Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
Big
dust up about kin selection. Biologists E.O. Wilson, Martin Nowak, and Corina Tarnita publish a paper attacking kin selection, the idea that the reproductive success of a gene is influenced not only by its effects on its carrier, but also by its effects on related individuals (kin) carrying the same gene. 130 some odd other
biologists respond.
Richard Dawkins
weighs in. Some talking bears offer a
summary.
[via]
posted by AceRock
on Apr 17, 2011 -
46 comments
Swimming around in a mixture of language and matter, humans occupy a particular evolutionary niche mediated by something we call 'consciousness'. To Professor Nicholas Humphrey we're made up of "
soul dust": "a kind of theatre... an entertainment which we put on for ourselves inside our own heads." But just as that theatre is directed by the relationship between language and matter,
it is also undermined by it. It all depends how you think it.
posted by 0bvious
on Feb 4, 2011 -
17 comments
Carl Zimmer on the duck's incredibly long, corkscrew-shaped, ballistic penis. My tale is rich with deep scientific significance, resplendent with surprising insights into how evolution works, far beyond the banalities of “survival of the fittest,” off in a realm of life where sexual selection and sexual conflict work like a pair sculptors drunk on absinthe, transforming biology into forms unimaginable. But this story is also accompanied with video. High-definition, slow-motion duck sex video. And I would imagine that the sight of spiral-shaped penises inflating in less than a third of second might be considered in some quarters to be not exactly safe for work. It’s certainly not appropriate for ducklings.
[As Carl says, video links are possibly NSFW.]
[more inside]
posted by chorltonmeateater
on Dec 23, 2009 -
59 comments
The
Village Dog Project is an
ongoing research project to document genetic diversity in pariah dogs. These dogs haven't been subject to breed pressure, and may be able to help researchers
learn more about the transition from wolf to dog. (
via)
posted by Pants!
on Jun 23, 2009 -
5 comments
Why is the penis shaped like that? [T]he human penis is actually an impressive “tool” in the truest sense of the word, one manufactured by nature over hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution. You may be surprised to discover just how highly specialized a tool it is. Furthermore, you’d be amazed at what its appearance can tell us about the nature of our sexuality.
posted by hippybear
on May 5, 2009 -
156 comments
Why would an evolutionary biologist study words? It turns out there is an
astonishing parallel between the evolution of words in a lexicon and the evolution of genes in an organism. The word
two, for example, has been around much longer than most, and will likely be with us for millennia, whereas the comparatively rare and recent word
dirty has undergone many mutations, and will probably be extinct in a few hundred years. Professor
Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK, tells us why on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's program
As It Happens. Pull slider to 16:00 to start the
seven minute interview.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium
on Mar 7, 2009 -
49 comments
Why music? Music is a human universal, but why did we evolve a desire to create, perform, and enjoy it? From a biological standpoint, does it contribute to survival or, more likely, mate selection and reproduction?
posted by rocket88
on Feb 13, 2009 -
51 comments
The Orienting Stone. "A snowy white stone that gives shape to the universe: as it happens, we all carry within our skulls the vestige of such a thing, a kind of existentially reversed
qibla (this one perspectival, the other metaphysical) that gives us our sense of being at the center of things, the sense that we are upright at the origin point of a three-dimensional space..."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Dec 3, 2008 -
22 comments
"We were looking for pretty animals that have eyes, are coloured, or glow in the dark; instead, the most interesting find was the organism that was blind, brainless, and completely covered in mud." Some of the oldest fossil records may need to be reconsidered: Dr. Mikhail Matz of the University of Texas has discovered
Gromia Sphaerica, a species of
protist,
making tracks....
[more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth
on Nov 22, 2008 -
21 comments
How We Evolve: "A growing number of scientists argue that human culture itself has become the foremost agent of biological change, making us — for the past 10,000 years or so — the inadvertent architects of our own future selves."
[more inside]
posted by homunculus
on Oct 9, 2008 -
49 comments
The Cosmic Womb: Recently published findings from researchers with the Imperial College
London’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering seem to bolster the case for
extra-terrestrial sources for the origins of life on Earth. (A PDF of the published results can be downloaded
here, if you want the technical specifics.)
[more inside]
posted by saulgoodman
on Jun 13, 2008 -
27 comments
What Is A Species? "To this day, scientists struggle with that question. A better definition can influence which animals make the endangered list."
posted by homunculus
on Jun 8, 2008 -
11 comments
Rutgers professor of philosophy Jerry Fodor
created a bit of a stir last October when he wrote an article for the London Review of Books arguing that natural selection may not be such a great theory after all, and that a "major revision of evolutionary theory... is in the offing." Not many fellow
philosophers and academics agree, it seems. Fodor responds to his critics
here and
here. Six months later, it's still not entirely clear whether his argument is, as Justin E.H. Smith
put it, "irresponsible and stupid or so subtle that none of his adversaries, defending a status quo interpretation of the theory of natural selection, have been able to get it yet."
posted by decoherence
on May 6, 2008 -
142 comments
