Dan Graur

x.com/DanGraur/sta...

Nitrogen-fixing organelle in a marine alga Symbiotic interactions were key to the evolution of chloroplast and mitochondria organelles, which mediate carbon and energy metabolism in eukaryotes. Biological nitrogen fixation, the reduction of ab...

Welcome to the ever expanding repertoire of organelles in eukaryotes: The nitroplast. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Fossil amphibian offers insights into the interplay between monsoons and amphibian evolution in palaeoequatorial Late Triassic systems | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences The severe greenhouse climate and seasonality of the early to mid-Late Triassic are thought to have limited terrestrial diversity at lower latitudes, but direct adaptations to these harsh conditions r...

A fossil amphibian, Ninumbeehan dookoodukah, was named in the Eastern Shoshone language in collaboration with 7th-grade students at Fort Washakie School. Is this a reversal of parachute science or merely lip service? royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
georgehbalazs.com/wp-content/u...

The "is–ought fallacy" arises when one makes claims about what ought to be that are based solely on statements about what is. It is frequently encountered in evolutionary contexts: Recently in @newscientist: "Music is an essential part of human evolution or it wouldn't be there."

Hair pulling prompts one of the fastest known pain signals The ouch of hair pulling is transmitted with the help of a protein used to sense light touches. These details could lead to new treatments.

Hair pulling prompts one of the fastest known pain signals. www.sciencenews.org/article/hair...

A bizarre skeleton from a Roman grave has bones from eight people Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have revealed that a complete skeleton found in a 2nd-century cemetery is made up of bones from many people spanning thousands of years – but we don’t know who asse...

A skeleton was discovered in the 1970s in a 2nd-century Roman cemetery in Belgium. It was presumed to belong to a Roman individual. A new study showed that the skeleton was made of the bones of eight individuals who lived thousands of years apart. www.newscientist.com/article/2454...

“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” J.B.S. Haldane in “Possible Worlds” (1927).

The Genetic Book of the Dead From a renowned biologist and best-selling author, a whole new way of looking at living organisms: reading them as documents describing ancient worlds“Richard Dawkins’s new book is a glorious affair. ...

Following the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Richard Dawkins offers The Genetic Book of the Dead. I've read ~100 free pages online. Same deterministic drivel as before. Random genetic drift? Historical contingency? Tradeoffs? Chance? Dead ends? Nowhere. Selection is all. www.google.com/books/editio...

Take control of your brain's master switch to optimise how you think The discovery that a small blue blob of neurons, the locus coeruleus, controls your mode of thinking suggests ways to increase learning, creativity, focus and alertness

Is locus coeruleus, a small, bluish area in the brainstem that produces norepinephrine, the master switch or the gearbox of the brain? www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

A very stupid article, stupider than other articles coming from psychology departments, claims that people who own dogs are more resilient and people who own cats are more neurotic. Their own table shows that the claims are dim-witted.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How is my day going?