emjohnson

After nearly a year on the road I'm pleased to announce that The Primate Diaries now has a permanent home at the new Scientific American blog network. I would like to thank everyone who supported my work here and during my "exile." I look forward to the continuing conversation at my new home.…

Thanks to support from readers and fellow bloggers I'm pleased to say that The Primate Diaries has taken the show on tour. You can update your RSS feed here or follow the #PDEx hashtag on Twitter.

Three years ago I didn't even know what science blogging was. Frustrated as a freelance writer, I typed "science blog" into my search engine and was thrilled when this network showed up first on the list. Here was a community of researchers and writers whose love of learning and the sharing of…

In what was probably the worst idea since Crystal Pepsi, the corporate sponsored advertiblog has met an early and decisive end. The announcement was made this morning: We have removed Food Frontiers from SB. We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in…

I'll be taking a break from blogging for the time being because I said I would. Follow me on twitter or facebook to keep tabs on what I'm up to. For more on this see here, here, and related issues here. But I'm sure everything is different now.

At ScienceBlogs we value our independence. Just consider the recent posts over the laughable PepsiCo nutrition blog to see how seriously people take this. But one thing that would never happen is for anything we write to be edited without our consent. As I wrote yesterday, I am disappointed in…

My response to David Klinghoffer's piece in the Huffington Post has just been published: Creationists are fond of laying the blame for Nazi eugenics on Charles Darwin. They insist that his materialist argument that humans evolved from animals and his conception of natural selection inspired the…

Image: via PZ Myers PZ Myers has a new post condemning Discovery Institute ideologue David Klinghoffer's recent post connecting Darwin to the eugenic policies of Hitler. He trots out some of the same points that have been refuted time and again. Darwin elaborated a picture of how the world works…

The latest issue of the journal Science has an essay by Greg Miller looking at the explosion of research into epigenetics and what this work could suggest about human society. In 2004, Szyf and Meaney published a paper in Nature Neuroscience that helped launch the behavioral epigenetics…

As I highlighted in my previous post, evolution works on zombies just like any other organism, the main difference is that they reproduce like cells rather than like animals. Darwin's discovery that zombies pass on hereditary material in their bites, and that this has resulted in natural selection…

Credit: Revenant Magazine The origin of zombies (Genus: Zumbi) is well understood today, but this wasn't the case when they were first discovered in the early 1800s. Charles Darwin was the first to recognize that zombie "reproduction" results in a process of descent with modification in a way…

Author's Note: The following is an excerpt from my review of Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. For additional information see my posts Reexamining Ardipithecus ramidus in Light of Human Origins, Those Cheating Testicles, or Who's Your Baby? as well as Helen's Lament and the…

Thanks to Greg Laden for the anniversary wishes. One year ago today I wrote my first post here at ScienceBlogs (technically, my first post was yesterday, but that was posting the live twitter transcript of my son's birth). I would like to thank everyone at Sb (bloggers, administrators, and…

When most people think of evolutionary biology the first thing that comes to mind probably isn't lyrical poetry. However one of the earliest proponents of evolution, none other than Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus, presented his vision for the origin of life in the form of an epic poem in…

Chimpanzees have culture (or not) depending on your definition.Image: Irish Wildcat / Creative Commons Author's Note: The following is an expansion on my reply to anthropologist Dan Sperber on the PLoS ONE article "Prestige Affects Cultural Learning in Chimpanzees." Culture is like art or…

(updated below)The Quark Award is now down to the last few days for general voting. One of the top twenty posts that you vote for will then go to Richard Dawkins to judge as the best science post of the year. My piece Chimpanzees Prefer Fair Play to Reaping an Unjust Reward has been nominated as…

     New research finds chimpanzees follow  prestigious models when learning new tasks.        Monika Thorpe / Creative CommonsIf one were to play psychiatrist to the natural world, most human beings would be committed for our certifiable obsession with other peoples' behavior. We compulsively…

Author's Note: This post was selected as the topic for the ResearchBlogCast as part of ResearchBlogging.org. Listen to the discussion here.    Could punishing bad behavior be the origin                  of human cooperation?Humans are one of the most cooperative species on the planet. Our ability…

A new study shows that chimps sacrifice their own advantage if they earned it unfairly.Image: Owen Booth / Creative Commons Fairness is the basis of the social contract. As citizens we expect that when we contribute our fair share we should receive our just reward. When social benefits are…

(Source)       But which one should be diagnosed? Diagnostic criteria for 313.81 Oppositional Defiant Disorder A. A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least 6 months, during which four (or more) of the following are present: (1) often loses temper (2) often argues…

Yesterday Kiera Butler, associate editor at Mother Jones, posted an article claiming that soy-based veggie burgers and infant formula are "made with the chemical hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and neurotoxin." She based her conclusions on a report put out by The Cornucopia Institute, an…

In his recent TED Talk Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter To A Christian Nation argues that science can and should be used to address moral issues. His newest book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, will be published in October, 2010. For more see Sam…

With yesterday's announcement of the historic nuclear arms treaty signed by Russia and the United States (that would reduce existing stockpiles by as much as 30%) I thought I would repost my piece on Edward Teller's nuclear legacy from September, 2003 that was originally commissioned by The Nation…

The monthly Carnival of Evolution is now up at Beetles in the Bush. Ted has done a terrific job of putting together some of the best science writing on the web. Make sure to stop on by and thank him for another great edition. This month brings newcomer Chadrick Lane with his blog The Ancestral…

I've got several imminent deadlines which means that my blog time is limited just now. However, there have been a few interesting posts that I thought I'd refer you to. Orac has a review of a new study showing that publication bias can result in some animal research studies. So, basically, all we…

Today Ed Brayton (fellow Scibling at Dispatches From the Culture Wars) is reporting in the Michigan Messenger that the mercenary company Blackwater may face federal weapons charges for "illegally stockpiling automatic weapons" at one of their US facilities. Given the slate of bad news piling on…

Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Deepak Chopra, and Jean Houston square off for a Nightline debate on the future of belief. Part 1 The entire program lasts about 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch all parts continuously by clicking here.

"But Dr. Zaius, the benefits to apedom far outweigh this animal's suffering." Image: Planet of the Apes Greg Laden has posted three parts (with more on the way) of a series that looks at how we should decide what animals have rights, what those rights should be, and how we weigh those…

Culture defines who we are but few can explain where it comes from or why we adopt one tradition over another. In the classic musical The Fiddler on the Roof the main character, Tevye, muses on this basic fact of human existence: Here in Anatevka we have traditions for everything... how to eat,…

Ann Coulter is a vicious and mean-spirited demagogue and I'm ashamed that I share more DNA with her than chimpanzees or bonobos. She represents the worst kind of reactionary partisanship and should be condemned by all quarters in the spirit of basic decency. That being said, however, I don't…