Are the stickleback fish in Lake Washington really reversing evolution, as the media releases claim? Or just tailoring their existing design?
A much more remarkable example of apparent reverse evolution is a little fish in Washington State, U.S.A. The threespine stickleback is named for its bony armour plate. But as Seattle’s Lake Washington became highly polluted over the years, the predatory trout population could barely see the sticklebacks. Many threespines got by with relatively little armor plate.
However, when the lake was cleaned up during the mid-twentieth century, trout could see better. The threespine once again developed body armour which made it unpalatable to trout. It dug back into its genetic code to find traits to survive in a changing genetic niche.
Read more here.
More on mitochondrial Eve: Researchers claim long separation between human groups
Colour vision appears early in vertebrates. It’s tempting to call it the big bang of colour vision
Tree of life: Would a mergers and acquisitions chart better explain the more complex organisms (eukaryotes) than a tree of life?
Tree of life: Will gene-swapping fell the prokaryotes’ tree of life?
Also, Just up at The Mindful Hack:
Twins who literally share a body have different selves, personalities
Does neuroscience leave room for God?
Human mental abilities: the result of cultural cross-fertilisation As if.
Language: No current theory of its origin is worth much
Language: Not a sophisticated version of primal screams