Category Archives: Evolution

On Monday, Airbnb announced a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity": a one month, all-expenses-paid trip to Antarctica, where five winners will work as citizen scientists alongside microplastics researcher Kirsitie Jones-Williams, in collaboration with the Ocean Conservancy.

The volunteers will first fly down to Chile, where theyll get a crash-course in glaciology and field sampling. Airbnb said in an email that they will stay in a variety of accommodations for the Chile portion of the trip, including Airbnb listings and camp sites."

Then, the volunteers will take a plane to two sites in the interior of the Antarctic continent: the Union Glacier camp, and the Three Glaciers Retreat. There, theyll collect snow samples that may or may not contain microplastics. After visiting Antarctic sites like the South Pole, Drake Icefall, and Elephant's Head, the volunteers will return the Chile and analyze their snow samples.

According to Airbnb, the goal is for the volunteers to become ambassadors for the worlds oceans. In this advocacy role, they will deliver insights on how the Airbnb community and others can help minimize their collective plastic footprint to support Ocean Conservancys mission, the Airbnb website says.

Our goal at this juncture is to better understand how travel can be a positive catalyst for change, an Airbnb spokesperson said in an email. Its worth noting that the travel and tourism industry accounts for about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Research into microplastics is important, but these volunteers wont just be ambassadors on behalf of Antarctica, or the oceans, or environmental science. Theyre also, by default, ambassadors for Airbnb, informing the public that the company cares about the environment. Airbnb said in an email that it hopes the Antarctic Sabbatical will "inform educational and advocacy efforts."

However, Airbnb has not committed to carbon neutrality. The company said in an email that the Antarctic Sabbatical trip specifically is more than 100% carbon neutral because of carbon offsetting. Airbnb has tweeted that it considers carbon offsetting to include activities like donating to protect the Peruvian rainforest after booking a plane flight. As Naomi Klein spelled out in her book This Changes Everything, activities like these are known to not fully offset emission-heavy activities.

When asked about how Airbnb is limiting emissions, the company said that it has limited corporate plastic use by eliminating plastic straws, not offering plastic bottles or containers, and providing reusable produce bags in its San Francisco and Singapore offices.

Airbnb is also conducting an environmental impact assessment to measure and understand our impact and to identify what we can do to reduce our footprint over time, a spokesperson said in an email.

None of this amounts to making radical change. In essence, the Antarctic Sabbatical bolsters the companys environmental image without pinning it to any firm, possibly costly environmental commitments, like carbon neutrality.

Airbnb isn't the only travel company to organize Antarctic trips that claim to be guided by the values of sustainability, citizen science, and ambassadorship. Theres a booming Antarctic tourism industry, and many of the companies involved make their sales pitch by appealing to a sense of righteousness in possible vacationers. These companies tell wealthy vacationers that by going to Antarctica, and by having the chance to see it before climate change permanently changes the landscape, they will actually be committing an act of good and empowering themselves to advocate on behalf of the environment.

Volunteers for the Antarctic Sabbatical will be chosen by a team of five people, including Jones-Williams, a person from an unspecified industry organization, an Airbnb employee, an independent member, and a representative from Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions LLC, an Antarctic travel and logistics company. ALE also runs camps on the continent, including the Three Glaciers Retreat on the trip.

Theres several barriers of entry that a person has to clear before becoming an Antarctic ambassador. First, they have to have an existing platform, or a pool of people who will listen to them. According to the program guidelines, applicants will be judged, in part, on whether they have the capability to engage in dialogue with diverse audiences and educate others on complex topics in the future.

Notably, none of Airbnbs marketing materials for the program mention climate change. Despite the fact that climate change will alter Antarctica permanently, as highlighted by a new IPCC report, there's no indication that Antarctic Sabbatical ambassadors are expected to advocate for action on climate change specifically.

To be fair, the research on the sabbatical concerns microplastics, not climate change. But excluding climate change from the conversation has enabled Airbnb to market its program as concerning sustainability, a vague term that doesnt invoke any specific or radical changes that may involve lowering emissions. In fact, sustainability is a term that evokes the promise of growth. The logic of endless economic growth has consistently empowered utility companies, oil and gas companies, and the like to prioritize shareholder profit over the long-term health of the people they serve and the planet at large.

Airbnb has already exacerbated severe shortages in affordable housing in urban centers that desperately need it, even though affordable housing is actually a crucial part of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

Airbnb claims that it "values healthy travel," and takes pride in the fact that "64 percent of guests" view it as an environmentally sustainable travel option. But valuing sustainability is not the same as requiring hosts to meet robust environmental standards, or committing its corporate facilities to ambitious environmental goals.

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Airbnb's Antarctic 'Sabbatical' Is the Next Evolution in Crisis Capitalism - VICE

Scientific consensus is in the news. Scientists agree (at least in public) on all sorts of things: evolution is Darwinian, global warming is real, taking money from patrons like Jeffrey Epstein is great but mustnt be publicized, etc. The history of science is the history of shifting consensus, and of scientists who shifted it, for better or worse.

Of late, scientific consensus has been apocalyptic. When you read this morning that we only have a few years left before we are incinerated by our over-heated planet, its worth recalling the science apocalypses of recent memory.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has done for us what scientists wont that is, remind us of science apocalypses past. Its amusing:

Science apocalypses can only be understood in context. The context is that there have been a lot of them, there are a lot of them, there no doubt will be a lot of them, and theyre always wrong. And, obviously, theres a scientific consensus that you shouldnt pay attention to the last scientific consensus.

The contemporary sales pitch for this stuff that evolution is only by chance and necessity, that DDT will silence the spring, that overpopulation is reaching a Malthusian brink, that man is burning the planet to a cinder needs to be distinguished from science, which is the work that challenges the consensus.

Scientific consensus is not science. Actually, scientific consensus has almost always been wrong. It was consensus that heavenly bodies move in epicycles, that heavy objects fall faster than light ones, that phlogiston is what burns in a furnace, that malaria is caused by bad air, and that light propagates in ether. This is not to condemn scientific consensus. Science is a business, so scientists have to agree as a corporate body to get things done.

Scientific consensus that isnt true is consigned to oblivion, by scientific consensus. Scientific consensus that is true is engineering. Scientific consensus governs the construction of bridges and power plants and airplanes. On my commute and when I flip a light switch and when I look out the window at the clouds below Im grateful for scientific consensus. I like engineering, especially when Im at 30,000 feet.

Science is a search, and precludes consensus. Consensus is a means to act, whether wisely or foolishly. The scientific consensus that penicillin kills streptococcus has saved millions of lives. The scientific consensus that DDT causes cancer has cost millions of lives.

But we must never confuse scientific consensus with science. Science is inquiry. Consensus is cloture of inquiry. What is consensus is not science. Yet consensus has its place it makes it possible to act corporately.

The purpose of consensus in science is to manipulate. Its a political act. It permits scientists to act as a polity. The purpose of the scientific consensus in engineering is to manipulate nature. The purpose of scientific consensus in evolution, in global warming, and in discreet patronage is to manipulate you.

Image credit: Enrique Meseguer, viaPixabay.

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Apocalypse Now More Things Scientists Would Like You to Forget - Discovery Institute

Boss has expanded its formidable lineup of guitar effects with the DD-3T and DD-8 digital delay pedals.

The DD-3T sees the DD-3 augmented with tap tempo functionality while thedirect output jack has been moved beside the main output jack to make life easier (it's the little things).

Otherwise, the circuitry is unchanged from the classic DD-3 box. You'll still have 12.5 to 800ms of delay. The Hold function, which allows you to save up to 800ms of audio and effectively loop it, returns, but has been renamed as the Short Loop function. And the DD-3T comes in the trademark Boss metal enclosure with rubber footswitch. And it's the same set-up controls-wise as its predecessor with Mode, Time, Feedback, and Effect knobs controlling the effect.

Like the DD-3T, the DD-8 comes in the usual tough Boss enclosure and rubber footswitch setup. Replacing the DD-7, Boss says the DD-8 is their most advanced compact series delay and it sure has a whole host of clever features.

For a start, it has 11 modes of delay, most of which are self-explanatory. There is Loop, Analogue, Standard, Tape, Warm, Reverse, +Rv (adds reverb to delayed signal), Shimmer (pitchshifts the delayed signal), Mod (modulation), Warp and GLT.

Now, Warp and GLT are really something different. In Warp mode, hold down the footswitch to create swell as the effect's level and feedback increase. This could be a really expressive feature. The GLT mode messes with your delayed signal to add glitchy, "machine gun" effects, which if you turn the Feedback and Time controls up will give you a more extreme effect.

The DD-8 has stereo inputs and outputs, tap tempo functionality and an onboard looper. An external footswitch can be connected to control the tap tempo and looper, or you could hook up an expression pedal to control the effects other parameters on the fly.

The Boss DD-8 costs 140 street (159, $175 approx) and is available now. As is the DD-3T, which you can pick up for 122 street (139, $150 approx).

See Boss for more details.

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Boss announces evolution of their digital delay with DD-8 and DD-3T stompboxes - MusicRadar

Were at a point in our collective gallery calendars where the art of Central Ohio is front and center.In a New Light: Alice Schille and the American Watercolor Movement and Greater Columbus 2019 (both on view at the Columbus Museum of Art through September 29) have filled our summer with stunning, home-grown talent. Similarly, the Ohio Art Leagues Fall Juried Exhibition at the Cultural Arts Center provides a chance to enjoy the works of many other exceptional artists who call Ohio home. From that perspective, now is perhaps the perfect time to appreciate the rich history of Columbus artists and their work. To that end, theres perhaps no better opportunity for such reflection thanThe Evolution of Columbus Artcurrently on view at the Columbus Historical Society.

Curated by Fred Fochtman and David Terry, the Evolution of Columbus Art traces the development of Columbus art through the display of nearly 100 works spanning 150 years. As for bona fides, both Fochtman and Terry are as qualified as any to curate such an exhibit. Both are accomplished artists and collectors in their own right, and both have strong ties to the Columbus art scene. Their expertise bears fruit in both the breadth and depth of the works presented. Not content to simply highlight the most well-known artists (though there are plenty of those), Fochtman and Terry dig deeper, introducing viewers to some our citys hidden artistic gems.

The result is a sprawling exhibition in an intimate space. Its an exhibition that manages to highlight a wide range of styles and approaches while still maintaining its focus. While there are plenty of notable works to enjoy, one of the most striking and well-realized is Lucius Kutchins Cezannesque Still Life. Kutchin (1901-1936) was one of Columbuss premier modernists; a painter whose national reputation was just beginning to blossom before he died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 35.

Another Columbus artist who embraced modernism in the early 20th-Century was Yeteve Smith. Smith studied at The Ohio State University and was active in the Columbus Art League (later the Ohio Art League). Her Market Scene presents a crowded street market in vivid, impressionistic colors, applied with bold brushwork. Given the strength of this work, its no surprise that Smith exhibited in New York City alongside such luminaries as Alice Schille, Hoyt Sherman and Clyde Singer.

While the exhibition pays deserving homage to the past, it also recognizes the accomplishments of more recent Columbus artists. As viewers wind through the roughly chronological exhibition, they will eventually find themselves in the presence of works by Barbara Chavous (d. 2008), Denny Griffith (1952-2016) and Levent Isik (1961-2019). All serve as recent reminders that art in Columbus continues to grow and evolve.

Thematically, its worth noting that Evolution pays particular attention to place. Fochtman and Terry have made a special effort to present works with the intent of understanding how location can focus and inspire artists. Whether its images of old Union Station, Canal Winchester, Red Bird Stadium, or Mary Merrills interpretation of I-70 West, Evolution presents Columbus as fertile ground for the creative impulse.

It should be noted, too, that The Evolution of Columbus Art represents well the contributions of both women artists and artists of color. This is important. The visual arts in Columbus have always been supported and advanced through the contributions of women and African Americans. Artist like Edna Boies, Hopkins, Barbara Chavous, Harriet Kirkpatrick, Aminah Robinson, Roman Johnson and a host of others created works that brought unique perspectives to the arts in Columbus and helped establish the rich, vibrant arts scene we enjoy today.

This is an exciting time for the visual arts in Columbus. As we imagine where the arts will leads us, its worth considering where weve been. The Evolution of Columbus Art allows for exactly that. Were unlikely to see a group of paintings like this brought together again for quite some time, so take advantage of the chance to savor the past, and learn from it.

The Evolution of Columbus Art is on display at the Columbus Historical Society, 717 W. Town St., through October 29. For more information, visit columbushistory.org.

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Art Review: The Evolution of Columbus Art - columbusunderground

Punk music came into to the music scene in the 1970s. By the year 1992 skater/ punk band, Blink- 182 was born into the punk era.

Some lyrics from their song, The Rock Show, somewhat explain the start of Blink-182.

Hanging out behind the club on the weekend/ acting stupid/ getting drunk with my friends/ I couldnt wait for the summer and the Warped Tour

The band was formed in Poway, California in 1992 by three young boys; Tom Delonge, Mark Hoppus and then drummer Scott Raynor.

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The three high school boys started making music in their younger years by playing in their parents garage and around local spots around town.

What drove people to the band and to their music was their high energy on stage.

Cheshire Cat was their first album to be released in February of 1995 by Cargo Music.

In 1996 the band signed with record label MCA records. Then by June of 1997 the guys released their second album, Dude Ranch with featured song, Dammit.

Their second album went into the mainstream of music, especially when they got the opportunity to tour The Vans Warped Tour.

What happens onstage doesnt always follow behind the scenes. It wasnt perfect. As the guys were on tour, and touring excessively they started to bump heads.

For their drummer, Scott Raynor it seemed like he wasnt okay mentally. He was dealing with a loss and started to mask his pain by using alcohol, it got to the point where it was becoming too much.

In 1998 halfway through the year Hoppus and Delonge provided Raynor two options, which were to either quit drinking or to go to rehab. Raynor despite his options, decided to do both.

Blink-182 needed to find a new drummer while Raynor was in rehab that led to the hiring of the fill-in drummer, Travis Barker.

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While Raynor was in rehab, he got fired through a phone conversation even though he had agreed to his ultimatums. Although the circumstances of how he got fired, he understood where Hoppus and Delonge were coming from.

The reason for Raynors firing was because he was excessively using drugs and alcohol. It got to a place where the band got into an argument and thats when they decided to end it with the past drummer.

For their third album, Enema of the State, thats when the band as a unit became bigger than ever before. They sold 15 million copies, released three hit singles and on top of all of that their album became quadruple platinum.

As the months and years went on, in 2001 the band released their fourth record, Take off your Pants and Jacket, which scored them their first number one album.

By November of 2003 the guys then moved over to Geffen records, where they released self titled album, Blink-182.

Their albums and songs were on the charts, they were receiving awards, touring everything seemed to be going perfect for the band.

At the time the band was on a never ending tour. It was one state or country after another. For the band it was taking a toll on everyone, which lead to frequent arguing, and disagreements with things within the band.

Barker began filming a MTV reality TV series called, Meet the Barkers with then wife, Shanna Moakler. While filming was going Delonge felt like his privacy within the band was being invaded by the filming around him.

As time went on, Delonge decided to part ways with the band and spend more quality time with his loved ones.

February of 2005 their record label at the time, Geffen Records released a public statement announcing the bands hiatus.

During Delonges time away from the band, he then formed his own rock band called, Angels and Airwaves in September of 2005.

http://gty.im/76334217

The world was rocked of the news. Some fans were expecting it and some were totally blindsided.

After the band had broken up, each of the guys continued to pursue music among other things.

During the bands time apart, in 2008 Barker and Adam Goldstein a.k.a. DJ AM got into a plane crash. Barker was severely injured. Sixty-five percent of his body was severely burned.

His hands were on fire and then within seconds, his entire body was swallowed by the planes fuel which leads him to be captivated with even more flames since he left his seat to go into the jet. It took him almost a year to fully recover.

When speaking to ABC News, Chris Connelly for Good Morning America, Barker explained in great detail what he experienced and what kind of pain he was going through. While Barker was recovering he then started suffering from post-traumatic disorder (PTD) from the tragic accident.

The accident was so serious it opened up former bandmates Hoppus and Delonges outlook on what was happening and they both got back in touch with their friend. After being apart for four years, the band decided to come together at the 2009 Grammy awards.

Appearing on stage at the 2009 Grammy awards the guys were they to announce the next nominee, but they used that time to announce something else.

We used to play music together, and we decided to play music together once again, stated Barker.

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In 2011 the band was touring and releasing their sixth record, Neighborhoods. At this time they were signed with DGC Records and Interscope Records.

At this point this was the bands newest material since their hiatus. Up until the release of their newest album, the band was struggling with the inner scope of the record labels.

At the same time, while Delonge was in San Diego Hoppus and Barker would be in LA producing more of the album out there.

The making of this record was becoming frustrating for the guys. They were producing the album by themselves since their former music producer Jerry Finn passed away.

As the frustration was becoming a bigger issue, Delonge and Hoppus brought the issues up in meetings with their teams which lead to even more miscommunication for everyone involved.

The band decided to then part ways in October 2012 with Interscope Records and become an Independent band. Which made them feel like they were finally free, free meaning they could do whatever they want within the band.

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After the band announced that they were now going to be an independent band they released an EP in December of that year called, Dogs Eating Dogs.

After the release of their new EP, they headed back into the studio to start fresh in making their seventh studio album that was to be released later in the year.

Unfortunately for Delonge he kept putting things off and delaying the album, which again, frustrated Hoppus and Barker.

Hoppus and Barker then released a public statement on the reasoning for Delonges second departure from the band, explaining that Delonge wanted to focus more on non-musical projects instead of participating in any Blink-182 projects.

Hoppus and Barker then found a replacement for Delonge. In 2015 the band added Matt Skiba as the Co-lead vocalist and guitarist for the band.His first appearance with the band was on their seventh record, California.

California their 2016 album, debuted at number one in the U.S. and in several other countries. The band received their first Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album.

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During their success of their seventh album, the band headed back on tour from July to October of 2016 and a European tour in the summer of 2017.

After the bands tour had ended the guys took some time off and then headed back into the studio to start writing on their eighth studio record.

In 2018 the band signed on to do a Las Vegas residency at the Palms Casino Resort the shows were called the Kings of the Weekend. The sixteen date residency was from May to November of that year.

Later in 2019 the band made news that they would be performing their entire third album at the Back to the Beach Music Festival in honor of its 20th anniversary.

A new era for Blink-182 was rising with excitement as the band announced that they were now signed to Columbia Records.

Blink-182 announced the releasing of their new album NINE on September 20, 2019. The records singles were, Blame It On My Youth, Generational Divide and Happy Days.

Overall Blink-182 has had its ups and downs just like many other bands and artists out there. The band has grown into a bigger better band than ever before.

By releasing new music and being on tour, just their stage presence they genuinely look happy together as brothers and as a band again.

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Opinion: The Evolution of Blink-182 - The Hornet

Controversies like this one underscore the possibility that the bad reputation of naturally occurring hybrids is not entirely justified. Historically, hybrids have often been associated with the sterile or unfit offspring of maladaptive crossings (such as the mule, born of a female horse and a male donkey). Naturalists have traditionally viewed hybridization in the wild as a kind of irrelevant, mostly rare, dead-end fluke. If hybrids arent viable or fertile or common, how could they have much influence on evolution? But as genomic studies provide new insights into how species evolve, biologists are now seeing that, surprisingly often, hybrids play a vital role in fortifying species and helping them take on useful genes from close relatives.

In short, maladaptive pairings dont tell the full story of interbreeding. The genetic transfer that takes place between organisms while their lineages are diverging has a hand in the emergence of adaptive traits and in the creation of new species altogether. According to Arnold, not only is it common for newly emerging species to reacquire genes through hybrid populations, but its probably the most common way evolution proceeds, whether youre talking about viruses, plants, bacteria or animals.

Most recently, signatures of hybridization have turned up in studies on the evolution of the jaguar. In a paper published last month in Science Advances, a team of researchers from institutions spanning seven countries examined the genomes of the five members of the Panthera genus, often called the big cats: lions, leopards, tigers, jaguars and snow leopards. The scientists sequenced the genomes of the jaguar and leopard for the first time and compared them with the already existing genomes for the other three species, finding more than 13,000 genes that were shared across all five. This information helped them construct a phylogenetic tree (in essence, a family tree for species) to describe how the different animals diverged from a common ancestor approximately 4.6 million years ago.

Some of these adaptations, however, may not have originated in the jaguar lineage at all. Eiziriks team found evidence of many crossings between the different Panthera species. In one case, two genes found in the jaguar pointed to a past hybridization with the lion, which would have occurred after their phylogenetic paths had forked. Both genes turned out to be involved in optic nerve formation; Eizirik speculated that the genes encoded an improvement in vision the jaguars needed or could exploit. For whatever reasons, natural selection favored the lions genes, which took the place of those the jaguar originally had for that trait.

Such hybridization illustrates why the Eizirik groups delineation of the Panthera evolutionary tree is so noteworthy. The bottom line is that this has all become more complex, Eizirik said. Species eventually do become separated, but its not as immediate as people would frequently say. He added, The genomes we studied reflected this mosaic of histories.

Although supporting data as detailed and as thoroughly analyzed as Eiziriks is rare, the underlying idea that hybridization contributes to species development is by no means new. Biologists have known since the 1930s that hybridization occurs frequently in plants (its documented in about 25 percent of flowering plant species in the U.K. alone) and plays an important role in their evolution. In fact, it was a pair of botanists who, in 1938, coined the phrase introgressive hybridization, or introgression, to describe the pattern of hybridization and gene flow they saw in their studies. Imagine members of two species lets call them A and B that cross to produce 50-50 hybrid offspring with equal shares of genes from each parent. Then picture those hybrids crossing back to breed with members of species A, and assume that their offspring do the same. Many generations later, nature is left with organisms from species A whose genomes have retained a few genes from species B. Studies have demonstrated that this process could yield entirely new plant species as well.

But animal species seemed more discrete, at least for a while. Most zoologists supported the biological species concept proposed in 1942 by the legendary biologist Ernst Mayr, who was one of the architects of the modern synthesis, the version of evolution theory that combined Darwins natural selection with the science of genetics. Mayrs biological species concept was based on reproductive isolation: A species was defined as a population that could not or did not breed with other populations. Even when exceptions to that rule started to emerge in the 1970s, many biologists considered hybridization to be too rare to be important in animals. We had a blinkered attitude, said James Mallet, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Today, he added, saying that such hybridizations dont affect reconstructions of evolutionary history or that this wasnt useful in adaptive evolution thats no longer tenable.

This is especially true now that computational and genomic tools prove just how prolific introgression is even in our own species. Since 2009, studies have revealed that approximately 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, some modern humans spreading out of Africa interbred with Neanderthals; they later did so with another ancestral human group, the Denisovans, as well. The children in both cases went on to mate with other modern humans, passing the genes they acquired down to us. At present, researchers estimate that some populations have inherited 1 to 2 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals, and up to 6 percent of it from Denisovans fractions that amount to hundreds of genes.

In 2012, Mallet and his colleagues showed a large amount of gene flow between two hybridizing species of Heliconius butterfly. The following year, they determined that approximately 40 percent of the genes in one species had come from the other. Mallets team is now working with another pair of butterfly species that exchange even more of their genes: something like 98 percent, he said. Only the remaining 2 percent of the genome carries the information that separates the species and reflects their true evolutionary trajectory. A similar blurring of species lines has already been found in malaria-carrying mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus.

Other types of organisms, from fish and birds to wolves and sheep, experience their share of introgression, too. The boundaries between species are now known to be less rigid than previously thought, said Peter Grant, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University who, along with his fellow Princeton biologist (and wife) Rosemary Grant, has been studying the evolution of Galpagos finches for decades. Phylogenetic reconstructions depict treelike patterns as if there is a clear barrier between species that arises instantaneously and is never breached. This may be misleading.

Arnold concurred. Its a web of life, he said, rather than a simple bifurcating tree of life. That also means its more necessary than ever before to examine the entire genome, and not just selected genes, to understand a species evolutionary relationships and generate the correct phylogeny. And even that might not be enough. It may well be, Mallet said, that some actual evolutionary patterns are still completely irrecoverable.

Genomic studies cant create a complete picture of the introgressive movements of genes. Whenever one species inherits genes from another, the outcome can be either deleterious, neutral or adaptive. Natural selection tends to weed out the first, although some of the genes we have inherited from Neanderthals, for example, may be involved in disorders such as diabetes, obesity or depression. Neutral introgressed regions drift, so its possible for them to remain in the genome for very long periods of time without having an observable effect.

But its the beneficial introgressions that particularly fascinate researchers. Take the Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA again: Those genes have allowed people to adapt to the harsh environs of places like the Tibetan plateau, protecting them against the harmful effects of high altitudes and low oxygen saturation, which in nonlocals can cause stroke, miscarriage and other health risks. Variants from interbreeding with archaic humans have also conferred immunity to certain infections and made skin and hair pigmentation more suitable for Eurasian climes.

Mallets butterflies, too, reflect evidence of adaptive hybridization, particularly with traits involved in mimicry and predator avoidance. Researchers had observed that although most Heliconius species had highly divergent wing coloration and patterning, some bore a striking resemblance to one another. The researchers believed that these species had independently converged on these traits, but it turns out thats only partially correct. Mallet and others have found that introgression was also responsible. The same goes for Galpagos finches: Pieces of their genomes that control for features including beak size and shape were shared through hybridization. Once again, parallel evolution cant explain everything.

For these effects to occur, the rate of hybridization can be and most likely is very small. For Mallets almost entirely hybridized butterflies, the occasional trickle of one hybrid mating every 1,000 normal matings is sufficient to completely homogenize genes between the species, he said. Thats pretty exciting.

As these patterns of introgression have become more and more predominant in the scientific literature, researchers have set out to uncover their evolutionary consequences. These go beyond the fact that speciation tends to be a much more gradual process than its often made out to be. Diversification, adaptation and adaptive evolution really do seem to be driven quite often by genes moving around, Arnold said.

The research done by Eizirik and his team makes a compelling case for this. Around the time when the gene introgressions they analyzed occurred, the populations of all five Panthera species are estimated to have declined, likely due to climate changes. The smaller a population is, the greater the probability that a harmful mutation will get affixed to its genome. Perhaps the gene flow found between the different species, then, rescued them from extinction, providing adaptive mutations and patching deleterious ones. This kind of infusion of genetic mutations is so large that it can cause really rapid evolution, Arnold said.

And the process doesnt end with speeding up evolution in a single species. Adaptive introgression can in turn contribute significantly to adaptive radiation, a process by which one species rapidly diversifies into a large variety of types, which then form new lineages that continue to adapt independently. The textbook case can be found in the great lakes of East Africa, which are home to hundreds upon hundreds of cichlid species, a type of fish that diversified in explosive bursts (on the evolutionary timescale) from common ancestors, largely in response to climatic and tectonic shifts in their environment. Today, cichlids vary widely in form, behavior and ecology thanks in large part to introgressive hybridization.

Biologists will need many more years to understand the full importance of hybridization to evolution. For example, Arnold wants to see further investigations like the ones that have been done on the finches in the Galpagos and the wolves of Yellowstone National Park: behavioral, metabolic and other analyses that will reveal how much of introgression is adaptive and how much is deleterious or neutral as well as whether adaptive introgression affects only particular kinds of genes, or if it acts in a more widespread manner.

Unfortunately, for conservationists and others challenged with managing the diversity of imperiled species, the absence of satisfactory answers poses more immediate problems. They must often weigh the value of protecting wild hybrid populations against the harm hybrids can do to established species, including the ones from which they emerged.

A case in point: In the 1950s, a pair of California bait dealers from the Salinas Valley, seeking to expand their business, hopped into a pickup truck and took off to central Texas and New Mexico. They brought back barred tiger salamanders, which could grow to more than double the size of Californias native tiger salamander. The new species quickly proved to be good for the local fishermen but bad for the local ecosystem: The introduced salamanders mated with the natives, creating a hybrid breed that could outcompete its parent species. Soon the California tiger salamander found itself in danger of being wiped out entirely, and it remains a threatened species today.

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Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution - Quanta Magazine

With its exceedingly deadly venom unchanged over the past 10 million years, the Australian tiger snake has essentially defeated evolution. Researcher Bryan Fry says in a press release it's "really unusual" for venom to remain unchanged over such a long period of time.

Typically, predators and prey evolve as they find solutions to each other's evolutionary changes, Gizmodo reports. Not so with the tiger snake, which Fry says represents "a novel twist to the chemical arms race which most snake venoms evolve under" and "a new addition to the theory of venom evolution." A study published in the current edition of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C explains why.

Tiger snake venom targets a protein called prothrombin, which handles heavy blood clotting. The venom's effect on prothrombin is what makes it so deadly, which means animals should be under a lot of evolutionary pressure to adjust.

However, prothrombin is so important in its current form that any possible mutations to it are just as deadly. As Fry explains, animals with a prothrombin mutation "would not be able to stop bleeding." All of which is a long way of saying tiger snakes "hit the jackpot" with their venom.

Surprisingly, tiger snake venom does possess one benefit to humans: Antivenom developed to combat it is effective against an unusually wide range of venomous snake bites.

(Scientists found a potential new use for spider venom.)

This article originally appeared on Newser: How the Tiger Snake's Venom Beat Evolution

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How the tiger snake's venom beat evolution - Fox News

Thank a cranky reptile for helping set a St. Louis boy on the road to Harvard.

Jonathan B. Losos went from carrying plastic dinosaurs to school to begging his parents for a pet caiman, those cousins of alligators that in the early 1970s could be bought in a neighborhood pet store.

"I had to wear ski gloves so I wouldn't get bit," he says.

Undeterred, Losos kept two caimans in a horse trough in the backyard of his family's Ladue, Mo., home. During the winter, the scaly chompers were moved to the basement, outfitted with a plastic swimming pool and sun lamp.

In his new book, Losos writes that he got the idea from an episode of "Leave It to Beaver," when Wally and the Beave hid a baby alligator in the bathroom.

At least the pre-adolescent Losos asked his parents. And because they were friends with Charles Hoessle, then deputy director of the St. Louis Zoo, they queried the professional herpetologist about what he thought. He thought it a superb idea.

"My mother was stuck, and soon our basement was full of all manner of reptile," Losos writes. "I was on my way to my own career in the field."

In fact his mother, Carolyn Losos, felt sorry for the single caiman and got a second one so it had company. But she drew the line at snakes.

Now a professor, researcher and curator of herpetology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, Losos, 55, tells a few stories about himself in "Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution."

An expert in evolutionary biology, he writes accessibly about the field today.

In short, Darwin notwithstanding, scientists can observe evolution as it happens. And it can happen quickly. It doesn't take millennia as the great Victorian believed.

"You can see evolution with bacteria in a matter of days," Losos says.

With guppies, a couple of years are enough to see them evolve: Research has shown that male guppies not threatened by predators soon develop more color, such as blue and iridescent spots.

Fish exposed to polluted rivers have evolved so they can live there. And wild elephants may even be changing to favor smaller tusks a possible result of hunters' poaching the magnificent beasts for ivory.

Most of these cases and more are described in "Improbable Destinies," an interesting title because some of the examples seem quite probable. Others, however, are curious and perhaps unknowable for instance, would humans have evolved if an asteroid hadn't wiped out dinosaurs millions of years ago?

BEYOND SPECULATION

Evolutionary biology is like a detective story, with researchers looking at historic clues, Losos writes.

But today's scientists also use lab experiments, DNA sequencing and fieldwork to learn about evolution: "Indeed, with the flood of genetic data now available for so many different species, our understanding of evolutionary relationships is advancing by leaps and bounds, producing a much firmer grasp on the evolutionary tree of life."

It was only 1980 when a study of guppies was published that helped show scientists that evolutionary biology could be an experimental science in natural settings.

Guppies in Trinidad have inspired several scientists, and Losos writes about the studies in detail. Most of his book is about a variety of researchers, but the chapter about lizards, particularly brown anoles, is much his own and is a great example of speedy evolution and what biologists call "convergence." That means that similar species in different places (without interbreeding) evolve some of the same traits.

For the lay reader, one of the most amusing parts of his story is how Losos catches lizards to measure their legs and look at other attributes such as the large, sticky toe pads that allow some to run up slick, vertical slopes like green or brown Spider-Men.

The scientist uses a fishing rod with a loop at the end made out of dental floss (preferably waxed). He approaches the anoles in the wild slowly, then with a quick flick snares the subject around the neck with the dental floss noose. It tightens but doesn't hurt the lizards, which have strong necks, he says.

What Losos found was that on various Caribbean islands, separate communities of lizards evolved in similar ways without any contact. Some that lived closer to the ground had longer legs to run quickly over wide surfaces. Others, which lived up higher on narrow twigs, had shorter legs to grasp small branches more easily.

Losos and colleagues X-rayed lizard legs to get precise measurements, then returned them to the exact place where they were caught. Much work was done on the islands, but some lizard Olympics were also held in labs to study how quickly the mini-athletes moved on various surfaces.

When talking to scientists about the work, he writes, sometimes pesky botanists ask whether the leg changes actually showed genetic change, or could lizards born on islands with slim vegetation simply have grown shorter legs? (The question refers to "phenotypic plasticity," such as plant growth that responds strongly to different conditions.)

Losos and his colleagues studied the research. He writes about how human weightlifters have thicker arm bones, "a plastic trait" affected by behavior. Those musclebound subjects don't, however, have children who inherit thicker arm bones. And some of the lizards' bones were longer, a trait that studies on exercise usually didn't explain.

Still, Losos did more work in the lab with lizard leg growth and found that, indeed, a small amount of the growth could be attributed to phenotypic plasticity. But he concluded that evolved genetic change was "likely responsible" for most of it, and he believes that in the next few years researchers will identify the relevant genes involved.

In 1997, Losos' studies were reported in The New York Times, which wrote that "a remarkable experiment with lizards in the Bahamas has now shown that evolution moves in predictable ways and can occur so rapidly that changes emerge in as little as a decade or so."

Dr. Douglas J. Futuyma, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was quoted saying the study was "distinctive and exciting and one that will be cited for many years to come."

NATURE AND NURTURE

Losos says work in the Bahamas isn't quite as paradisiacal as it sounds. For one thing, hurricanes occasionally wiped out his lizard subjects (some communities amazingly recovered, though, when their eggs survived hours underwater). When not traveling, during the school year, he lives in the Boston area near Harvard University. His wife, Melissa, and two cats remain in their Ladue home, where he spends summers.

One of his favorite places to visit is actually Australia, which has great biodiversity and his favorite animal, the duckbill platypus. At age 7, Losos was angry when his parents, Joseph and Carolyn Losos, went to Australia without him (they did bring him back a stuffed toy platypus).

In fact, here it might be pertinent to note that although Losos seemed to be born interested in reptiles, his environment nurtured his hobby: He grew up in a family that traveled extensively, and his science teachers at Ladue's high school gave him a great education, he says.

Joseph Losos, a graduate of Harvard University, is a retired investment adviser and a commissioner for the St. Louis Zoo; he has also written book reviews for the Post-Dispatch. Carolyn Losos, a longtime activist in many St. Louis organizations, such as Focus St. Louis, is on the executive committee of the Missouri Botanical Garden and is chairwoman of Arts & Faith St. Louis.

As much as environment plays a role in development, biologists can't always explain, though, whether it is the deciding factor in evolution.

That platypus, for example is a one-off animal an "evolutionary singleton" despite living in streams and environmental conditions that can be found in other countries. (It does, though, have attributes that other animals have, so Losos writes that it is both "a paragon and a repudiation of convergence, evolutionarily unique, but a composite of convergent traits.")

"Who would have predicted the duckbill platypus?" Losos says, alluding to the book's title, "Improbable Destinies."

Other evolutionary singletons include chameleons, kiwis and humans, all of which are unlikely to have evolved elsewhere (including other planets). Losos thinks, in fact, that if an asteroid had not eliminated dinosaurs, there would not be today's homo sapiens. Variations on a "dinosauroid" have been proposed, a creature that evolved with a big brain, feathers, a tail and hands.

Speculations may not make the case for today's study of evolution. But there are other examples of practical applications. In particular, the study of how microbes can so easily evolve to evade antibiotics and pesticides.

If scientists pinpoint important ways bacteria and viruses evolve, they may find techniques to keep microbes from foiling public health efforts. As Losos says:

"It turns out evolution is important in the world today."

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Learning from lizards: St. Louis native studies evolution in real time - The Keene Sentinel

When I write articles about buying shares of companies like Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY), yet call myself a dividend growth investor, Im sure that people begin to wonder what in the world is going on? I wouldnt blame them. Those singular pieces focused on high-growth stocks dont do my focus on income justice. Ive had several people reach out to me, asking about my current holdings. Its been awhile since Ive done a portfolio review piece, so I decided to spend some time putting this together so that followers, old and new, can stay up to date on my portfolios construction.

We live in a different world now than investors did in the middle of the last century. Many of the markets that have given tremendous returns throughout much of the 20th century are very mature at this point, and therefore, I dont expect a lot more growth coming out of them. Im not saying that a company like Coca-Cola (KO) is going away. I expect continued large cash flows and capital returns, but Im not satisfied with 100% exposure to slow-growth industries. I bet that KO will continue to post low-single-digit top line growth on average over the long-term as it adds brands and takes market share. This is all a very mature company needs to do: Single-digit sales growth combined with respectable margins and a sustainable share buyback with excess cash flows is all a mature company needs to produce respectable bottom line growth. Being that these companies are typically evaluated based upon a price to earnings ratio, this bodes well for their stock prices over the long-term. With that being said, I dont expect many of the current dividend aristocrats to generate wealth for their investors over the next 50 years as they did during the last 50 years, and Ive been willing to place riskier bets to attempt to capitalize on truly wealth-building opportunities elsewhere.

I dont think that any of this could come across as a controversial or revolutionary statement. As markets mature, growth slows, and expectations of future returns should change. When seeking that same sort of generational growth that early investors in the dividend aristocrats of today experienced, Im looking at new growth frontiers. Im looking for developing markets in terms of both sectors/industries and economies. In other words, when it comes to growth, Im looking at things like software, and not soft drinks.

But before we get to the growth portion of my portfolio, lets take a look at the more conservative dividend growth portion, which makes up the vast majority of my holdings. I end up writing about my more speculative bets much more often than my conservative holdings, but thats sort of the point, isnt it? When I buy shares of a dividend aristocrat, I hope that I never have to write about them again. I dont want these companies in the news. Im quite happy to sit back and watch as they slowly and steadily grow. Im happy to watch their dividends compound via re-investment in an un-noteworthy fashion and track my monthly income, which is surely trending in the right direction. For the most part, I hope that my dividend growth holdings are boring. That would mean that theyre meeting my expectations and goals.

My dividend growth investments make up nearly 75% of my portfolio. When you consider the fact that ~8.5% of my portfolio is currently in cash, this majority appears even larger. My speculative bets basket amounts to 16.7% of my portfolio, though 5 of the 11 companies that currently comprise that basket pay a growing dividend and I imagine that in a decade or so, their yields will be high enough for me to move them up into the main dividend growth category. So without further ado, here are the graphs I put together to break down my holdings.

DGI Holdings:

Speculative Growth Basket:

As you can see, I hold more holdings than many of the other DGI portfolios that are regularly tracked here on Seeking Alpha. I think only RoseNose owns more individual names. This highly diversified strategy may not be best for other investors; Im essentially a full-time investor at this point, and I have the time/energy available to track a portfolio with 75 holdings. I know Jim Cramer says that retail investors shouldnt hold more than a dozen or so stocks because of the time it takes to properly track them. I dont think there is any one magic number in terms of the right amount of holdings. I imagine it comes down to investable capital, risk tolerance, and the aforementioned time, energy, and passion for the markets. I look at a lot of professionally managed funds/sovereign wealth funds, and these portfolios are typically highly diversified. While I ultimately make investment decisions based upon my own personal goals, I like to see what the big boys and girls are doing as I strive to become a better investor. I imagine that my portfolio will continue to grow to the point where its 100 holdings or so and plateau there due to the fact that, for me at least, money doesnt grow on trees.

I understand that my industry/sector allocations are different than many of the other DGI portfolios that youll see here on Seeking Alpha. Technology, not consumer staples, utilities, or real estate, is my largest sector allocation at more than 26% of my overall portfolio. Up next is consumer cyclical and healthcare, coming in at ~16.5% and ~15%, respectively. The rest of my major sectors/industries are currently weighted fairly equally in the 7-10% range. None of these sector allocations are set in stone. Over time I buy value where I see it (healthcare throughout 2016, for example), and I imagine these weightings will change as market sentiment ebbs and flows. When I take a step back and look at my portfolio through a wider lens, Im happy with where they all currently sit.

Maybe the most glaring difference between my portfolio and others is the fact that I have basically zero exposure to energy and utilities. Ive been a bear with regard to the energy space for some time now, having divested all of my oil/gas-related names in 2015/early 2016. Id love to add exposure to the utilities back into my portfolio, but for the time being, I believe theyre irrationally overpriced in this low-rate environment. These high valuations combined with the fact that utilities typically dont offer the dividend growth that Id like to see have caused me to avoid the sector, in general.

77% of my holdings are of the large/mega cap variety. 6% are mid-caps and less than 1% are small caps. Generally, because of my focus on shareholder returns, reliable earnings, strong balance sheets and large cash reserves, Im attracted to large-cap companies. Even when I look at growth names I find myself attracted to large-/mega-cap names because of my focus on best in breed names. The cream typically rises to the top in the markets, and once a growth company becomes profitable (something that I usually wait for before investing), their market caps are relatively large. Im OK with this. Ive seen amazing stories of investors who created generational wealth with relatively small investments in early stage companies that turned into the industry leaders that we see today, but for every one of these home runs Im sure there were numerous strike outs, and sticking to the baseball metaphor, Im content to bat for average rather than power.

Nearly 92.5% of my overall portfolio is comprised of companies domiciled in North America. I dont mind being so overweight with North American (primarily American) companies because many of them are multinationals and Im getting exposure to foreign and emerging markets through their sales anyway. I have taken steps recently to reduce this vastly overweight exposure, hoping to become a bit more diversified internationally. European companies currently make up about ~5% of my portfolio and Id probably like to see that figure rise to the 10% range. Asia makes up the last ~2.5% of my portfolio; as time moves forward, Id like to see this figure rise as well, probably to the 5-10% range. Right now Im seeing better value in Europe and Asia than I am in the U.S. markets, generally. I hope to take advantage of these value gaps as the world plays catch up to the American markets.

But heres the most important graph that Ill be including in this piece: my monthly dividend income totals. Im quite pleased with the progress that Ive made in this regard and I feel confident that Im well on my way to financial freedom because of this passive income. Every few months it seems that I cross a new monthly income threshold with potentially impactful meaning to my life. I remember a few years ago when I was excited to know that my dividends could cover my utility bills if I needed them to. Now my utilities and both of our car payments could fall under the dividend income umbrella if I decided to spend the cash rather than re-invest it. I havent had a month yet where my dividend income could have potentially covered my mortgage payment, but I expect to achieve that goal within the next year or so. Tracking dividend income, rather than the overall value of my portfolio, gives me an anchor to hold on to during market volatility. This is one of the reasons why Ive become so attracted to the DGI portfolio management strategy.

Sure, if I was to eliminate my speculative growth basket and put those funds into a handful of stocks yielding 3%, my monthly income would be even higher. But since Im still in the accumulation phase, I like having that growth exposure and the opportunity to generate outsized returns over the long-term. Although I like to focus on my income stream, I still track the major market indexes and attempt to beat them on an annual basis. The competition aspect of the stock market is a large part of what I love so much about it. Having exposure to companies like Facebook and Amazon and Alibaba and Tencent as a small piece of my portfolio gives me what I believe to be the best of both worlds: steady, reliable income and the potential to make large jumps up the social ladder due to the massive potential of a sub-set of my portfolio.

All of this just goes to show that there are many ways to skin the cat in terms of a dividend growth portfolio. I dont think it matters much what ones sector/industry allocation weights look like so long as they stay true to standard value investing principles with an extra focus on shareholder return related metrics. I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say about the portfolio that Ive constructed over the last 5 years or so. I look forward to the continued journey moving forward. Until next time, best wishes all!

Disclosure: I am/we are long AAPL, DIS, T, BA, AMGN, ABBV, BMY, MDT, MRK, PFE, NVO, JNJ, AMZN, FB, GOOGL, NVDA, MA, V, EXPE, REGN, CELG, BABA, TCEHY, KR, MKC, SJM, KO, PEP, MMM, MO, HASI, NNN, STOR, VER, VTR, SBRA, OHI, CMCSA, MSFT, DLR, AVGO, NKE, QCOM, CSCO, UPS, WHR, FDX, NSRGY, C, MS, GS, BAC, JPM, TRV, BRK.B, GILD, HON, UNP, BX, BLK, UL, XLF, XLK, EZU, IEUR, DEO, BUD, VZ, KMB, IBM.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: Just incase I missed a long in the disclosure form, I am long every stock mentioned in the graphs posted in this article.

Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.

Original post:

The Evolution Of My Dividend Growth Portfolio - Seeking Alpha

Genome sequencing allows us to compare and contrast the DNA of different animals

DNA sequencing technology is helping scientists unravel questions that humans have been asking about animals for centuries. By mapping out animal genomes, we now have a better idea of how the giraffe got its huge neck and why snakes are so long.Genome sequencing allows us to compare and contrast the DNA of different animals and work out how they evolved in their own unique ways.

But in some cases were faced with a mystery. Some animal genomes seem to be missing certain genes, ones that appear in other similar species and must be present to keep the animals alive. These apparently missing genes have been dubbed dark DNA. And its existence could change the way we think about evolution.

My colleagues and I first encountered this phenomenon when sequencing the genome of the sand rat (Psammomys obesus), a species of gerbil that lives in deserts. In particular we wanted to study the gerbils genes related to the production of insulin, to understand why this animal is particularly susceptible to type 2 diabetes.

But when we looked for a gene called Pdx1 that controls the secretion of insulin, we found it was missing, as were 87 other genes surrounding it. Some of these missing genes, including Pdx1, are essential and without them an animal cannot survive. So where are they?

The first clue was that, in several of the sand rats body tissues, we found the chemical products that the instructions from the missing genes would create. This would only be possible if the genes were present somewhere in the genome, indicating that they werent really missing but just hidden.

The DNA sequences of these genes are very rich in G and C molecules, two of the four base molecules that make up DNA. We know GC-rich sequences cause problems for certain DNA-sequencing technologies. This makes it more likely that the genes we were looking for were hard to detect rather than missing. For this reason, we call the hidden sequence dark DNA as a reference to dark matter, the stuff that we think makes up about 25% of the universe but that we cant actually detect.

By studying the sand rat genome further, we found that one part of it in particular had many more mutations than are found in other rodent genomes. All the genes within this mutation hotspot now have very GC-rich DNA, and have mutated to such a degree that they are hard to detect using standard methods. Excessive mutation will often stop a gene from working, yet somehow the sand rats genes manage to still fulfil their roles despite radical change to the DNA sequence. This is a very difficult task for genes. Its like winning Countdown using only vowels.

This kind of dark DNA has previously been found in birds. Scientists have found that 274 genes are missing from currently sequenced bird genomes. These include the gene for leptin (a hormone that regulates energy balance), which scientists have been unable to find for many years. Once again, these genes have a very high GC content and their products are found in the birds body tissues, even though the genes appear to be missing from the genome sequences.

Shedding light on dark DNA

Most textbook definitions of evolution state that it occurs in two stages: mutation followed by natural selection. DNA mutation is a common and continuous process, and occurs completely at random. Natural selection then acts to determine whether mutations are kept and passed on or not, usually depending on whether they result in higher reproductive success. In short, mutation creates the variation in an organisms DNA, natural selection decides whether it stays or if it goes, and so biases the direction of evolution.

But hotspots of high mutation within a genome mean genes in certain locations have a higher chance of mutating than others. This means that such hotspots could be an underappreciated mechanism that could also bias the direction of evolution, meaning natural selection may not be the sole driving force.

So far, dark DNA seems to be present in two very diverse and distinct types of animal. But its still not clear how widespread it could be. Could all animal genomes contain dark DNA and, if not, what makes gerbils and birds so unique? The most exciting puzzle to solve will be working out what effect dark DNA has had on animal evolution.

In the example of the sand rat, the mutation hotspot may have made the animals adaptation to desert life possible. But on the other hand, the mutation may have occurred so quickly that natural selection hasnt been able to act fast enough to remove anything detrimental in the DNA. If true, this would mean that the detrimental mutations could prevent the sand rat from surviving outside its current desert environment.

The discovery of such a weird phenomenon certainly raises questions about how genomes evolve, and what could have been missed from existing genome sequencing projects. Perhaps we need to go back and take a closer look.

Adam Hargreaves, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Oxford

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Dark DNA: The phenomenon that could change how we think about evolution - Business Standard