Ecology
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Though we might not turn to stone, an encounter with the basilisk would leave us gasping for air.
An advanced transistor-based intelligence would desire a very different world from one best suited for human flourishing.
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Hell is real, and cyanobacteria were condemned to burn, but they might save us still.
Cyanobacteria turned our planet into a place of fire and ice, causing the first mass extinction. Then they too nearly went extinct. Their descendants were imprisoned in the cells of plants. We burn their old prison cells when we drive down the street. And yet, their lineage might save us still.
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Sex was invented to queer populations.
The biological function of sex is to create diversity — which helps populations endure, even if this is bad for individuals — so we should expect diversity in the expression of sex.
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Not even scale trees could save us from ourselves.
Scale trees pulled huge quantities of carbon dioxide out of the air for millions of years … and not even they could control our planet’s climate.
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On the toothy origins of our inner fire.
With one weird trick, morganucodon kept our kind from being killed by saprophytic fungi.
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On skin color and sexual selection in humans.
Somehow, many male biologists failed to notice that whichever sex does more caretaking typically has more control over mate choice …
aesthetic preferences, agrarian, agrarian cultures, agriculturalists, agriculture, ancient human diets, ancient human evolution, ancient human skin color, animals, birds, bowerbird, caretaking and mate access, caretaking and mate choice, caretaking and sexual choice, childhood mortality, club winged manakin, club-winged manakins, cultural differences, Dawn of Everything, depigmentation, dietary influence on the evolution of skin color, epidermal melanin, evolution, evolution of beauty, evolution of cuteness, evolution of depigmentation, evolution of epidermal melanin, evolution of skin color, evolutionary theory, evolutionary trade-offs, female mate choice, fitness costs, folate, gamete size, human attraction, human caretaking, human culture, human evolution, hunter-gatherer cultures, hunter-gatherers, inequality, male control over reproductive success, male mate choice, mate choice, melanin, nature, peacock mating, peacocks, reproductive success, resource control, resource distribution, science, sexual attraction, sexual dimorphism, sexual dimorphism in human skin color, sexual selection, sexual selection of skin color, skin color dimorphism, skin color hypothesis, skin tone, smooth guardian frog, tamarins, Vitamin D, why are babies cute
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On the timescales of apocalypse.
The world is not at risk. The world has been through this before. But human civilization has never experienced such change.
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On Nobel laureate Linus Pauling’s contribution to the climate crisis.
When scientists behave unethically, more people distrust science.
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On eating plants.
In the mid-1800s, Claude Bernard – the “father of experimental physiology” – began a series of experiments to create carnivorous rabbits. Don’t worry: Bernard wasn’t cultivating predatory beasts like the angry rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At first he was simply starving animals until their acidic urine indicated that they’d begun to…
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On the apparent rise in transgender and non-binary identities.
Our culture has changed, but so has the environment, and we need to acknowledge both.
Frank Brown Cloud 