Evolution of Polyphenic Development

The new Science paper by Suzuki and Nijhout is a beautiful piece of work in evo-devo. You can read the associated Science editorial, the paper itself if you subscribe to Science Magazine (Text/PDF), the official Duke University press release, and commentaries on Biology News Net, LiveScience and The Scientist (the latter one has some more interesting links).

The first blog I read that commented on the study was Paleoblog. Later, Evolution did it, too, mentioning their own pet term - "Baldwin Effect". Then, John Wilkins of Evolving Thoughts mentioned it, invoking the term "canalization". All of those were short reports without too much explanation of the study.

I tried to prompt PZ to write about it - it's his field after all - but I guess he was, at the time, still recovering from his age-inappropriate activities on Friday night. So, I wanted to take a crack at it and write on this myself. Then I got bogged down in details and wrote something far too long, too complicated and too confusing for a blog post. Then I prepared the Grand Rounds. I was about to give up on the whole thing.

But today, PZ came through and explained the study beautifully in this post which I strongly urge you to go and read.