This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Welcome to the 40th edition of the Carnival of Evolution! The CoE is your monthly one-stop non-stop all-you-can-eat buffet of change over time in the online blogospheric world of wonders! So, let us not delay any further and get right into the nitty-gritty of sciencey-awesomesauce.
Arvind, at Fins to feet, tell you everything you need to know about jawless fish!
Can't get enough transitions? Stephen Matheson posts on the BioLogos forum a three part series on limb evolution, New Limbs from Old Fins: check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
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Beacon, an NSF Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, has a fantastic blog where researchers describe their work. Check out these two posts on bacterial evolvability and the effect of rising ocean temperatures on marine plankton.
Ed of the award-winning blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, talks about the occasional sexy-time between humans and neanderthals. The evidence is the genes, and not those tight, skinny hip-hugging, low-cut ones.
Over at Cassandra's Tears, a chapter-by-chapter review of the book The Emergence of Lifeis started. Head over and follow along!
Jerry Coyne write great, and often contentious posts, quite frequently over at his blog Why Evolution Is True. Check out the awesome discovery (and photos!) of dinosaur feathers preserved in amber and follow along on his discussion why you might have to wait a million years for big evolutionary change.
Stephen, at Quintessence of Dust, discusses the incredibly interesting phenomenon of hitchhiking genes in the human genome.
Stan, of Honest Ab, had great fun with creationism at the Baugh Creation Evidences Museum! Read all about it here (and make sure to go back read the other posts about his visit there.)
The Mermaid's Tale is a great blog written by 3 excellent biologists, in support of their book by the same name, studying genetics at the interface of evolution, development and ecology. Here is a small sampling of interesting conversations they have started: Killing Malaria and a back-and-forth about why paleoanthropology garners so much of a spotlight.
Skeptically Speakinghas a nice podcast with Michael Barton (of Dispersal of Darwin fame) talking about the misuse of Darwin's words by evolution denialists and a discussion with Dr. Lee Allan Dugatkin about his new book The Prince of Evolution.
John, at Evolving Thoughts, found an interesting nugget in book of Huxley's letters concerning species and sparks an interesting discussion.
Speciation by magic! David explain at The Atavism that quirks in gene flow models (sometimes called "magic traits" tongue-in-cheekly) might be a driver in speciation, using a great example of a land snail shell handedness. See also, Ed Yong's excellent take.
Greg Laden is excited about both David Attenborough's new project Flying Monsters 3D and a new crocodile fossil.
A fantastic post by Jeremy at Denim & Tweed about plant-bacteria coevolution and maintaining the fine line of mutualism.
Here on the Sci-Am blog network, the Lab Rat discusses ice age bacteria with antibiotic resistance (!) and Lucas at Thoughtomics talks about how penguins colonized Africa 3 times. Also, check out my contribution at EvoEcoLab about firefly evolution in the cost of bearing lanterns!
That is all for this round, stay tuned to the Carnival of Evolution for the next host!