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VORONI DIAGRAMS. https://lnkd.in/dYnv5AY View in LinkedIn

VORONI DIAGRAMS and spider webs. https://lnkd.in/dAawv-v View in LinkedIn

DIRICHLET TESSELLATIONS and spider webs. "Plane pictures of three-dimensional convex polyhedra, plane sections of three-dimensional Dirichlet tessellations, and flat spider webs with tension in all the threads are essentially the same geometric object. At the root of this remarkable coincidence is a single geometric diagram that permits us to offer a unified image of the connections among these and other objects." http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-0-387-92714-5_18 View in LinkedIn

SHORTCUTS OF THE TIERED WEAVER. "Webs built in unnaturally rapid succession by the same spider (4 in 24 h when 1 is the norm) became sequentially smaller, had fewer radii, shorter capture spirals, and were wider meshed." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938497001868 View in LinkedIn

SONG OF DARWIN. "The more I study nature, the more I become impressed […] that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations [acquired through natural selection] transcend in an incomparable degree [those] which the most fertile imagination of the most imaginative man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214003881 View in LinkedIn

WEB DESIGN PLASTICITY. "Decreasing temperature from 24° to 12°C caused the capture spiral to have fewer and wider spaced meshes, which did not change overall capture area but reduced the length of capture-spiral threads laid down. Subsequent increase of temperature to 24°C restored the number of meshes laid down, but the wider mesh was retained, causing the capture area to be increased over initial control values." https://lnkd.in/dWUF7eR View in LinkedIn

GENETIC ALGORITH MODELING. "Individual spiders are described firstly by their genotype (the syntax, represented by the genetic coding of the parameters in the chromosome) and secondly by their phenotype (the semantics, represented by the interpretation of the genetic information)." Nice analytics of spider web design. https://lnkd.in/dfsDEVZ View in LinkedIn

MUDDYING THE WATERS. "In the penultimate chapter of The Origin of Species, Darwin wrote, ‘As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection." Not his most helpful statement. https://lnkd.in/d3PHEKX View in LinkedIn

FAIRY STORY. "The eukaryogenesis story as usually told (and exemplified in our epigraphs) is a sort of metascientific narrative, invaluable in motivating and positioning new research activities of all sorts and organizing existing bodies of knowledge in our minds and our textbooks. However, it is as much rhetoric as fact, and the public, not to mention biologists themselves, may often conflate the two." https://lnkd.in/d6GwkCt View in LinkedIn

"THE MARCH OF PROGRESS is the canonical representation of evolution – the one picture immediately grasped and viscerally understood by all.... The straitjacket of linear advance goes beyond iconography to the definition of evolution: the word itself becomes a synonym for progress." (Stephen J Gould). https://lnkd.in/dKuX2e4 View in LinkedIn