Scott Solomon's Blog
October 4, 2021
Colonizing Mars Could Speed up Human EvolutionDiscoverBy ...
By Joshua Rapp Learn
Oct 2, 2021
June 26, 2019
Solomon to speak at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal November 4-7, 2019
I am excited to announce that I will be speaking at Web Summit, an enormous science and technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal from November 4-7, 2019!
Recent media coverage
I’ve been quoted in several recent articles and news stories…
In a recent opinion piece for Medium, Neil Theise and Maureen Seaberg ask whether, when it comes to developing off-earth colonies, we have put the rocket before the proverbial horse.
Mike Brown interviewed me for a widely cited piece in Inverse about how colonizing Mars could affect human evolution.
The Inverse piece was adapted for an article in Futurism that also quoted from my TEDx talk.
Featured in the BBC World Service’s “Crowd Science”
I’m one of several scientists featured in this episode of “Crowd Science” by the BBC World Service. My segment begins at 18:00 but I recommend listening to the whole episode as it is very well done.
January 22, 2019
Guest Presentation at Kountze High School
Today I gave two guest presentations at Kountze High School, in the heart of the Big Thicket region of east Texas, about our research on local ants. The students enjoyed hearing about the ways in which ants– like people–have been struggling to rebuild after the devastating flooding from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. Thanks to Mary Catherine Johnston and the Big Thicket Association’s Thicket of Diversity Project for the invitation and for their support of our work!
January 11, 2019
My new digital course on evolution is out!
I am very excited to announce that my latest project, a complete digital course on the modern science of evolution, is now available through The Great Courses!
It consists of 24 videos, each 30 minutes in length, on topics including:
– Darwin’s ideas and how he developed them
– how evolution can be rapid
– the evolution of complex brains and behavior
– the evolution of sex
– the promise and perils of gene editing
– and many others…
Our goal was to make this course accessible to all– no prior background in biology or science is assumed.
Here is a link to the website which includes a short video trailer:
Field Research in Costa Rica
I recently returned from a field research trip to Costa Rica where I worked with a fantastic team of collaborators (including both physicists and biologists) at the University of Costa Rica to understand traffic flow in leafcutter anta. Here are few pictures from our time at La Selva Biological Station.
https://solomon.blogs.rice.edu/files/2019/01/IMG_6012-2hxl5lm.m4v
October 16, 2018
Speaking at Texas State University
I had a great time visiting Texas State University in San Marcos last week, where I spoke as part of the Common Experience program. Despite the wet weather, there was a great turnout, with more than 250 students at the talk!
I also got to visit with Dr. Julie Westerlund’s graduate biology course, who had read Future Humans and had a lot of excellent questions and comments– thanks for a great discussion!
September 14, 2018
New article for NBC News on how climate change could affect human evolution
I wrote a piece for NBC News MACH about how climate change could affect human evolution. One of the possible ways this could happen is by driving large scale migrations that would result in population mixing (what biologists call gene flow). This would likely cause human populations to become more similar to one another. Could that bring an end to racism and discrimination? Here’s hoping…
March 28, 2018
Media coverage of our research on ants after Harvey
There was a lot of coverage this week of the research Tom Miller, Sarah Bengston, and I are doing this year to investigate how severe flooding from Hurricane Harvey affected native and non-native ant communities in the Big Thicket region of east Texas.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180326213310.htm
