Episode #206
News Items
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week – Thomas Edison
Interview with Richard Prum
- Dr. Prum is an evolutionary ornithologist with broad interests in diverse topics, including phylogenetics, behavior, feathers, structural color, evolution and development, sexual selection, and historical biogeography. We discuss dissenters from the consensus that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
A new morphological analysis of modern and fossil apes suggests that humans are most closely related to orangutans, and form a separate group from chimpanzees and gorillas. http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/06/18/humans.related.orangutans.not.chimps.says.new.pitt.buffalo.museum.science.study
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Item #2
Science
Scientists have developed a new computer program that can automate the process of analyzing DNA to create phylogenies – a picture of the evolutionary tree of life – that is much faster and more accurate than existing methods. http://www.physorg.com/news164553586.html
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Item #3
Fiction
Biologists have discovered a new species of water snake, the only one known to have evolved the technique of capturing prey by first “hypnotizing” it with its rhythmic undulating motion. http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/discovery-water-snake-startles-fish-way-makes-them-flee-its-jaws-22441.html