Monthly Archives: February 2017

Seadras need a dragon scale to evolve.

One of the new features introduced recently to Pokemon Go are evolution items. These five additions help you evolve some Gen 1 and Gen 2 Pokemon when combined with a certain amount of candy. Here's everything you need to know about these items and where to find them.

Before Gen 2 was released, all you needed to evolve a pocket monster was collect enough candies. Now, for some special Pokemon, you need to collect the candies and an evolution item.

Here are the evolution items and how to identify them:

The taser-like upgrade item you need to evolve Porygon.

Right now, only eight Pokemon evolve using anything other than candy. Here's a list and what you need to evolve them:

To evolve Onix you need a metal coat.

There are two different ways to evolve a Slowpoke.

The only way to get evolution items is by spinning PokeStops. Like with the new berries, though, they don't drop as often as balls and razz berries. After more than fifty spins at various stops, I only got one sun stone. Your mileage may vary, but don't expect to collect them quickly.

There's a rumor that you're more likely to get an evolution item when you get your seven-day streak bonus, but that hasn't been confirmed.

The one sun stone I found after more than 50 spins.

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Everything you need to know about evolution items in Pokemon Go - CNET

Two critically endangered Teleogramma brichardi, cichlids known to exist only in one stretch of rapids in the lower Congo River.

There are more than 300 species of bizarre and beautiful fish living in the lower Congo River. Now, research reveals why: Walls of water keep fish from breeding with one another.

Cut off by rapids and swift currents, fish species end up isolated. Over time, their genes become so different from their neighbors' that they evolve into entirely separate species, researchers reported Feb. 6 in the journal Molecular Ecology.

"What's particularly unique about the lower Congo is that this diversification is happening over extremely small spatial scales, over distances as small as 1.5 kilometers [0.9 miles]," study author Elizabeth Alter, a biologist at the City University of New York's York College, said in a statement. "There is no other river like it." [Photos: The Freakiest-Looking Fish]

The lower Congo is the last 200 miles (321 km) of a 2,920-mile-long (4,700 km) waterway that snakes through the Democratic Republic of the Congo and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

The lower Congo is no lazy river; according to a 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report on its hydraulics, the first 80 miles (130 km) below Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are so treacherous that they were not navigated until 2008. Other sections, like a 21-mile (34 km) stretch between the cities of Matadi and Kinganga, aren't navigable at all because of rushing rapids and dizzying waterfalls.

It's these rapids that drive the evolution of fish in the lower reaches of the river, Alter and her colleagues found. The researchers focused on cichlids of the genus Teleogramma, a group that includes the large-finned, rainbow-banded Teleogramma brichardi. An analysis of more than 50 fish from different species in the Teleogramma genus revealed that species were geographically defined. The hydrologic forces of the river, such as its impassible rapids and swift currents, limited fish to particular areas.

"The genetic separation between these fishes shows that the rapids are working as strong barriers, keeping them apart," Alter said.

The barriers, formed by the hydrology of the river, explain how so much diversity could arise in the 3 million to 5 million years that the lower stretches of the river have existed, according to study author Melanie Stiassny, who curates ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

A similar phenomenon occurs on "sky islands." In these areas, species can't traverse steep valleys between mountaintops, so peaks right next to each other host species that never mix.

About 80 of the 300 fish found in the lower Congo are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else in the world. T. brichardi is one of these endemic species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies this fish as critically endangered.

The IUCN cites urbanization near the only rapids where the sleek, colorful cichlids are found as the species' major threat. But proposed hydroelectric projects, such as the Grand Inga Dam, would fundamentally alter the fast-flowing river if they were to be built.

"Activity like that would majorly interrupt the evolutionary potential of this system," Stiassny said in a statement.

Original article on Live Science.

Continue reading here:

Water 'Walls' Spur Evolution of New Colorful Fish Species - Live Science

One of the first Easter eggs that players discovered when the new update arrived for Pokemon Go last week was the ability to give an Eevee the nickname Sakura to make evolve it into Espeon or Tamao to make it evolve into Umbreon. Unfortunately, this trick only works once, but the sleuths at Pokemon Go Hub have discovered that theres another way to ensure your Eevee evolves into one of the new forms.

After conducting research over the past several days, Pokemon Go Hub has determined that the following criteria must be met in order to ensure that your Eevee evolves into either Espeon or Umbreon:

In order to test the hypothesis that Niantic had added friendship to the game in the latest update, Go Hub put 27 different Eevees through their paces using a variety of variables to determines whether or not it was possible to make sure that Eevee would evolve into either Espeon or Umbreon.

With the Eevees that walked 10km with a trainer as a Buddy, but werent set as the Buddy at the time of evolution, Go Hub got Flareons, Jolteons and Vaporeons. The same was true when they walked 10km with Eevee as their buddy, but didnt receive 2 piece of candy along the way. No Espeon or Umbreon.

At the moment, it seems that the only way to evolve an Eevee into an Espeon or Umbreon is to either use the nickname trick or follow the guidelines that Pokemon Go Hub has laid out above.

More here:

Pokemon Go trick: Another way to make Eevee evolve into Espeon ... - BGR

Posthumously, Charles Darwin, possibly as much as any 19th-century scientific figure, has had his lifes work and reputation maligned, and still to this day, ridiculed with undeserved scorn. What Darwin a man who possessed a boundless curiosity and matchless intellect observed and the theory he then explained in On the Origin of Species is considered a classic.

It seems timely and appropriate that a corrective of sorts, debunking a few of the many myths about Darwin, A primer on Darwin Day, appeared in the LNP Faith & Values section Feb. 11.

After reading the Feb. 2 letter Theory of evolution has significant flaws, I think it seems only appropriate and fair that, in addition to reading a nicely illustrated book about The Origin of Species, the writer also read Darwins own work "On The Origin Of Species.

The oft-repeated claim of a lack of transitional forms and missing links ignores the fact that not all creatures inhabited areas near volcanoes or environments where they would leave history a nicely preserved fossil.

Actually fossils are quite rare. A relatively new technique, DNA sequencing, has filled in much that the fossil record does not tell us.

A book that I unreservedly recommend is Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World by Michael Dowd, a United Church Of Christ minister.

Ralph Waldo Emerson stated: The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God. Or as David Sloan Wilson stated: The blessings of religion do not require departures from factual reality.

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Evolution, religion can co-exist - LancasterOnline

Evolution Digital and Conax announced that Conax will provide its multi-DRM solution for Evolution Digitals eVUE-TV platform, which is being made available on the National Cable Television Cooperatives (NCTC) VU-IT!Platform.

eVUE-TV is a managed IP platform for linear and on-demand video, as well as network DVR and catch-up TV features, that Evolution Digital has been pitching to tier 2/3 U.S. cable operators. Last year, Evolution announced that eVUE-TV is the first offering to be introduced as an option for VU-IT!, a platform that includes a solution for backoffice integration, OTT apps and enhanced services that enable IP-based linear and VOD services.

RELATED: Evolution Digital Notches Another NCTC Deal

Support for Conaxs content security system will enable partners to support multi-DRM technologies that utilize PlayReady, Widevine, FairPlay and Nagra PRM, as well as THE next generation Conax Connected Access security client that combines CA/IPTV/DRM functionalities, they said.

They added that the Conax Contego security back-end has been integrated with the eVUE-TV platform in hosted and on-premises models, and that the platform meets the MovieLabs Enhanced Content protection requirements for 4K/UHD.

We have partnered with Conax to offer a best of breed comprehensive content security solution to our NCTC members with eVUE-TV, Brent Smith, president and chief technology officer of Evolution Digital, said in a statement. As cable operators move to IP distribution and begin offering a wide-range of content that can be viewed anywhere, Evolution Digital is committed to delivering content securely and providing operators with a low cost and hassle-free solution that eliminates complexities of technology integration.

Continued here:

Evolution Digital, Conax Connect on Content Protection - Multichannel News

Combiningtechniques from a field calledresurrection ecology with a look atlake sediments reveals surprising evolutionary responses to heavy-metal contamination over the past 75 years.

Mary Rogalski hatched long-dormant eggs of Daphnia, tiny freshwater crustaceans also known as water fleas, that accumulated in the lake sediments over time. After rearing the critters in the lab, she exposed them to various levels of two heavy metals to see how their sensitivity to the environmental contaminants changed over time. Surprisingly, she found that sensitivity to copper and cadmium increased as the levels of those toxic metals rose in the lakes she studied.

These findings are unexpected because evolutionary theory predicts that a population should adapt quickly to a stressor like this and become less sensitive to it, not more sensitive to it. It is difficult to explain the results of this study, says Rogalski, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Michigan department of ecology and evolutionary biology.

In one of the lakes, Daphnia hatched from sediments dating to around 1990when copper contamination was at its peakwere 46 percent more sensitive to copper exposure than individuals from the 1940s, a period with lower levels of copper contamination.

Rogalski reports her finding in the journal The American Naturalist. The study was part of her dissertation research at Yale University and involved fieldwork at three Connecticut lakes.

Rogalski then estimated sediment ages based on the presence of radioactive materials and measured concentrations of copper and cadmium in the layers back to the late 1800s. Copper contamination in the lakes was largely due to yearly applications of copper sulfate to control nuisance algae. The cadmium likely came from industrial and agricultural development in the region over the past century.

In the lab, Rogalski isolated dormant or diapausing Daphnia ambigua eggs from various dated sediment layers, then hatched and raised them. She measured Daphnias changing sensitivity to copper and cadmium by exposing them to various levels of the metals in glass flasks and determining the median lethal concentration.

In one Connecticut lake where copper contamination has declined recently, she found that Daphnia remain sensitive to the metal 30 years after peak exposure.

It is difficult to know what mechanisms are driving this evolutionary pattern, Rogalski says. Even so, this research suggests that we need to do more to uncover both the drivers and implications of maladaptation in nature.

Paleolimnology is the study of ancient lakes from their sediments and fossils. The branch of experimental paleolimnology that Rogalski used in this study has been dubbed resurrection ecology by its practitioners.

Human activities can drive strong and rapid evolutionary changes in wild animal populations. Those evolutionary responses often leave the population better able to cope with the new environmental conditions, a process called adaptation through natural selection.

For example, a newly introduced pesticide may kill the vast majority of the insects it targets, but the survivors can then give rise to a pest population that is resistant to the chemical.

Some populations, however, fail to adapt to changing environments or can wind up worse off than they were beforehand, an occurrence known as maladaptation. Maladaptive outcomes are less common than adaptive ones and are less studied. In many cases, it is impossible to examine a populations response to a stressor over multigenerational timescales without conducting a long-term study that could take decades to complete.

The Daphnia crustacean, with its diapausing eggs, provides a time machine of sorts, allowing researchers to examine long-term evolutionary responses to environmental stressors by reviving and rearing dormant organisms trapped in lake bottoms.

Daphnia offer a system where examining historic evolutionary trajectories is possible, Rogalski writes in the study. Hatching diapausing eggs from dated lake sediments and culturing clonal lineages in the lab allows us to examine how populations change through time and the genetic basis underlying those changes.

The Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies supported the work.

Source: University of Michigan

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'Resurrected' eggs reveal odd evolution of water fleas - Futurity: Research News

February 20, 2017 A photograph of a Solenopsis invicta fire ant queen (large), five workers (smaller), one larva (whiteish) on a subset of the DNA sequence of their social chromosome. Credit: Romain Libbrecht and Yannick Wurm / QMUL

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have discovered that the chromosome responsible for the social organisation of colonies of the highly invasive fire ant is likely to have evolved via a single event rather than over time.

Red fire ants are found in two different types of colonies: some colonies have a single queen while other colonies contain dozens of queens. The team had previously discovered that colony type is determined by a chromosome that carries one of two variants of a 'supergene' region containing more than 500 genes.

In a new research paper, published in the journal Molecular Ecology, the team from QMUL's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences sequenced the DNA and compared the genomes of two types of individuals: those carrying the supergene version responsible for colonies with a single queen, and those carrying the supergene variant responsible for colonies with multiple queens.

"We found that the two versions of the chromosome differ homogeneously over the entire length of the supergene. This suggests that a single event, such as a large chromosomal rearrangement, was responsible for the origin of this remarkable system for determining social organisation," said lead author Dr Yannick Wurm from QMUL's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

The team also discovered a large number of unfavourable mutations in the version of the supergene responsible for colonies with multiple queens.

Dr Wurm added: "It is likely that only a few genes among the hundreds present in the supergene region are responsible for differences in social organisation. Our finding indicates that the advantages of having several queens in the colony outweigh the costs of the unfavourable mutations in the supergene region."

This finding can help scientists understand how chromosomes evolve over time.

Rodrigo Pracana, a PhD student at QMUL and first author of the study, said: "We know that the Y chromosome in mammals has also been affected by unfavourable mutations. It is exciting to see that the fire ant social chromosome has evolved in a similar way to the human Y chromosome, although it controls social organisation and not sex."

The red fire ant, which is a native species in South America, is infamous for its painful sting, and is known in many other parts of the world where its aggressiveness and high population density have made it an invasive pest. It was accidentally introduced to the southern USA in the 1930s and has since spread to many warm parts of the world including in China and Australia. Efforts at controlling the spread of this species have largely been unsuccessful, as indicated by its Latin name, Solenopsis invicta, meaning "the invincible".

Rodrigo Pracana added: "Our discoveries could help to develop novel pest control strategies. For example, a pesticide that disrupts the social organisation in this species without affecting other species would be beneficial.

"This might be achieved by targeting the genes in the supergene region. We find almost no genetic diversity in the version of the supergene specific to colonies with multiple queens so targeting genes in this region means there would be limited potential for the ants to evolve resistance."

Explore further: Team identifies new 'social' chromosome in the red fire ant

Researchers have discovered a social chromosome in the highly invasive fire ant that helps to explain why some colonies allow for more than one queen ant, and could offer new solutions for dealing with this pest.

Since Charles Darwin, biologists have pondered the mystery of "mimicry butterflies", which survive by copying the wing patterns of other butterflies that taste horrible to their predators, birds.

Invasive animals are often most abundant in habitats impacted by humans, especially man-made habitats, such as roadsides, suburban and urban developments, and areas of intensive agricultural activity. Understanding why this ...

Scientists have identified the cluster of genes responsible for reproductive traits in the Primula flower, first noted as important by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago.

Picture an ant colony: up to a million ants, all looking identical, harmoniously going about their busy ant lives. But with so many ants around, how on Earth do they know who's friend and who's foe?

The ruff is a Eurasian shorebird that has a spectacular lekking behaviour where highly ornamented males compete for females. Now two groups report that males with alternative reproductive strategies carry a chromosomal rearrangement ...

Beetles that copulate with the same mate as opposed to different partners will repeat the same behaviour, debunking previous suggestions that one sex exerts control over the other in copulation, new research has found.

They build among the tallest non-human structures (proportionately speaking) in the world and now it's been discovered the termites that live in Australia's remote Top End originated from overseas - rafting vast distances ...

A Rice University study suggests that researchers planning to use the CRISPR genome-editing system to produce designer gut bacteria may need to account for the dynamic evolution of the microbial immune system.

An international collaboration of life scientists, including experts at Van Andel Research Institute, has described in exquisite detail the critical first steps of DNA replication, which allows cells to divide and most advanced ...

For decades, scientists working with genetic material have labored with a few basic rules in mind. To start, DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), and mRNA is translated into proteins, which are essential for almost ...

Researchers have discovered a key gene that influences genetic recombination during sexual reproduction in wild plant populations. Adding extra copies of this gene resulted in a massive boost to recombination and diversity ...

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Scientists explore the evolution of a 'social supergene' in the red fire ... - Phys.Org