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In pursuit of her stories, award-winning science writer Faye Flam has weathered storms in Greenland, gotten frost nip at the South Pole, and floated weightless aboard NASA’s zero-g plane. She has a degree in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology and started her writing career with the Economist. She later took on the particle physics and cosmology beat at Science Magazine. In 1995 she became a staff writer for the Inquirer - where she’s covered everything from climate change to space exploration to cancer research. Her recent story, “Faulting the Forensics” won first prize in the 2010 Keystone competition. Her previous science column, “Carnal Knowledge,” ran from 2005 to 2008. It covered the intersection of science and sex. Her new column and blog, Planet of the Apes, explores the topic of evolution and runs in the Inquirer’s health section each Monday. It was launched in April of 2011. Email Faye at fflam@phillynews.com.
Email Planet of the at fflam@phillynews.com
- The Latest in the Altruism War: Richard Dawkins vs. E.O. Wilson
Charles Darwin would surely have been mesmerized by a paper released last week showing that baboons were able to do this even if they had never seen the words or nonwords before.
- The Latest in the Altruism War: Richard Dawkins vs. E.O. Wilson
Sometimes evolution gives and sometimes it takes away. Cats have lost their ability to taste sweets, and dolphins lost the sensors needed to pick up bitter or sweet flavors.
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Once, the sun was cooler and crueler
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You didn't need to be a solar physicist to be riveted by the "solar storm" that sent a blast of charged particles our way this month. That particular flare-up fizzled, but in the long term, the sun's temper is worthy of our attention.
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Academy of Natural Sciences gave evolution an early boost
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It was the time of P.T. Barnum, when people would line up to see a whitewashed elephant or a carefully faked petrified giant. But in 1868, a display in Philadelphia proved that reality could be far stranger than fiction. That year, the Academy of Natural Sciences showed the world its first glimpse of a real dinosaur skeleton - a 15-foot-tall Godzilla pulled from a pit in Haddonfield.
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Political ads: Why they work
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Election seasons can serve as a reminder of just how deeply mysterious the human mind remains. Particularly puzzling is the fact that people are heavily influenced by political advertising on television.
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No fear, guys; the Y won't vanish
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Among the more alarming rumors prompted by genetics research was the impending extinction of the Y chromosome. The classic male marker seemed to be shriveling. Would the human race become an all-female species? The Y is, after all, just a tiny nub of a chromosome, having undergone serious shrinkage in the past.
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Planet of the Apes:
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"Planet of the Apes" by Faye Flam does not appear this week.
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As in 'Star Trek,' would aliens be similar to us?
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On Star Trek, the aliens often look so human that crew members fall in love with them. But in real life, scientists in the field known as astrobiology can't be sure alien life would even be carbon-based like us, or use DNA to carry a genetic code.
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Luckless Lamarck, whose evolution theory preceded Darwin's
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Timing is everything, and if there was ever a scientist whose legacy was tarnished by bad timing, it was Jean Baptiste Lamarck. The French naturalist lived from 1744 to 1829 - and published his own evolutionary theory decades before Darwin's theory went public in 1859.
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Wing Bowlers: So disciplined
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Anyone doubting our evolutionary tie to other apes should check out that Philadelphia festival of food and fun known as Wing Bowl. The annual event has some striking parallels to behavior outlined in the article "Chimpanzee Hunting Behavior and Human Evolution," which appeared in the magazine American Scientist.
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Cheers for the word 'God'
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Planet of the Apes: Creationists may be celebrating the fact that legendary physicist Stephen Hawking used the word 'God.' But does that mean he is giving up on a scientific explanation for the origin of the universe?
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How do we know evolution really happens? Through viruses
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It's a common misconception that evolution is a matter of faith, because it happens too slowly to observe. Here's the way one reader sees it: "I don't see any fish walking around, nor do I see any other creature in mid-evolving mode. . . . Simply stated, both creationism and evolution should be taught as competing theories; both are not provable, and both cannot be duplicated in a lab."
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