I like this comment because it made me think of the prairies of the Great Plains. Grass as tall as people in some places, rich topsoil built up over thousands of years, and endemic species once common, all of which essentially disappeared without a trace with manifest destiny.

True fact this is how the Gacha works

That’s true for the majority of the genome, so it is possible that by chance the smaller resulting population will be more prone to the effects of genetic drift. But what the authors were interested in documenting is that selection occurred on those portions of the genome associated with cold tolerance, and that a…

Years ago paleontologists described a fossil flatfish that had one eye on one side of its head and one eye on its forehead. Modern flatfish have 2 eyes on one side of the head, one of which migrates from one side to the other during development, so the fossil was heralded as a sort of transitional form from the…

I agree that they didn’t just “start evolving”, because populations are always evolving, but what you’re describing here is literally evolution by natural selection occurring over a short timescale, just a couple generations. And their findings made it into the journal Science because they were able to prove this with…

There are such things as maternal effects (e.g. maybe the females that survived provisioned their eggs in a way that gave them better cold tolerance) or DNA modification that could have affected the findings, and cold tolerance in warm-growing asexually reproducing aphids can be passed along from mother to offspring…

You could say this is a bottleneck, but remember that genetic bottlenecks are also forces for evolutionary change. Not only was the bottleneck caused by a selective force, but the smaller population will also be subject to the amplified impacts caused by genetic drift, another evolutionary force.

I would say that is evolution, in that a selective force (cold temperatures) caused differential fitness among lizards with different heritable phenotypes (cold tolerance) that enabled higher survival rates among those with higher cold tolerance. More cold tolerant lizards produced more offspring the following spring…

His most interesting physical feature to me are his ears. I also have weird shaped ears that stick out prominently from the sides of my head, so they always stood out to me.

Yes Hari is my muse.

Komodo Dragons are in fact monitors that swam to an island and got big(ger). But almost all of them are not to be played with. They aren’t just dangerous, morally I think it’s just wrong to keep these demanding, intelligent, and often endangered animals as pets for entertainment and self-adornment.

Briefly in 2nd grade, just after I had moved to a new school, I was physically bullied by another Chinese boy one grade up and his group of white friends (there were no other Asians at that school in Milwaukee). It was puzzling to me at the time why someone who looked like me hated me so much. I think we both know why.

Being an affluent Asian in America is such a schizophrenic experience, partly because the terms“minority” and “person of color” (rightly) used often to connote some sense of disadvantage in addition to difference. I go the local Costco and it is crowded with affluent Indians, Asians, and Caucasians, with not a single…

The origin of okra is disputed, and I believe it is widely accepted that Moringa oleifera (the most commonly cultivated moringa) is from India (though the genus is widespread and multiple Moringa spp. are African natives). Either way neither of these crops could possibly have originated in the Americas, as these are…

I still weep knowing that Moniz had to pass on his job to... this guy

I mean, animal science is a real and important major at agricultural programs in land grant universities, it’s not a fancy liberal arts and sciences degree but let’s not let Rick Perry ruin a legitimate and rewarding path of study for lots of people :(

The Montanans will find a way to excuse Trump and blame the Democrats and the Washington elite somehow, don’t you worry :(

Are you in Florida? Because that’s not just an iguana, that looks like a monitor lizard.

Are you in Florida? Because that’s not just an iguana, that looks like a monitor lizard.

Has anyone ever wondered how Mitch McConnell’s chin got to be that way? How does the guy even eat