Login

Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Only available when logged in.
masto.ai is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A general Mastodon server for all languages.

Administered by:

Server stats:

2.1K
active users

masto.ai: AboutStatusProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.3.4

#evolution

59 posts53 participants13 posts today
Public
WIST Quotations

A quotation from Marcus Aurelius

Constantly observe everything coming into being through change, and accustom yourself to the thought that universal nature loves nothing so much as to change the things that are and to create new things in their likeness. For everything that exists is, in a sense, the seed of what will arise from it.
 
[Θεώρει διηνεκῶς πάντα κατὰ μεταβολὴν γινόμενα καὶ ἐθίζου ἐννοεῖν, ὅτι οὐδὲν οὕτως φιλεῖ ἡ τῶν ὅλων φύσις ὡς τὸ τὰ ὄντα μεταβάλλειν καὶ ποιεῖν νέα ὅμοια. σπέρμα γὰρ τρόπον τινὰ πᾶν τὸ ὃν τοῦ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐσομένου.]

Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 4, ch. 36 (4.36) (AD 161-180) [tr. Hard (2011 ed.)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/marcus-aureleus/2668…

#quote#quotes#quotation
Public
michael

15-Apr-2025
A tale of two hummingbird bills


There are two species of streamertail #hummingbirds on the island of #Jamaica, #WestIndies—one with red-billed males (Trochilus polytmus) and the other with black-billed males (T. scitulus). This is a puzzling situation, as many evolutionary biologists have argued that avian #speciation is unlikely to occur on small oceanic #islands.

eurekalert.org/news-releases/1

EurekAlert!A tale of two hummingbird bills
There are two species of streamertail hummingbirds on the island of Jamaica, West Indies—one with red-billed males (Trochilus polytmus) and the other with black-billed males (T. scitulus). This is a puzzling situation, as many evolutionary biologists have argued that avian speciation is unlikely to occur on small oceanic islands. Caroline Duffie Judy and colleagues investigated the hybrid zone that separates the two species, which is as narrow as 3.2 km.
#science#evolution#birds
Public
aadmaa

“It may be difficult, but we ought to admire the savage instinctive hatred of the queen-bee, which urges her to destroy the young queens, her daughters, as soon as they are born, or to perish herself in the combat; for undoubtedly this is for the good of the community; and maternal love or maternal hatred, though the latter fortunately is most rare, is all the same to the inexorable principles of natural selection.”

#evolution
Public
aadmaa

"If we admire the truly wonderful power of scent by which the males of many insects find their females..."

How does Darwin even know this? Were there earlier naturalists who established it? What experiments?

#evolution
Public
michael

16-Apr-2025
For a while, #crocodile
The ancestors of today’s #crocodylians survived two #massExtinction events. A new study uncovered a secret to their longevity, which could help conservationists better protect our planet’s most vulnerable species

eurekalert.org/news-releases/1 #science #ecology #evolution #conservation

EurekAlert!For a while, crocodileResearchers examined teeth and skulls of 99 extinct crocodylomorph species and 20 living crocodylian species to reconstruct their dietary ecology and identify characteristics that helped some groups persist through two mass extinctions. They discovered that one secret tocrocodylian longevity is their remarkably flexible lifestyles, both in what they eat and the habitat in which they get it.
Public *
Radical Anthropology

A very good discussion with Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias and Karen Kramer on the #huntergatherer sexual division of labour debates, and why we impose our ideas about status for women. Do you imagine women need to hunt to have power?...because the Hadza wouldn't think so.

#gender #women #power #evolution #anthropology

open.spotify.com/episode/2ZGAD

SpotifyHunting, Gathering, and the Fluidity of Gender RolesSAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human · Episode
Public
Michael Blume

Lese gerade in der StZ, S. 6, über eine Familie aus #Spaichingen, die der extrem dualistischen Sekte der „Palmarianisch-katholischen Kirche“ angehöre. Sie betrachten die Teilnahme von Kindern am #Schwimmunterricht wegen der „unzüchtigen“ #Kleidung als „Todsünde“.

Und zur #Religionsdemografie, an dessen Verstehen Säkulare leider oft scheitern: Das neunte Kind sei unterwegs… #Religion #Evolution #Demografie #Christentum #Dualismus #Palmarianer #PalmardeTroya scilogs.spektrum.de/natur-des-

Natur des Glaubens · Was Darwin über die Evolution der Religion schrieb - Meine erste Radioproduktion beim DeutschlandfunkGestern morgen warf ich mit etwas Herzklopfen das iPod an: Denn zum ersten Mal ging eine Radiosendung in den Stream, zu der ich nicht nur Interview- oder Textbeiträge geliefert hatte. Vielmehr hatte ich auf Einladung …
Public *
earthling

The Evolution of Biological Information: How Evolution Creates Complexity, From Viruses to Brains by Christoph Adams, 2024

Why information is the unifying principle that allows us to understand the evolution of complexity in nature. More than 150 years after Darwin’s revolutionary On the Origin of Species, we are still attempting to understand and explain the amazing complexity of life.

@bookstodon
#books
#nonfiction
#biology
#evolution
#information
#complexity

Although we now know how evolution proceeds to build complexity from simple ingredients, quantifying this complexity is still a difficult undertaking. In this book, Christoph Adami offers a new perspective on Darwinian evolution by viewing it through the lens of information theory. This novel theoretical stance sheds light on such matters as how viruses evolve drug resistance, how cells evolve to communicate, and how intelligence evolves. By this account, information emerges as the central unifying principle behind all of biology, allowing us to think about the origin of life—on Earth and elsewhere—in a systematic manner. Adami, a leader in the field of computational biology, first provides an accessible introduction to the information theory of biomolecules and then shows how to apply these tools to measure information stored in genetic sequences and proteins. After outlining the experimental evidence of the evolution of information in both bacteria and digital organisms, he describes the evolution of robustness in viruses; the cooperation among cells, animals, and people; and the evolution of brains and intelligence. Building on extensive prior work in bacterial and digital evolution, Adami establishes that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of information. Understanding that information is the foundation of all life, he argues, allows us to see beyond the particulars of our way of life to glimpse what life might be like in other worlds.
ExploreLive feeds
About