http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie One blog about evolution, microbes and the living Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:04:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en There is a very interesting feature this month in PLoS biology that talks about one of my favourite themes. The article is pretty neat and I’m not going to make any comments on it. What interests the most is the seemingly opposed lines of thought that some prominent biologists let’s ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/05/17/surivival-of-the-fittest-or-arrival-at-the-likeliest/ …save the world? This week in nature news there’s an article about the relevance of keeping the microbes that live on earth alive. Well, if they wanna save the microbes they have a loooooong way to go. But it sounds cool on a t-shirt. http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/05/11/save-the-microbes/ Hey! Is anybody from the blogosphere going to Toronto to the ASM general meeting? I’ll be presenting a poster there. Send me an e-mail or something if you’re going and we can have a pint after the talks. Viva la evolucion! http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/05/10/asm-is-coming/ This week in the Research Highlights of Nature David Wilkinson talks in the journal club about the possible evolution of the aversion to rotten food. He argues that one possible reason for microbes to produce the stinky compounds is to fend off animals, that would otherwise eat the food, probably ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/30/rotten-food-is-no-good/ Tangled Bank 78 is up at About Archaeology. http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/25/tangled-bank-78/ Wolbachia is an interesting microorganism (like most… like all). To date it was known to be a parasite that it is maternally transmitted. It had been shown that infection with this microorganism reduced fecundity in its hosts. The way how populations are maintained is through Citoplasmic Incompatibility (CI). CI basically ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/19/wolbachia-from-parasite-to-mutualist/ After some requests from friends and some readers, and also cause I wanted a t-shirt with Carlitos Darwin on it, I have opened an on-line shop at cafepress The prices you see are the minimum they allow me to charge (they get all the benefits) and I don’t get a ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/16/viva-la-evolucion-on-line-shop/ B. aphidicola is an endosymbiont of aphids (sap sucking insects). This bacterium lives in specialised cells called bacteriocytes and stablishes an symbiotic relationship with its host. They get shelter and food, and they provide aminoacids that are not found in the aphid’s strict diet. That’s kind of the ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/15/bug-of-the-month-buchnera-aphidicola/ Tangled Bank is up at Aetiology! http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/11/tangled-bank-77/ …chromosomes. It is known that humans and Drosophila “buffer” their double dose of sexual chromosomes (females have two X chromosomes whereas males have only one). Basically one of the two X chromosomes becomes inactive during development. This week there is a paper published in the Journal of Biology that shows that birds ... http://vivalaevolucion.blogs.ie/2007/04/09/birds-dont-moderate-their-sexual/