Pathogens and Polygyny

31Jan08

At first sight it might seem that pathogens have little to do with polygyny. But anyone who knows the ‘Red Queen’ theory can probably guess the link between the two. In brief, the Red Queen hypothesis suggests that sexual reproduction provides a major evolutionary advantage due to its incorporation of recombinations of two different genomes [...]

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Turning Turtles

23Jan08

This is a cute paper investigating the geometry of turtle shells and its relationship with turtles’ strategies for flipping themselves over if they end up on their backs.
Domokos and Varkonyi construct a very simple model of the shape of turtles’ shells, considering only two parameters describing the shape of the shells. Using just these two [...]

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