of life revealed by the mapping of the complete genomes of 48 bird species -- one of the most ambitious evolutionary investigations yet.

A Flock of Genomes Tells the Tale of Bird Evolution

Geoffrey Mohan Los Angeles Times
Which bird is closest to the saltwater crocodiles, American alligators and the slender-nosed Indian gharial? Either the chicken or the ostrich, depending on how you look at it. If a genome is a shelf of books, then the chicken has been a better librarian, but the ostrich has been a more faithful translator.
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