Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline
I have a short piece in today's New York Times about how male swallows are evolving longer tails, which female swallows find sexy. Here's the original paper in press at The Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Measuring the effects of natural selection is tough work, the details of which are impossible to squeeze into a brief news article. Scientists have to document a change in a population of animals--the length of feathers, for example--but then they have to determine that the change is a product of genetic change. We are much taller than people 200 years ago, but it's clear that most, if not all, of this change is simply a response of our bodies to better food and medicine. The authors of the swallow paper carried out a number of studies that suggest that the length of swallow tails is genetically based, and that those genes are changing. If they're right--and other experts I contacted think they are--it's a striking example of how quickly the sex lives of wild animals can evolve.
Things get a little fuzzier when the researchers propose what's driving the evolution. They think desertification in the springtime range of the swallows in Algeria is to blame. But it's very hard to eliminate other possibilities, since these swallows have complicated lives, migrating from Europe to South Africa and back every year. It's much easier to make a case for the forces driving the evolution of Darwin's finches, which generally sit obediently on the island on which they were born and are subject to cycles of droughts and heavy rains.
But it's a question very much worth investigating. Global warming may well produce ecological changes that could produce just these sorts of rapid evolutionary changes in animals and plants. In some cases, species may be able to adapt quickly enough to their new environment. In other cases, they may lose the race.
1. Joseph Poliakon on November 30, 2004 07:45 PM writes...
AChTunG Bird Lovers! It’s not about Global Warming affecting genetics, but rather continuous improvement of barn swallow A-C-T-G sequencing to build better bug catchers. Longer barn swallow tail feathers mean better and snapper aerodynamic control pursuing bugs in flight, compared to shorter feathers. The attendant increase in bug catching volume of the improved long-feather bio-design, results in lower long-feathered baby bird mortality rates with more long-feathered birds surviving to breeding age.
Trying to tie longer barn swallow feather evolution to Global Warming is a bit of counter-intuitive conjecture. Today’s barn swallow is not the 21st Century’s coal miner canary of Global Warming. Warmer climes would mean more bugs not less. More bug food would mean that even swallows built to aerodynamically inferior, short feathered barn swallow A-C-T-G DNA bio-specs would be fit enough to survive, thrive and proliferate too.
Warmer climates caused by Global Warming would mean rising ocean levels. Only if barn swallows start evolving into webbed footed water birds might one attempt to surmise that Global Warming is an evolutionary driving force affecting their genetics.
Dear Joseph: Consider the fact that swallow tails have increased half an inch in twenty years. If this change is simply the ongoing adaptation of swallows to better flight, then over the past 5,000 years swallow tails should have become 10 feet long. Obviously an explanation must be found elsewhere.
3. coturnix on December 1, 2004 02:10 AM writes...
Have the females' tales grown, too?
What would affect the rate of evolution by SEXUAL selection (as opposed to natural selection)?
Have the females suddenly become pickier (and why)? Or has the sex-ratio skewed toward the male? Or is it natural selection anyway - everyone pairs up, but a smaller percentage of broods survive than 20 years ago, with long tails aiding in survival (better flight or better parenting?), thus raising the "cut off" point on the continuum of tail lengths?
As I mention in the article, female tails have *not* gotten longer, which strongly suggests that sexual selection is at work. The scientists propose that weaker males are not able to survive in the harsher conditions they face in the spring time. These are also the swallows with shorter tails. As a result, a higher portion of the males mating each year have longer tails, and they pass those genes on to their offspring.
5. William Gruzenski on December 1, 2004 11:44 AM writes...
If our understanding of emerging infectious diseases is considered, we are now confronted with illnesses because a particular virus or bacterium has 'jumped' a species, often times with fatal results. We simply do not have time for Darwinian evolution to occur in its traditional manner. Many of the answers come from our ability to mutate at the genetic level. This is constantly occurring and at a rate that would require the burden of everyday measurement. More antibiotics is not the answer. So we try vaccines. And there is some promise here whether we are dealing with viruses or cancers or simply the minute misfoldings of a protein (prions). There must be a way to live together!
Dear Jason: This particular study is not evidence for global warming. The spread of the Sahara has not been linked to man-made climate change. I was just pointing out that predictions of man-made climate change include the spread of arid regions. If these scientists are correct, then man-made climate change could produce similar evolutionary changes in the future.
Given the high ratio of heat to light in the debate over global warming, I just want to make these issues clear.
9. Sarah Dempsey on December 2, 2004 07:33 AM writes...
Have we learned nothing yet? Simply, warmer climates caused by Global Warming would mean the hole is getting bigger. Thus, it may be evolutionary driving forces affecting their genetic make up, but solutions to this occurrence are in the distant and more research is necessitated. There is no easy answer to explain this phenomenon. We should let the swallows have fun and we will see what comes of it.
10. Pericles on December 4, 2004 09:42 AM writes...
Carl,
It is so simple. The air over the Sahara has changed so some male swallows who happened to have longer tail feathers, flew faster and got the good looking girls. This obviously selected for higher and higher speeds for male swallows.
Either that or the girls have (as girls will) decided that this century's look is longer tails for boys.
Naturally, this means that in 5000 years, swallows with tails 10 feet long will regularily exceed the sound barrier, leading to female swallows selecting their mates by the loudness of the sonic booms.
Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
I have a short 
1. Joseph Poliakon on November 30, 2004 07:45 PM writes...
AChTunG Bird Lovers! It’s not about Global Warming affecting genetics, but rather continuous improvement of barn swallow A-C-T-G sequencing to build better bug catchers. Longer barn swallow tail feathers mean better and snapper aerodynamic control pursuing bugs in flight, compared to shorter feathers. The attendant increase in bug catching volume of the improved long-feather bio-design, results in lower long-feathered baby bird mortality rates with more long-feathered birds surviving to breeding age.
Trying to tie longer barn swallow feather evolution to Global Warming is a bit of counter-intuitive conjecture. Today’s barn swallow is not the 21st Century’s coal miner canary of Global Warming. Warmer climes would mean more bugs not less. More bug food would mean that even swallows built to aerodynamically inferior, short feathered barn swallow A-C-T-G DNA bio-specs would be fit enough to survive, thrive and proliferate too.
Warmer climates caused by Global Warming would mean rising ocean levels. Only if barn swallows start evolving into webbed footed water birds might one attempt to surmise that Global Warming is an evolutionary driving force affecting their genetics.
Permalink to Comment2. Carl Zimmer on November 30, 2004 07:57 PM writes...
Dear Joseph: Consider the fact that swallow tails have increased half an inch in twenty years. If this change is simply the ongoing adaptation of swallows to better flight, then over the past 5,000 years swallow tails should have become 10 feet long. Obviously an explanation must be found elsewhere.
Permalink to Comment3. coturnix on December 1, 2004 02:10 AM writes...
Have the females' tales grown, too?
What would affect the rate of evolution by SEXUAL selection (as opposed to natural selection)?
Have the females suddenly become pickier (and why)? Or has the sex-ratio skewed toward the male? Or is it natural selection anyway - everyone pairs up, but a smaller percentage of broods survive than 20 years ago, with long tails aiding in survival (better flight or better parenting?), thus raising the "cut off" point on the continuum of tail lengths?
Permalink to Comment4. Carl Zimmer on December 1, 2004 11:37 AM writes...
As I mention in the article, female tails have *not* gotten longer, which strongly suggests that sexual selection is at work. The scientists propose that weaker males are not able to survive in the harsher conditions they face in the spring time. These are also the swallows with shorter tails. As a result, a higher portion of the males mating each year have longer tails, and they pass those genes on to their offspring.
Permalink to Comment5. William Gruzenski on December 1, 2004 11:44 AM writes...
If our understanding of emerging infectious diseases is considered, we are now confronted with illnesses because a particular virus or bacterium has 'jumped' a species, often times with fatal results. We simply do not have time for Darwinian evolution to occur in its traditional manner. Many of the answers come from our ability to mutate at the genetic level. This is constantly occurring and at a rate that would require the burden of everyday measurement. More antibiotics is not the answer. So we try vaccines. And there is some promise here whether we are dealing with viruses or cancers or simply the minute misfoldings of a protein (prions). There must be a way to live together!
Permalink to Comment6. Jason Malloy on December 1, 2004 12:53 PM writes...
Evidence for evolution and global warming - I should post this over at Free Republic and watch everyone's head explode.
Permalink to Comment7. Carl Zimmer on December 1, 2004 12:58 PM writes...
Dear Jason: This particular study is not evidence for global warming. The spread of the Sahara has not been linked to man-made climate change. I was just pointing out that predictions of man-made climate change include the spread of arid regions. If these scientists are correct, then man-made climate change could produce similar evolutionary changes in the future.
Given the high ratio of heat to light in the debate over global warming, I just want to make these issues clear.
Permalink to Comment8. Jason Malloy on December 1, 2004 01:17 PM writes...
The spread of the Sahara has not been linked to man-made climate change.
Thanks. My assumption.
Permalink to Comment9. Sarah Dempsey on December 2, 2004 07:33 AM writes...
Have we learned nothing yet? Simply, warmer climates caused by Global Warming would mean the hole is getting bigger. Thus, it may be evolutionary driving forces affecting their genetic make up, but solutions to this occurrence are in the distant and more research is necessitated. There is no easy answer to explain this phenomenon. We should let the swallows have fun and we will see what comes of it.
Permalink to Comment10. Pericles on December 4, 2004 09:42 AM writes...
Carl,
It is so simple. The air over the Sahara has changed so some male swallows who happened to have longer tail feathers, flew faster and got the good looking girls. This obviously selected for higher and higher speeds for male swallows.
Either that or the girls have (as girls will) decided that this century's look is longer tails for boys.
Naturally, this means that in 5000 years, swallows with tails 10 feet long will regularily exceed the sound barrier, leading to female swallows selecting their mates by the loudness of the sonic booms.
Pericles.
Permalink to Comment