Carnival of Evolution #12

It is DSN’s pleasure to bring to you the 12th edition of the Carnival of Evolution. There are several good treasures locked up inside this month.

Mike from the Brain Stimulant blog wonders how evolution of the brain and mind can be modeled.

Over at Detention Slip, they are opining about a teacher who was barred by a judge from calling B.S. on creationism.

Andrew of The Evolving Mind reports on recent research about parrot dancing and ponders how it may have evolved. Also, check out his interesting post on Mockingbird’s ability to recognize individual human faces. Did it evolve this way or is a side product from something else?

I love this post from Blag Hag about a horriblly misleading infographic the suggests it is better to call human “most advance” as opposed to unique. She rightfully ponders “What if other animals considered themselves the most advanced, and were comparing us to them?” And follows it up with a few illustrative examples.

Grrl Scientist reviews Coyne’s new book Why Evolution Is True in great detail. Having read and still use Coyne & Orr’s Speciation, I am loking forward to getting my hands on Why Evolution Is True.

AK at his Rambling Thoughts discuss a new way of thinking about evolution and the individual.

Mike at 23andMe’s blog, The Spittoon, discussed research on the coevolution between malaria and african human.

Greg Laden explains in excruciating detail the new paper reporting on Ida, a fossil primate from Germany. Ed Yong lets us know that the world changed when the discovery was announced. Brian Switek from Laelaps also has excellent commentary on this matter. But make sure you go to The Beagle Project Shop to get your Ida t-shirt!

Andrew at Southern Fried Science debunks popular myths about sharks and their evolutionary legacy, showing that at best, sharks are sub-par.

Jeremy at Denim and Tweed has an excellent post up about social evolution in the wire-tailed manakin. Apparently, being your buddy’s wingman pays off!

Finally, I would like to submit our introduction to Sex Week which was last week here on Deep Sea News. We had a whole week of reproduction in the sea! Click ahead to read about reproduction in mussels and sponges, seasonality in the deep sea, crustaceous penises and much much more throughout the week!

That’s all for this edition, please join us next month with FYI: Science as our host!