inkbluesky

Lizards Undergo Rapid Evolution After Introduction To A New Home

“Striking differences in head size and shape, increased bite strength and the development of new structures in the lizard’s digestive tracts were noted after only 36 years, which is an extremely short time scale,” says Duncan Irschick, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These physical changes have occurred side-by-side with dramatic changes in population density and social structure.”

As remarkable as this short term, thus observable incidence of modern evolution is, it is not the only case. Previously, as far back as the 1950s scientists had observed the change in the coloring and population density of the moth Biston betularia which was brought about by the environment via the Industrial Revolution and its pollution. There has been and I suppose there still will be some objection to the peppered moth story, but the moth incidence of modern short term ecolution was verified as recently as 2007, Moth study backs classic ‘test case’ for Darwin’s theory

He wanted a definitive test of the idea that selective predation by birds really was responsible for the differences in the chances of survival among black and peppered varieties of B. betularia. His garden outside Cambridge is in an unpolluted area so in this setting it should be the typical or peppered variety of the moth that has a better chance of survival than that of the black or carbonaria form; it is unlikely to be seen by birds against the mottled background of the lichen-covered trees.

In a seminal description of his results to a scientific conference this week in Sweden, Professor Majerus gave a resounding vote of confidence in the peppered month story. He found unequivocal evidence that birds were indeed responsible for the lower numbers of the black carbonaria forms of the moth. It was a complete vindication of the peppered month story, he told the meeting.

[ ]…”If the rise and fall of the peppered moth is one of the most visually impacting and easily understood examples of Darwinian evolution in action, it should be taught. It provides after all the proof of evolution,” he said.

Then there was research done by Princeton’s Peter and Rosemary Grant over the course of a couple decades on Darwin’s finch’s in the Galapagos’s Islands, “Instant” Evolution Seen in Darwin’s Finches, Study Says

Researchers from New Jersey’s Princeton University have observed a species of finch in Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands that evolved to have a smaller beak within a mere two decades.

Surprisingly, most of the shift happened within just one generation, the scientists say.

In 1982 the large ground finch arrived on the tiny Galápagos island of Daphne, just east of the island of San Salvador (map of the Galápagos).

Since then the medium ground finch, a long-time Daphne resident, has evolved to have a smaller beak—apparently as a result of direct competition with the larger bird for food.

Evolutionary theory had previously suggested that competition between two similar species can drive the animals to evolve in different directions.

hot red on green

John McCain feels your health care pain

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?

MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it. Governments don’t make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?

Some people as they get older find it useful to channel the little inner grade school child inside. The Senator as a child, the Senator’s father and the Senator’s children ( until they reached adulthood) had public health care. There are arguments with lots of boring wonky language and statistics for and against public health care. If John thinks he has the knowledge and leadership skills to be president he might want to plan for an all nighter and learn what those arguments are and how to explain away that rather large mountain of hypocrisy.