IntelligentDesign/RandomDrift
Andy Gardner; andyggardner@gmail.com, aggardner@wisc.edu; husband / evolutionary biologist / teacher / espresso-obsessive / car nut / etc.
The Triumph Story (by mrpitv)
Sadly, a few years later the story of the TR was at an end, and soon after the story of Triumph was as well. A lot can be said about the British automotive industry, as in deed it has. I’ll just state that it’s sad that the real sports car scene essentially died with it with Triumph and MG in the early 80’s. Sure there’s been offers from others, but not as good sport as the Triumphs or 60’s Alfa’s. And the Miata is after all, when all is said and done, only a Mazda.
BEAST 50% majority-rule consensus from ITS and plastid data for ~200 species of Oxalis.
Oxalis massoniana: Botanical Conservatory. UC Davis, 01-30-13.
Thanks to fleecy for letting me know this gorgeous flower’s name.
A plot of the density distributions (with 1.8x bandwith adjustment) of the inferred average rates of transition per million years in three Oxalis characters: succulence, biomes, and geography. Transitions are more frequent among biomes and succulence than geography. Under these distributions, the probability that biomes transition at a higher average rate than geographic zones is 0.891. The probability that succulence transitions occur at a higher rate than geographic is 0.805. There is only a 0.595 probability that biome transitions occur than succulence transitions.
Scenes from the Phipps Conservatory. A nice mix of plants, glass, fossils, and family. Sasha took the succulent tableau.
The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh has an enormous central study area and these nation-themed classrooms with excellent, authentic details.
Even on the evolutionary time scale of tens of millions of years there is such a thing as being in the right shape at the right time. An anatomical difference in the ability to seize the moment, according to a study led by Brown University biologists, explains why more species in one broad group, or clade, of grasses evolved a more efficient means of photosynthesis than species in another clade.
Their findings appear this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Evolution of Oxygen” —New Theories of Key Event 2.3 Billion Years Ago.
The Great Oxidation Event occured around 2.3 billion years ago, when it was no longer possible for newly created oxygen to be captured in chemical compounds. Instead, it started to accumulate as oxygen in the oceans and in the atmosphere. Before this event, in the Earth’s early atmosphere, there were only traces of free oxygen. All life was based exclusively on anaerobic processes - chemical reactions that did not require oxygen. With the emergence of cyanobacteria that oxidized water with the help of light and produced oxygen as a by-product, the conditions for life on Earth gradually began to transform.
New research by scientists at the University of Bristol and Boston University suggests that the evolution of multicellularity coincided with increased diversification of cyanobacteria and the Great Oxidation Event. Cyanobacteria are among the most diverse prokaryotic phyla, with morphotypes ranging from unicellular to multicellular filamentous forms, including those able to irreversibly differentiate in form and function. It has been suggested that cyanobacteria raised oxygen levels in the atmosphere around 2.45–2.32 billion years ago during the Great Oxidation Event and dramatically changing life on the planet. However, little is known about the possible interplay between the origin of multicellularity, diversification of cyanobacteria, and the rise of atmospheric oxygen.
The team tested whether the evolution of multicellularity overlapped with the Great Oxidation, and whether multicellularity is associated with significant shifts in diversification rates in cyanobacteria. Our results indicate an origin of cyanobacteria before the rise of atmospheric oxygen. The evolution of multicellular forms coincided with the onset of the Great Oxidation Event and an increase in diversification rates, suggesting that multicellularity could have played a key role in triggering cyanobacterial evolution.
Walking from the dining room into the kitchen, in front of you is the hallway closet with a door into the bathroom. To the left is a door from the kitchen into the three-season porch. Next, you’re looking from the back door in the porch toward the door into the kitchen. The bathroom has a high ceiling, but no outlets; the pedestal sink and comode are behind the door. Exiting the bathroom, you’re looking from the coat closet to the right into the kitchen and dining room beyond, to the left into the living room.
