Evolution Diary

Came across this blog in Wired.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in science classes.

In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution and creation education, “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of education. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.”

Asked by the Anchorage Daily News whether she believed in evolution, Palin declined to answer, but said that “I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class.”

“I’m not going to pretend I know how all this came to be,” she said.

The battle between evolution and creationism — specifically, Christian creationism — in U.S. classrooms dates back to the 1925 Scopes trial, when a Tennessee court banned the teaching of evolution. Since then, state and federal courts have repeatedly rejected so-called creation science in public schools, calling it religion rather than science.
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VANCOUVER — A tiny, prickly fish is helping B.C. researchers understand how organisms evolve in response to new or changing environments.

Scientists say that’s a key factor in forecasting how different species might deal with climate change and other human-imposed environmental conditions.

The difference between freshwater and marine stickleback, a minnow-sized fish found in lakes, rivers, streams and oceans across Canada, is the focus of a University of British Columbia study that adds genetic proof to evolutionary theory.
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A public dig organized by the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre has turned up the biggest fossil find in Manitoba in nearly 30 years.

The summer dig near the centre in Morden, Man., that is still underway has already unearthed a mosasaur, an 11-metre-long ancient sea creature estimated to be 80 million years old.

Two partially covered teeth attached to a jaw on the fossilized remains of Angus, an 11-metre-long mosasaur unearthed near Morden, Man. (Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)

“Fossils are rare in general,” said centre spokeswoman Anita Janzic. “Normally when people come on a dig, they will find something — but to find a large tylosaur like this, it’s pretty rare.”
The mosasaur, dubbed Angus, isn’t the first to be discovered by the centre; a 13-metre-long specimen given the name Bruce was found in 1974 near Thornhill, Man., just south of where Angus was located. Bruce’s fossils and a full-scale reproduction of him are now on display in the centre’s museum.
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Kamikaze bacteria illustrate evolution of co-operation

Suicidal Salmonella sacrifice themselves to allow their clones to get a foothold in the gut.

Bacteria can commit suicide to help their brethren establish more damaging infections — and scientists think that they can explain how this behaviour evolved.
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Ever since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have wondered why some lineages have diversified more than others. A classical explanation is that a higher rate of diversification reflects increased ecological opportunities that led to a rapid adaptive radiation of a clade.

A textbook example is Darwin finches from Galapagos, whose ancestor colonized a competitors-free archipelago and rapidly radiated in 13 species, each one adapted to use the food resources in a different way. This and other examples have led some to think that the progenitors of the major evolutionary radiations are those that happened to be in the right place and at the right time to take advantage of ecological opportunities.

However, is it possible that biological diversification not only depends on the properties of the environment an ancestral species finds itself in, but also on the features of the species itself? Now a study supports this possibility, suggesting that possessing a large brain might have facilitated the evolutionary diversification of some avian lineages.
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