OneZoom: Zooming in on the tree of life

The evolution of life is often depicted in a tree-like fashion (although, at some places, it might be more like a web). This tree analog for life’s evolution is evident in a new project to visualize the evolutionary relationships of life on earth, which has been getting quite a bit of attention on Twitter. It’s […]

Experimental Evolution: An Overview

One (interesting) way to study evolution is to ‘make it happen’. In other words, start with an experimental population, add (an) experimenter(s) who imposes certain conditions and watch what happens. With the recent advances in genetics, genomics and molecular biology, it has become more and more possible to see evolution happen (yes, my dear evolution […]

Animal Personality, Ecology, and Evolution

Ask anyone with a pet (or animal companion, if you prefer that term), animals have personality. Anthropomorphism aside, there seems to be something to it. In recent years, research in animal behavior has resulted in the suggestion that there are indeed behavioral differences between animals in a population that persist through  time and across contexts. […]