We're featuring brain evolution in the upcoming edition

The next edition of Carnival of Evolution will be on NeuroDojo in just a few days (June 1st). Zen Faulkes will be featuring posts anything related to brain evolution prominently in this edition, but I fear that not very many bloggers are writing about brain evolution, so here are a few pointers for those with enough enthusiasm.

The RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan has lots of resources on brains, including this primer on brain basics and evolution:

Through the course of evolution, the brain has undergone considerable changes. In many invertebrates, such as worms, the nervous system consists of no more than a net or bundle of nerve cells. In fish, amphibians, and reptiles, the brain is a well-developed organ consisting of several distinct structures, such as the cerebellum, tectum, and basal ganglia. These structures are specialized for different basic functions, such as detecting visual patterns, generating walking or swimming movements, generating reflexive responses, and so on. Mammal brains also contain many of these primitive structures, so scientists can understand many aspects of our own brain function by studying these areas in other animals.

Journals on brain evolution: Brain, Behavior and Evolution | Brain | Current Anthropology | Journal of the History of the Neurosciences | Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience

There's plenty, so get crackin'! Submit one (good) or two (better) posts on anything about evolution, and particularly about brain evolution, through this online form.

CoE featured on Blog Carnival today

Today Blog Carnival the website with all the carnivals, is featuring Carnival of Evolution on their home page and on Facebook.

The big event captured for perpetuity:

May edition up today on Springer

The 2010 May edition of our beloved Carnival of Evolution is up today on the official blog for Springer Verlag's journal, Evolution: Education and Outreach. And with that, surely getting your post accepted in CoE is now akin to peer-reviews on some level. Thanks to Adam M. Goldstein for hosting.

An excerpt:

The squeamish are advised to prepare themselves before visiting GrrlScientist’s post about a newly identified genus of leech (“those spineless blood sucking animals”) which makes its home in the nose of mammals. The photographic evidence is compelling, to say the least; indeed, so is the science. A second posting discusses recent work on the genetics of personality based on the genetics of the Great Tit, a bird (Parus major). Those Tits with a variant in the DRD4 gene show a greater tendency to explore their environment, offering suggestions about how humans with this variant might behave. (Incidentally, the title of this post, “What do great tits reveal about human personality,” is no doubt likely to show up in Internet searches for topics not having to do with evolutionary biology….) She also writes about recent work in which UV rays are used to shed some new light (sorry, couldn’t help it) on fossils, revealing details about fossilized feathers in a Microraptor gui skeleton.

Next month CoE will be hosted by Dr. Zen on Neurodojo. We are going to try to make it a special edition featuring brain evolution, but that of course only works if people submit posts about brain evolution. Doesn't take much brains to figure that out. Or does it? So, you have a whole month to write up one (good) or two (better) posts pwning brain evolution. CoE has a fast track review system, and Dr. Zen will be the functioning as both editor and reviewer(s) in this edition. Use this form on Blog Carnival to submit your posts.

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Next edition of CoE is fast approaching

Get on board! Don't miss the fast train! Don't be left hanging to dry. Skedaddle!

Every month some sucker or other sends me a note saying that they had this great post written up, but they just forgot to submit it to CoE. What a shame that is. Every time.

Fret not, though. Here's your warning:

The May edition of Carnival of Evolution is less than two days away. Currently submissions are about half spam and half serious posts. We can do better than that! I know, because I have seen plenty os posts in April on evolution that have not been submitted. Tsk tsk.

So, use this online form to submit one (good) or two (better) posts that you have written about anything pertaining to evolution.

Also, if you're interesting in hosting CoE, drop me an email. For the heck of it I suggest we let people who haven't hosted before have a go at it until we run out of volunteers. After that the usual suspects can go again.

22nd edition is up at Beetles In The Bush

Carnival of Evolution #22 is now live at Beetles In The Bush.

There’s a new kid on the blog, and Chadrick Lane jumps right into fray with his inaugural post at The Ancestral Mind. In Ancestral Mind in the Twitterverse: Discovering the information age through evolution, he recounts the magical feeling of visiting the Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, prompting him to ask “How is it that we have gone from a common ancestor with chimpanzees to a blogging, social networking, moon walking, singing and dancing species in just around 6 million years?” An impressive first post!

CoE featured on Discovery Channel

Yes, it's true. Carnival of Evolution has made its way into the (more) popular media of television. Sort of.

On TV, Larry Moran, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto and author of the blog Sandwalk, very deliberately chooses to show his blog post with the CoE logo on it, clearly to build his credibility as an expert on evolution. And nipples.



All you professors out there who are will be giving interviews, take a hint! Have The Origin on your bookshelf and the CoE logo on your screen. That way no one will doubt your expertise on evolution.

See TV-clip here, and Larry's post about it here.

P.S. This post is not an endorsement of Larry's statements about why men have nipples.

The carnival is up at Mauka to Makai

The twenty-first edition of CoE is now up on Mauka to Makai, and it has its fair share of the stuff we evophiliacs love to death.

Help spread the word, so we can as many visitors over there as possible. Twit it (I like twit better than tweet), facebook it, blog it, phone it, say it, author it, sign it, and read it.

Next edition on April first (fools edition) will be hosted by Ted on Beetles In The Bush. Go on and submit your evolution posts, already.

Time to submit those posts on evolution

You've got the rest of this Sunday to submit your posts about evolution and anything related to Carnival of Evolution. Use this online form to submit one (good) or two (better) posts.

Kelsey is hosting on Mauka to Makai, and if all goes well, the March edition will go up tomorrow.

We need your posts on evolution

Next edition of Carnival of Evolution is less than one week away!

The next edition will be hosted on Mauka to Makai, and in order to even come close to outdoing Psi Wavefunction's phylogenetic blog-post edition from February 1st, it is imperative that you all submit at least one (good) or two (better) posts on the subject of evolutionary biology. Remember, only __________ (your name here) can prevent CoE from burning to the ground.

Please use this online form to submit your posts.

Carnival of Evolution #20

Psi Wavefunction posted the newest edition of CoE late last night on Skeptic Wonder. And I do declare that this is the awesomest edition I have ever seen - of this carnival, and if any blog carnival. And, it's all about evolution.

Psi actually, genuinely, did phylogenetic analysis of the submitted posts, converting the URLs into amino acid sequences, and then made phylogenetic trees based on them. How out of this world is that?!

It going to be very hard to outdo CoE #20, but I know future hosts will try their very best. Because that's what they've signed up for...

CoE #21 will be at Mauka to Makai.

Next edition at Skeptic Wonder

I have finally gotten admin permission to edit the account at BlogCarnival, so now I can assign bloggers to the next editions of Carnival of Evolution.

CoE #20 will be hosted by Psi Wavefunction on Skeptic Wonder on February 1st - which is really close, so go on and submit your evolution-posts already! Use this form to submit them.

Mighty soon I plan to announce who will host the coming months. More volunteers are still needed, so send me an email if you're interested (bjorn@bjornostman.com).

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Update Jan. 17th:

The schedule now looks like this.
Feb 01, 2010 Skeptic Wonder
Mar 01, 2010 Mauka to Makai
Apr 01, 2010 Beetles In The Bush

Carnival of Evolution #19

A new edition is up on Christie Wilcox's blog, Observations of a Nerd.

Notice that this is a very important edition: It is the first after the celebration of Darwin 200th birthday (year) has ended, and there is some speculation that nothing much will happen in evolution research and blogging in 2010. Fourteen submissions for January 2nd isn't bad at all in that light. However, those posts and that research was of course done last year, so maybe the February edition is going to really slim?

It is still to be decided what the hosting schedule for this spring will be - just a few have volunteered so far, and I'd like to hear from more before I write a list. But, rest assured there will be a new CoE #20 up somewhere in the beginning of February, so don't forget to submit one (good) or two (better) posts about evolution before then. Please use this online form to submit.

Image from Lab Rat's post on bacterial cell wall evolution.

CoE #19 call for submissions

The 19th edition of CoE is going to be hosted at Observations of a Nerd, but so far we only have a handful of submissions. There is still time to get one (good) or two (better) in before January 1st, but don't let the holydays (be they a celebration of Kwanzaa, Yuletide, Hannukah, Winter Solstice, etc.) get in the way!

As usual you can submit using the form at Blog Carnival, which will send your submission directly into Christie's inbox.

Your posts can be specifically related to current science concerning evolution, opinions, or dealing with whatever current anti-evolution attacks you find in the media or world. Really, anything related to evolution, whether direct or tangential, is fair game. Your inclusion in to the carnival is up to the current host.

We also need new volunteers to host the carnival starting February. As this is an immensely popular job, I'd like to give the chance to those who have submitted to the carnival before, but hasn't hosted themselves. Any takers? Please email me at bjorn@bjornostman.com with the subject 'CoE hosting' if you're interested.

Carnival of Evolution #18 - Biochemical Soul

First off - big news here at the Carnival. As you can see, my edition is late again. I can't seem to find the time to keep up online anymore (thanks alot starfish gene cloning). Thus it is with both disappointment and excitement that I am turning over administration of this carnival to Bjørn Østman of Pleiotropy. Bjørn has been a constant contributor to the CoE, and in his own last edition, he really rallied the troops and put out a great edition. He has shown such a constant passion for the subject that I have every confidence that the Carnival of Evolution will be much better in his hands than my own.

Now: Go read the latest crop of evolutionary writings in the Carnival of Evolution #18!

CoE#19 will be hosted by the always superb and funny writer (and my friend) Christie Lynn at Observations of a Nerd.

For now, you can still submit your posts using our carnival submission form. This form may change – but you can always find out submissions information at http://carnivalofevolution.blogspot.com/.