Science Times Special Issue: Evolution

This week's Science Times is devoted to the topic of Evolution. There's so much good stuff, I don't know where to start.

Carol Kaesuk Yoon has a fantastic article about Evo-Devo. Turns out the same DNA sequences are tweaked over and over to different body plans and complex forms.

Nick Wade writes about human evolution. Think humans have stopped evolving? Think again. Human evolution continues to surprise and startle evolutionary biologists.

Carl Zimmer from the Loom covers Rich Lenski's Long Term Evolution Experiment. It's up to 40,000 generations now! Lenski is my scientific "grandfather"; my former advisor, Paul Turner, did his Ph.D. under Lenski.

John Nobel Wilford writes about the Human Family Tree. In case you haven't heard by now, "missing links" keep popping up all over the place.

Dennis Overbye ponders DNA encoded messages, a topic I covered earlier in this blog.

Natalie Angier writes about Toxoplasma gondii, every one's favorite mind parasite.

Cornelia Dean reveals that humans are not in a class by themselves.

Finally, now's your chance to pose questions to Sean B. Carroll, evolutionist extraordinaire and author of Endless Forms Most Beautiful.

Stop by Bugmenot and get a username and password, if you don't feel like registering.

Photo: Charles Darwin on the porch of Down House, Kent.