Friday 21 December 2012

New app for iPads - NHM Evolution

As its name suggests, the app is validated by the Natural History Museum, London. However, what the name does not really indicate is that it is essentially a history of life, mostly focussing on the last 635 million years since Ediacaran times. It is based on a book written by Douglas C. Palmer in 2009, also endorsed by the Natural History Museum. The core of the app is a running sequence of 100 reconstructions of past scenes based on specific sites and populated with over 800 named and described organisms, so it provides quite a good coverage of macroevolution in both marine and terrestrial environments.
The app also has a number of other features and one of the most important of these is a spinnable timeglobe, which uses Dr Alan Smith’s well known Timetrek programme. Plate motion since Ediacaran times can be tracked and manipulated with the globe turned and expanded.

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