The Ole filter makes another pass...

The University of Suffix has issued a press release, announcing John Maynard Smith, the world renowned "evolutionary biologist", has died.  "Maynard Smith was remarkable for the breadth of his contributions to biology, including his radical application of game theory to understanding evolutionary strategies, and his clear definition of the major transitions in the history of life.  Maynard Smith was always enthusiastic about new data sources and continued to be a driving force in the use of molecular data to answer biological questions."  I first met Dr. Smith's ideas in Richard Dawkins' classic The Selfish Gene.  The idea of an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS) seemed particularly novel; a strategy which remains successful even when competing against itself.

The Scientist has an interesting "First Person" interview with J. Craig Venter.  Dr. Venter is best know as the founder of Celera Genomics, the company which contributed so significantly to sequencing the human genome as part of the Human Genome Project.  He's also a fascinating guy.

Q: What's it like to be J. Craig Venter?
A: My mind is always very active, and I'm always dealing with a lot of continuous, complicated issues.  I have the wonderful, fortunate position of being able to work in areas that I find intellectually stimulating.  I have to be deeply asleep and unconscious to not be thinking about what I am doing in my life.

P.Z.Myers, of Pharyngula, has started a blogging series called The Tangled Bank, "in which we highlight weblogs and articles on the broadly defined topics of biology, medicine, and natural history."  Planned as a weekly moveable feast, a la the Carnival of the Vanities, this is going to be a great showcase.  Check it out!

This is cool; Scientific American has a story about Synthetic Life.  "Biologists are crafting libraries of interchangeable DNA parts and assembling them inside microbes to create programmable, living machines."  The goal isn't necessarily to create organisms, it is to create genetic machines comprised of "BioBricks".  This is going to be big - a cool new way to exploit nanotechnology.  Somehow I think John Maynard Smith and Craig Venter would be in favor.  (As would P.Z.Myers :)

Think bloggers aren't journalists?  Then check out this post about the South Dakota senatorial race.  I don't have a rooting interest regarding Daschle v. Thune, but I am definitely a fan of this kind of reporting, which is critical to the democratic process.  Excellent stuff.

The NYTimes has some interesting stuff on this race, too :)

I met Betsy Devine at BloggerCon, and she pointed out a terrific New Yorker cover which wasn't included in our recent gallery.  So here it is (click thumbnail for larger view)...

Betsy also pointed out my little blog was recently Feedster's Feed of the Day.  That's awesome - Thanks!

There's been all this news about the pending Google IPO.  I'm on record already - it is not going to be a huge success.  I'm sorry, Google is a great service, but the company doesn't have an eBay-like business model (or even a PayPal-like business model).

Plus, they're doing stuff like this which is, well, troubling...

And they're doing stuff like this which is, well, even more troubling...  And Evan's response isn't helpful.  Their cockiness is apparent, and it isn't pretty.

Steve Gillmor interviews Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who doesn't seem like he would be behind the troubling stuff.

The NYTimes details Google's ownership.  [ via Dave Winer ]

Dave suggests we check out Gigablast as a Google alternative.

Technology Review has an interesting article about Google and Akamai, their similarities and differences.  (Akamai had a moon-shot IPO in 1999, but has struggled since.)

By the way, can you even believe eBay?  Just when you think the stock must be overvalued, they double their quarterly profit and raise guidance, again.  Wow.