When Giant Penguins Roamed the Tropics and other Snippets

What a great word: 'Snippets'.

A good way to get entertained and keep up with news in the sciences is to read New Scientist magazine. Although it is British, there really isn't an American equivalent and the magazine has become much more international over the last few years. It really isn't that expensive to subscribe especially since it is a weekly magazine but you can also read many of the articles on their website (or in the library copy of course). Although they do have a few longer articles each week, much of the magazine consists of brief news reports on recent research.

Here are a few of the evolution related articles they have published recently:

Gut parasites came from the deep: A genetic comparison finds links between bacteria from deep-sea vents and those from the human body. 7 July 2007

When giant penguins roamed the tropics: Millions of years ago, human-sized penguins roamed the Peruvian coast just 14 degrees south of the equator, according to new fossil evidence. 25th June 2007

Cooler climes help spur on evolution: Tropical hotspots of biodiversity are not the hottest as far as evolution is concerned. 23 March 2007

Looking for larvae in ancestral genes: Did our earliest animal ancestors go through a larval stage, or did that evolve later? 26 January 2007

and one from last year, illustrating the tendency of New Scientist to try and bridge the gap between more popular journalism and science writing. I'm guessing the original research report did not have this title - Mums help chicks if dad was ugly: Females appear to invest extra energy into getting their poorer-quality offspring off to a good start, at least among house finches. 29 September 2006
(I just checked, the title of the research article is: Yolk Antioxidants Vary with Male Attractiveness and Female Condition in the House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus))

This time last year: Darwin's Finches