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Nick Barton
Nicholas Hamilton Barton (born 30 August 1955) is a British evolutionary biologist. Education Barton was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he graduated with a first-class degree in Biological Sciences (Cambridge) in 1976 and gained his PhD supervised by Godfrey Hewitt at the University of East Anglia in 1979. Career After a brief spell as a lab demonstrator at the University of Cambridge, Barton became a Lecturer at the Department of Genetics and Biometry, University College London, in 1982. Professor Barton is best known for his work on hybrid zones, often using the toad ''Bombina bombina'' as a study organism, and for extending the mathematical machinery needed to investigate multilocus genetics, a field in which he worked in collaboration with Michael Turelli. Research questions he has investigated include: the role of epistasis, the evolution of sex Sexual reproduction is an adaptive feature which is common to almost all multicellular organisms and various uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution is based on the theory that all species are related and they gradually change over time. In a population, the genetic variations affect the physical characteristics i.e. phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed onto their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the Peppered Moth and Flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology. The importance of studying Evolutionary biology is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistasis
Epistasis is a phenomenon in genetics in which the effect of a gene mutation is dependent on the presence or absence of mutations in one or more other genes, respectively termed modifier genes. In other words, the effect of the mutation is dependent on the genetic background in which it appears. Epistatic mutations therefore have different effects on their own than when they occur together. Originally, the term ''epistasis'' specifically meant that the effect of a gene variant is masked by that of a different gene. The concept of ''epistasis'' originated in genetics in 1907 but is now used in biochemistry, computational biology and evolutionary biology. The phenomenon arises due to interactions, either between genes (such as mutations also being needed in regulators of gene expression) or within them (multiple mutations being needed before the gene loses function), leading to non-linear effects. Epistasis has a great influence on the shape of evolutionary landscapes, which l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoological Society Of London
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 November 1822, the birthday of John Ray, "the father of modern zoology", a meeting held in the Linnean Society in Soho Square led by Rev. William Kirby, resolved to form a "Zoological Club of the Linnean Society of London". Between 1816 and 1826, discussions between Stamford Raffles, Humphry Davy, Joseph Banks and others led to the idea that London should have an establishment similar to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. It would house a zoological collection "which should interest and amuse the public." The society was founded in April 1826 by Sir Stamford Raffles, the Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Auckland, Sir Humphry Davy, Robert Peel, Joseph Sabine, Nicholas Aylward Vigors along with various other nobility, clergy, and naturalists. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fellow Of The Royal Society Of Edinburgh
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This society received a royal charter in 1783, allowing for its expansion. Elections Around 50 new fellows are elected each year in March. there are around 1,650 Fellows, including 71 Honorary Fellows and 76 Corresponding Fellows. Fellows are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRSE, Honorary Fellows HonFRSE, and Corresponding Fellows CorrFRSE. Disciplines The Fellowship is split into four broad sectors, covering the full range of physical and life sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences, education, professions, industry, business and public life. A: Life Sciences * A1: Biomedical and Cognitive Sciences * A2: Clinical Sciences * A3: Organismal and Environmental Biology * A4: Cell and Molecular Biology B: Physical, Engineering and I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Society Of Naturalists
The American Society of Naturalists was founded in 1883 and is one of the oldest professional societies dedicated to the biological sciences in North America. The purpose of the Society is "to advance and diffuse knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles so as to enhance the conceptual unification of the biological sciences." Founded in Massachusetts with Alpheus Spring Packard Jr. as its first president, it was called the Society of Naturalists of the Eastern United States until 1886. The scientific journal ''The American Naturalist'' is published on behalf of the society, which also holds an annual meeting with a scientific program of symposia and contributed papers and posters. It also confers a number of awards for achievement in evolutionary biology and/or ecology, including the Sewall Wright Award (named in honor of Sewall Wright) for senior researchers making "fundamental contributions ... to the conceptual unification of the biological sciences", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Of Sciences Leopoldina
The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on January 1, 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academia Naturae Curiosorum'' until 1687 when Emperor Leopold I raised it to an academy and named it after himself. It was since known under the German name ''Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina'' until 2007, when it was declared to be Germany's National Academy of Sciences. History ' The Leopoldina was founded in the imperial city of Schweinfurt on 1 January 1652 under the Latin name sometimes translated into English as "Academy of the Curious as to Nature." It was founded by four local physicians- Johann Laurentius Bausch, the first president of the society, Johann Michael Fehr, Georg Balthasar Metzger, and Georg Balthasar Wohlfarth; and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Eisen
Jonathan Andrew Eisen (born August 31, 1968) is an American evolutionary biologist, currently working at University of California, Davis. His academic research is in the fields of evolutionary biology, genomics and microbiology and he is the academic editor-in-chief of the open access journal ''PLOS Biology''. Education Eisen completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard College in 1990, earning an AB degree in biology. He graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford University in 1998 with a thesis on the evolution of DNA repair genes, proteins, and processes in 1998, supervised by Philip Hanawalt. Research Eisen's research focuses on the origin of novelty, how new processes and functions originate in living things. To study this, he focuses on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis. Eisen together with Nick Barton, Derek E.G. Briggs, David B. Goldstein, and Nipam H. Patel is an author of the undergraduate t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derek Briggs
Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum. Education Briggs was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology in 1972. He went on to the University of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington. He was awarded a PhD in 1976 on ''Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada''. Research and Career While at the University of Cambridge, Briggs worked on the fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia alongsi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Population Genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and population structure. Population genetics was a vital ingredient in the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Its primary founders were Sewall Wright, J. B. S. Haldane and Ronald Fisher, who also laid the foundations for the related discipline of quantitative genetics. Traditionally a highly mathematical discipline, modern population genetics encompasses theoretical, laboratory, and field work. Population genetic models are used both for statistical inference from DNA sequence data and for proof/disproof of concept. What sets population genetics apart from newer, more phenotypic approaches to modelling evolution, such as evolutionary game theory and adaptive dynamics, is its emphasis on such genetic phenomena as dominance, epi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quantitative Genetics
Quantitative genetics deals with phenotypes that vary continuously (such as height or mass)—as opposed to discretely identifiable phenotypes and gene-products (such as eye-colour, or the presence of a particular biochemical). Both branches use the frequencies of different alleles of a gene in breeding populations (gamodemes), and combine them with concepts from simple Mendelian inheritance to analyze inheritance patterns across generations and descendant lines. While population genetics can focus on particular genes and their subsequent metabolic products, quantitative genetics focuses more on the outward phenotypes, and makes only summaries of the underlying genetics. Due to the continuous distribution of phenotypic values, quantitative genetics must employ many other statistical methods (such as the ''effect size'', the ''mean'' and the ''variance'') to link phenotypes (attributes) to genotypes. Some phenotypes may be analyzed either as discrete categories or as continuous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deborah Charlesworth
Deborah Charlesworth (née Maltby; born 1943) is a population geneticist from the UK, notable for her important discoveries in population genetics and evolutionary biology. Her most notable research is in understanding the evolution of recombination, sex chromosomes and mating system for plants. Early life and education Charlesworth grew up in a London suburb, and from a young age was very interested in the natural world around her. Charlesworth initially studied biochemistry, however genetic variation played a significant role since the beginning her research. Charlesworth obtained her doctorate at Cambridge University in 1968 with her thesis focusing on the quantitative genetics of mice, specifically the extent of genetic variation in the blood glucose levels across natural strains. This also happened to be the topic of her first study. Charlesworth continued her education at Cambridge and Chicago as a research fellow in human genetics examining amino acid variations in h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Charlesworth
Brian Charlesworth (born 29 April 1945) is a British evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, and editor of ''Biology Letters''. Since 1997, he has been Royal Society Research Professor at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IEB) in Edinburgh. He has been married since 1967 to the British evolutionary biologist Deborah Charlesworth. Education Charlesworth gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences (Cambridge), Natural Sciences from Queens' College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in genetics in 1969 for research into genetic variation in Genetic viability, viability in the fruit fly ''Drosophila melanogaster''. Career Following his PhD, Charlesworth did postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, University of Liverpool 1971–1974 and the University of Sussex under John Maynard Smith 1974–82. He returned to Chicago, to be professor of ecology and evolution from 1985 to 1997 after which he moved to Edinburgh. Research Charlesworth has worked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
