This is the preview of the two-hour special shown this Sunday October 11th on Discovery channel. Following publication in the journal Science on the discovery and study of a 4.4 million-year-old female partial skeleton nicknamed “Ardi,” Discovery Channel presented a world premiere special, DISCOVERING ARDI, Sunday October 11 documenting the sustained, intensive investigation leading up to this landmark publication of the Ardipithecus ramidus fossils.

Check ARDI coverage of Discovery Channel

An international team of paleontologists has discovered a new species of mammal that lived 123 million years ago in what is now the Liaoning Province in northeastern China. The newly discovered animal, Maotherium asiaticus, comes from famous fossil-rich beds of the Yixian Formation. This new remarkably well preserved fossil, as reported in the October 9 issue of the prestigious journal Science, offers an important insight into how the mammalian middle ear evolved. The discoveries of such exquisite dinosaur-age mammals from China provide developmental biologists and paleontologists with evidence of how …

This video features a talk by Sean Carroll at Strosacker Auditorium in September 2008

The Journal of Effective Teaching, a peer reviewed electronic journal devoted to the discussion of teaching excellence in colleges and universities. The new issue of this journal dealing with teaching evolution is currently online .
Here are the contents :
CONTENTS
Letter from the Editor-in-Chief:: Origins ………………. 1-3
Russell L. Herman HTML, PDF
ARTICLES
The Influence of Religion and High School Biology Courses on Students’ Knowledge of Evolution
When They Enter College ………. 4-12
Randy Moore, Sehoya Cotner, and Alex Bates Abstract, HTML, PDF

A short and nice video about evo devo @ scientific American

“Ardi” is the nickname given to a partial skeleton of a female

Hedgehog family of signaling proteins are pivotal for growth, patterning, and morphogenesis during embryonic development of vertebrates and many invertebrates. The hedgehog signaling pathway is one of the key regulators of animal development conserved from flies to humans. The Drosophila hedgehog gene was identified as one of several genes important for creating the differences between the anterior and posterior parts of individual body segments in the famous genetic screen of Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus during late 70’s. It was named Hedgehog because a larva which lacked this protein completely …