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I don't think it means what you think it means

There are two terms which I’ve heard a lot since coming to a biology publishing company which use simple words for complex concepts.

A “fate map” is not what you might think it is.

And “life history” means something utterly different in biology. (Apparently they’re things that evolve.)

Now playing: Way Up There from Over Rising by The Charlatans

Posted by pjm on August 17, 2004 8:00 AM |

Comments

You can’t just leave us hanging like this….tell us, what do they mean?

Posted by: Ms. Feverish | August 17, 2004 1:44 PM

Actually, I think it takes some of the fun out of it when you know what they mean.

A “fate map” is a chart of the cells of a blastula which relates cells in the blastula to the part of the adult organism which develops from them. (Reading about developmental biology makes you wonder how anything successfully makes it to adulthood.)

“Life history” is the stages an organism passes through over the course of its life. Study of the evolution of life histories attempts to learn… well, how an organism’s life history evolved. We’ve got a whole book about it, and only today did I finally try to figure out what it was about.

Posted by: pjm | August 17, 2004 2:59 PM

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