In the biological world, both within and between species, adaptive progress and success are relative. This notion of evolutionary relativism is known as the Red Queen Effect, a term derived from the Red Queen’s race in Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Caroll.

For the past six years Katherine Pollard has been working with the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium comparing the genes of chimps and humans in order to more fully understand how the human genome has evolved. Using the software she created to study genomic data, Pollard was able to identify the areas of the human… read more

What can satellite imagery tell us about the impact of humanity’s transformation of the landscape on climate and ecosystems? A lot, according to Ruth DeFries, ecosystems expert, Denning Professor of Sustainable Development, and professor of ecology, evolution, and environmental biology at Columbia University and the Earth Institute’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC). DeFries… read more