Category Archives: Evolution

The scientific method is under siege, and not just from naysayers who dismiss climate change or fear vaccines. G.M.O.s genetically modified organisms and the crops they enable have become another field of battle.

Directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Food Evolution hopes to demystify G.M.O.s and points to successes like Hawaiian papayas and Ugandan bananas, which were saved from devastating viruses. And while it gives opponents their say, the film rebuts their arguments, including reports that suggest G.M.O.s lead to a rise in farmers suicide rates and an increase in pesticide use. (The response to the first: correlation is not causation; to the second, yes, but those pesticides are far less toxic.)

A preview of the film.

The film also speaks with food journalists (including Michael Pollan, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine) as well as farmers who have benefited from the technology. And if trust is an issue, Neil deGrasse Tyson, perhaps the most credible public scientist on the planet, is its narrator.

The documentary acknowledges the gorilla in the garden: Monsanto, a leading exponent of modification, is one of the most-hated companies in the world. There are many reasons Monsanto raises hackles, Dr. Tyson acknowledges, but to be concerned about the safety of their G.M.O.s is to be misinformed.

The food industry recruits scientists to speak on its behalf, but in press notes and email correspondence, the films producers say no funding came from any Big Ag company or lobbying group. Food Evolution was commissioned by the nonprofit Institute of Food Technologists, and the filmmakers retained creative control.

With a soft tone, respectful to opponents but insistent on the data, Food Evolution posits an inconvenient truth for organic boosters to swallow: In a world desperate for safe, sustainable food, G.M.O.s may well be a force for good.

Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy

Stars Raoul Adamchak, Charles Benbrook, Tamar Haspel, Mark Lynas, Emma Naluyima

Running Time 1h 32m

Genre Documentary

Food Evolution Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes.

A version of this review appears in print on June 23, 2017, on Page C7 of the New York edition with the headline: G.M.O.s May Not Be an Enemy.

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Review: In 'Food Evolution,' Scientists Strike Back - New York Times

The secular opposition has long argued that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoan is pursuing a covert Islamist agenda contrary to the republics founding values. Photograph: AP

Evolution will no longer be taught in Turkish schools, a senior education official has said, in a move likely to raise the ire of the countrys secular opposition.

Alpaslan Durmu, who chairs the board of education, said evolution was debatable, controversial and too complicated for students.

We believe that these subjects are beyond their [students] comprehension, said Durmu in a video published on the education ministrys website.

Durmu said a chapter on evolution was being removed from ninth grade biology course books, and the subject postponed to the undergraduate period. Another change to the curriculum may reduce the amount of time that students spend studying the legacy of secularism.

Critics of the government believe public life is being increasingly stripped of the secular traditions instilled by the nations founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatrk.

The secular opposition has long argued that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoan is pursuing a covert Islamist agenda contrary to the republics founding values. Education is a particularly contentious avenue, because of its potential in shaping future generations. Small-scale protests by parents in local schools have opposed the way religion is taught.

There is little acceptance of evolution as a concept among mainstream Muslim clerics in the Middle East, who believe it contradicts the story of creation in scripture, in which God breathed life into the first man, Adam, after shaping him from clay. Still, evolution is briefly taught in many high school biology courses in the region.

The final changes to the curriculum are likely to be announced next week after the Muslim Eid or Bayram festival at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. The draft changes had been put forth for public consultation at the beginning of the year.

The subject of evolution in particular stirred debate earlier this year after Numan Kurtulmu, the deputy prime minister, described the process as a theory that was both archaic and lacking sufficient evidence.

Reports in Turkish media in recent weeks, based on apparent leaks of school board meetings, have also predicted a diminished role in the curriculum for the study of Atatrk, and an increase in the hours devoted to studying religion. Durmu said that a greater emphasis would be placed on the contributions of Muslim and Turkish scientists and history classes would move away from a Euro-centric approach.

The changes were based on a broad public consultation in which parents and the public played a key role, he said.

The Islamist-secularist debate is just one of a series of divides in a country that two months ago narrowly approved a referendum granting President Erdoan broad new powers.

Many in the religiously conservative element of the presidents support base admire his piety and see his ascension as a defeat of the elite White Turks a westernised elite that used to dominate the upper echelons of society and was accused of looking down with disdain on poorer, more religiously inclined citizens.

The secular opposition worries that the president and his party are reshaping Turkish society and clinging to neo-Ottoman ideals that see Turkey as the vanguard of a greater Islamic nation.

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Turkish schools to stop teaching evolution, official says - The Guardian

The National Space and Aeronautics Administration has done some amazing things for the United States over the years: the initial short flights into space, then the longer orbiting missions, the moon visits, the space station and even unmanned trips to every sidewalk in the solar system.

But now it has some new goals: Find aliens.

And prove evolution.

And while the agency is at it, its staff members should identify the origins of life.

Thats according to the new and very religious marching orders the agency was given just weeks ago.

The Atlantic explained just what developed.

The truth about evolution is all found in the WND Superstore, in Evolution: The Grand Experiment, Volume 1, Icons of Evolution, The Lie: Evolution Intelligent Design vs. Evolution, Incredible Creatures that defy Evolution II and more.

On March 21 of this year, both parties in Congress and the Trump administration made a change to a federal document that amounted to only a few words, but which may well change the course of human history.

Every few years, Congress and the administration pass a NASA Authorization Act, which gives the U.S. Space Agency its marching orders for the next few years. Amongst the many pages of the 2017 NASA Authorization Act (S. 422) the agencys mission encompasses expected items such as continuation of the space station, building of big rockets, indemnification of launch and reentry service providers for third party claim and so on.

But in this years bill, Congress added a momentous phrase to the agencys mission: the search for lifes origins, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe. Its a short phrase, but a visionary one, setting the stage for a far-reaching effort, that could have as profound an impact on the 21st century as the Apollo program had on the 20th.

At the NASA Watch bog, Keith Cowing noted the law itself states, The administrator shall enter into an arrangement with the National Academies to develop a science strategy for astrobiology that would outline key scientific questions, identify the most promising research in the field, and indicate the extent to which the mission priorities in existing decadal surveys address the search for lifes origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe.

Atlantic speculated on the meaning of the change, noting it will include a new emphasis on the question of whether there are other life forms in the universe.

In the last decade we have made enormous advances in the field of exoplanet studies. Telescopes on the ground have become sensitive enough to discern the faintest stellar wobbles, as orbiting planets tug gently against the gravitational bonds. With the National Science Foundations Atacama Large Millimeter Array, and the Hubble Space Telescope, we have peered into interstellar clouds where new planets are forming and have detected the presence of all the elements necessary for life.

It noted that just last February, a nearby star system was confirmed to have seven planets orbiting, three of which lie with the stars Goldilocks zone, making them potentially habitable.

There have been multiple reports of planets that possibly could sustain life. Whats thought to be needed for life water and energy sources have been located even on Saturns moon, Enceladus.

And just last June, the New York Times said, Yes, there have been aliens.

Even so, the mystery still remains about life on earth, and the report places its faith in the still-unexplained idea that somehow, somewhere, sometime, something turned from inanimate matter into living tissue.

On its own.

Every worm on a deep sea vent, or cactus eking out an existence in the high Andres, every human who hunted on the plains or stood on the moon owes their existence to a single chance meeting of two cells that learned to get along, it continued.

There is a possibility, and even a statistical probability, that life exists on some planet other than earth, reports say.

But at Inverse, bloggers charged Congress sneakily told NASA to, well, find aliens.

And the move is being viewed by those in the faith community as the federal governments endorsement of an effort to prove the biblical creation narrative false.

The work already had begun.

The Atlantic reported: NASA has been putting in place all the necessary building blocks to make the Search for Life possible. NASAs James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), due to launch in late 2018, will begin following up on recently discovered exoplanets, searching for the fingerprints of life, gases that scientists believe can only exist in the presence of living organisms. And NASA and private industry have embarked on ambitious new rockets capable of carrying probes and landers to Europa [one of Jupiters moons which is encrusted in ice], and launching future telescopes capable of finding and characterizing continents and oceans on Earth-like planets. Soon, they will be able to send (human) geologists and biologists to Mars.

At least the marching orders are a change from what ex-President Barack Obama wanted from NASA.

He wanted the agency to be a Muslim feel-good outreach.

According to the Telegraph, Charles Bolden, a retired United States Marines Corps major-general and former astronaut, said in an interview with al-Jazeera that NASA was not only a space exploration agency but also an Earth improvement agency.'

Bolden said: When I became the NASA administrator, he [Obama] charged me with three things. One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

The truth about evolution is all found in the WND Superstore, in Evolution: The Grand Experiment, Volume 1, Icons of Evolution, The Lie: Evolution Intelligent Design vs. Evolution, Incredible Creatures that defy Evolution II and more.

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NASA's new assignments: Find aliens, prove evolution - WND.com

The mystery of why birds eggs come in so many shapes has long been up in the air. Now new research suggests adaptations for flight may have helped shape the orbs.

Stronger fliers tend to lay more elongated eggs, researchers report in the June 23 Science. The finding comes from the first large analysis of the way egg shape varies across bird species, from the almost perfectly spherical egg of the brown hawk owl to the raindrop-shaped egg of the least sandpiper.

Eggs fulfill such a specific role in birds the egg is designed to protect and nourish the chick. Why theres such diversity in form when there's such a set function was a question that we found intriguing, says study coauthor Mary Caswell Stoddard, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University.

Previous studies have suggested many possible advantages for different shapes. Perhaps cone-shaped eggs are less likely to roll out of the nest of cliff-dwelling birds; spherical eggs might be more resilient to damage in the nest. But no one had tested such hypotheses across a wide spectrum of birds.

Stoddard and her team analyzed almost 50,000 eggs from 1,400 species, representing about 14 percent of known bird species. The researchers boiled each egg down to its two-dimensional silhouette and then used an algorithm to describe each egg using two variables: how elliptical versus spherical the egg is and how asymmetrical it is whether its pointier on one end than the other.

Next, the researchers looked at the way these two traits vary across the bird family tree. One pattern jumped out: Species that are stronger fliers, as measured by wing shape, tend to lay more elliptical or asymmetrical eggs, says study coauthor L. Mahadevan, a mathematician and biologist at Harvard University.

Story continues after graphic

By examining the eggs of 1,400 species (each species average egg is represented on this scatterplot by apale orange dot), researchers found that the shape of bird eggs is determined by two variables: ellipticity and asymmetry. Dark orange dots mark species highlighted as examples.

Mahadevan cautions that the data show only an association, but the researchers propose one possible explanation for the link between flying and egg shape. Adapting to flight streamlined bird bodies, perhaps also narrowing the reproductive tract. That narrowing would have limited the width of an egg that a female could lay. But since eggs provide nutrition for the chick growing inside, shrinking eggs too much would deprive the developing bird. Elongated eggs might have been a compromise between keeping egg volume up without increasing girth, Stoddard suggests. Asymmetry can increase egg volume in a similar way.

Testing a causal connection between flight ability and egg shape is tough because of course we cant replay the whole tape of life again, says Claire Spottiswoode, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge who wrote a commentary accompanying the study. Still, Spottiswoode says the evidence is compelling: Its a very plausible argument.

Santiago Claramunt, associate curator of ornithology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, isnt convinced that flight adaptations played a driving role in the evolution of egg shape. Streamlining in birds is determined more by plumage than the shape of the body high performing fliers can have rounded, bulky bodies he says, which wouldnt give elongated eggs the same advantage over other egg shapes. He cites frigate birds and swifts as examples, both of which make long-distance flights but have fairly broad bodies. There's certainly more going on there.

Indeed, some orders of birds showed a much stronger link between flying and egg shape than others did. And while other factors like where birds lay their eggs and how many they lay at once werent significantly related to egg shape across birds as a whole, they could be important within certain branches of the bird family tree.

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Flight demands may have steered the evolution of bird egg shape ... - Science News Magazine

June 22, 2017 by Aaron Dubrow A Burmese python superimposed on an analysis of gene expression that uncovers how the species changes in its organs upon feeding. Credit: Todd Castoe

Evolution takes eons, but it leaves marks on the genomes of organisms that can be detected with DNA sequencing and analysis.

As methods for studying and comparing genetic data improve, scientists are beginning to decode these marks to reconstruct the evolutionary history of species, as well as how variants of genes give rise to unique traits.

A research team at the University of Texas at Arlington led by assistant professor of biology Todd Castoe has been exploring the genomes of snakes and lizards to answer critical questions about these creatures' evolutionary history. For instance, how did they develop venom? How do they regenerate their organs? And how do evolutionarily-derived variations in genes lead to variations in how organisms look and function?

"Some of the most basic questions drive our research. Yet trying to understand the genetic explanations of such questions is surprisingly difficult considering most vertebrate genomes, including our own, are made up of literally billions of DNA bases that can determine how an organism looks and functions," says Castoe. "Understanding these links between differences in DNA and differences in form and function is central to understanding biology and disease, and investigating these critical links requires massive computing power."

To uncover new insights that link variation in DNA with variation in vertebrate form and function, Castoe's group uses supercomputing and data analysis resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center or TACC, one of the world's leading centers for computational discovery.

Recently, they used TACC's supercomputers to understand the mechanisms by which Burmese pythons regenerate their organsincluding their heart, liver, kidney, and small intestinesafter feeding.

Burmese pythons (as well as other snakes) massively downregulate their metabolic and physiological functions during extended periods of fasting. During this time their organs atrophy, saving energy. However, upon feeding, the size and function of these organs, along with their ability to generate energy, dramatically increase to accommodate digestion.

Within 48 hours of feeding, Burmese pythons can undergo up to a 44-fold increase in metabolic rate and the mass of their major organs can increase by 40 to 100 percent.

Writing in BMC Genomics in May 2017, the researchers described their efforts to compare gene expression in pythons that were fasting, one day post-feeding and four days post-feeding. They sequenced pythons in these three states and identified 1,700 genes that were significantly different pre- and post-feeding. They then performed statistical analyses to identify the key drivers of organ regeneration across different types of tissues.

What they found was that a few sets of genes were influencing the wholesale change of pythons' internal organ structure. Key proteins, produced and regulated by these important genes, activated a cascade of diverse, tissue-specific signals that led to regenerative organ growth.

Intriguingly, even mammalian cells have been shown to respond to serum produced by post-feeding pythons, suggesting that the signaling function is conserved across species and could one day be used to improve human health.

"We're interested in understanding the molecular basis of this phenomenon to see what genes are regulated related to the feeding response," says Daren Card, a doctoral student in Castoe's lab and one of the authors of the study. "Our hope is that we can leverage our understanding of how snakes accomplish organ regeneration to one day help treat human diseases."

Making Evolutionary Sense of Secondary Contact

Castoe and his team used a similar genomic approach to understand gene flow in two closely related species of western rattlesnakes with an intertwined genetic history.

The two species live on opposite sides of the Continental Divide in Mexico and the U.S. They were separated for thousands of years and evolved in response to different climates and habitat. However, over time their geographic ranges came back together to the point that the rattlesnakes began to crossbreed, leading to hybrids, some of which live in a region between the two distinct climates.

The work was motivated by a desire to understand what forces generate and maintain distinct species, and how shifts in the ranges of species (for example, due to global change) may impact species and speciation.

The researchers compared thousands of genes in the rattlesnakes' nuclear DNA to study genomic differentiation between the two lineages. Their comparisons revealed a relationship between genetic traits that are most important in evolution during isolation and those that are most important during secondary contact, with greater-than-expected overlap between genes in these two scenarios.

However, they also found regions of the rattlesnake genome that are important in only one of these two scenarios. For example, genes functioning in venom composition and in reproductive differencesdistinct traits that are important for adaptation to the local habitatlikely diverged under selection when these species were isolated. They also found other sets of genes that were not originally important for diversification of form and function, that later became important in reducing the viability of hybrids. Overall, their results provide a genome-scale perspective on how speciation might work that can be tested and refined in studies of other species.

The team published their results in the April 2017 issue of Ecology and Evolution.

The Role of Supercomputing in Genomics Research

The studies performed by members of the Castoe lab rely on advanced computing for several aspects of the research. First, they use advanced computing to create genome assembliesputting millions of small chunks of DNA in the correct order.

"Vertebrate genomes are typically on the larger side, so it takes a lot of computational power to assemble them," says Card. "We use TACC a lot for that."

Next, the researchers use advanced computing to compare the results among many different samples, from multiple lineages, to identify subtle differences and patterns that would not be distinguishable otherwise.

Castoe's lab has their own in-house computers, but they fall short of what is needed to perform all of the studies the group is interested in working on.

"In terms of genome assemblies and the very intensive analyses we do, accessing larger resources from TACC is advantageous," Card says. "Certain things benefit substantially from the general output from TACC machines, but they also allow us to run 500 jobs at the same time, which speeds up the research process considerably."

A third computer-driven approach lets the team simulate the process of genetic evolution over millions of generations using synthetic biological data to deduce the rules of evolution, and to identify genes that may be important for adaptation.

For one such project, the team developed a new software tool called GppFst that allows researchers to differentiate genetic drift - a neutral process whereby genes and gene sequences naturally change due to random mating within a population - from genetic variations that are indicative of evolutionary changes caused by natural selection.

The tool uses simulations to statistically determine which changes are meaningful and can help biologists better understand the processes that underlie genetic variation. They described the tool in the May 2017 issue of Bioinformatics.

Lab members are able to access TACC resources through a unique initiative, called the University of Texas Research Cyberinfrastructure, which gives researchers from the state's 14 public universities and health centers access to TACC's systems and staff expertise.

"It's been integral to our research," said Richard Adams, another doctoral student in Castoe's group and the developer of GppFst. "We simulate large numbers of different evolutionary scenarios. For each, we want to have hundreds of replicates, which are required to fully vet our conclusions. There's no way to do that on our in-house systems. It would take 10 to 15 years to finish what we would need to do with our own machinesfrankly, it would be impossible without the use of TACC systems."

Though the roots of evolutionary biology can be found in field work and close observation, today, the field is deeply tied to computing, since the scale of genetic materialtiny but voluminouscannot be viewed with the naked eye or put in order by an individual.

"The massive scale of genomes, together with rapid advances in gathering genome sequence information, has shifted the paradigm for many aspects of life science research," says Castoe.

"The bottleneck for discovery is no longer the generation of data, but instead is the analysis of such massive datasets. Data that takes less than a few weeks to generate can easily take years to analyze, and flexible shared supercomputing resources like TACC have become more critical than ever for advancing discovery in our field, and broadly for the life sciences."

Explore further: Team proposes new model for snake venom evolution

More information: Audra L. Andrew et al, Growth and stress response mechanisms underlying post-feeding regenerative organ growth in the Burmese python, BMC Genomics (2017). DOI: 10.1186/s12864-017-3743-1

Technology that can map out the genes at work in a snake or lizard's mouth has, in many cases, changed the way scientists define an animal as venomous. If oral glands show expression of some of the 20 gene families associated ...

The Burmese python's ability to ramp up its metabolism and enlarge its organs to swallow and digest prey whole can be traced to unusually rapid evolution and specialized adaptations of its genes and the way they work, an ...

Senckenberg scientists have sequenced the entire genomes of four bear species, making it now possible to analyze the evolutionary history of all bears at the genome level. It shows that gene flow, or gene exchange, between ...

In a new study, researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science examined how the interaction of two genomes in animal cellsthe mitochondrial and nuclear genomesinteract ...

Only a few genetic changes are needed to spur the evolution of new specieseven if the original populations are still in contact and exchanging genes. Once started, however, evolutionary divergence evolves rapidly, ultimately ...

Researchers at the Centre for Crop and Disease Management are using big data approaches to study fungal genome evolution, which will one day lead to a better understanding of crop protection.

The scientific journal Nature Ecology & Evolution has published a joint statement from scientists at the University of Copenhagen and North Carolina State University calling attention to a serious lack of data on the worldwide ...

The evolution of the amniotic eggcomplete with membrane and shellwas key to vertebrates leaving the oceans and colonizing the land and air. Now, 360 million years later, bird eggs come in all shapes and sizes, from ...

(Phys.org)A team of researchers with the EcoHealth Alliance has narrowed down the list of animal species that may harbor viruses likely to jump to humans. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group outlines ...

Amid the incredible diversity of living things on our planet, there is a common theme. Organisms need to acquire new genes, or change the functions of existing genes, in order to adapt and survive.

Scientists are providing the clearest view yet of an intact bacterial microcompartment, revealing at atomic-level resolution the structure and assembly of the organelle's protein shell.

Honeybees may not need key brain structures known as mushroom bodies in order to learn complex associations between odors and rewards, according to new research published in PLOS Computational Biology.

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Researchers use supercomputers to study snake evolution, unique ... - Phys.Org

The last shore-dwelling ancestor of modern whales was Sinonyx, top left, a hyena-like animal. Over 60 million years, several transitional forms evolved: from top to bottom, Indohyus, Ambulocetus, Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus, Dorudon, and finally, the modern humpback whale.

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring.

Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology.

The theory has two main points, said Brian Richmond, curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "All life on Earth is connected and related to each other," and this diversity of life is a product of "modifications of populations by natural selection, where some traits were favored in and environment over others," he said.

More simply put, the theory can be described as "descent with modification," said Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist and educator at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who specializes in the study of human origins.

The theory is sometimes described as "survival of the fittest," but that can be misleading, Pobiner said. Here, "fitness" refers not to an organism's strength or athletic ability, but rather the ability to survive and reproduce.

In the first edition of "The Origin of Species" in 1859, Charles Darwin speculated about how natural selection could cause a land mammal to turn into a whale. As a hypothetical example, Darwin used North American black bears, which were known to catch insects by swimming in the water with their mouths open:

"I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale," he speculated.

The idea didn't go over very well with the public. Darwin was so embarrassed by the ridicule he received that the swimming-bear passage was removed from later editions of the book.

Scientists now know that Darwin had the right idea but the wrong animal: Instead of looking at bears, he should have instead been looking at cows and hippopotamuses.

The story of the origin of whales is one of evolution's most fascinating tales and one of the best examples scientists have of natural selection.

To understand the origin of whales, it's necessary to have a basic understanding of how natural selection works. Natural selection can change a species in small ways, causing a population to change color or size over the course of several generations. This is called "microevolution."

But natural selection is also capable of much more. Given enough time and enough accumulated changes, natural selection can create entirely new species, known as "macroevolution." It can turn dinosaurs into birds, amphibious mammals into whales and the ancestors of apes into humans.

Take the example of whales using evolution as their guide and knowing how natural selection works, biologists knew that the transition of early whales from land to water occurred in a series of predictable steps. The evolution of the blowhole, for example, might have happened in the following way:

Random genetic changes resulted in at least one whale having its nostrils placed farther back on its head. Those animals with this adaptation would have been better suited to a marine lifestyle, since they would not have had to completely surface to breathe. Such animals would have been more successful and had more offspring. In later generations, more genetic changes occurred, moving the nose farther back on the head.

Other body parts of early whales also changed. Front legs became flippers. Back legs disappeared. Their bodies became more streamlined and they developed tail flukes to better propel themselves through water.

Darwin also described a form of natural selection that depends on an organism's success at attracting a mate, a process known as sexual selection. The colorful plumage of peacocks and the antlers of male deer are both examples of traits that evolved under this type of selection.

But Darwin wasn't the first or only scientist to develop a theory of evolution. The French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck came up with the idea that an organism could pass on traits to its offspring, though he was wrong about some of the details. And around the same time as Darwin, British biologist Alfred Russel Wallace independently came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Darwin didn't know anything about genetics, Pobiner said. "He observed the pattern of evolution, but he didnt really know about the mechanism." That came later, with the discovery of how genes encode different biological or behavioral traits, and how genes are passed down from parents to offspring. The incorporation of genetics and Darwin's theory is known as "modern evolutionary synthesis."

The physical and behavioral changes that make natural selection possible happen at the level of DNA and genes. Such changes are called mutations. "Mutations are basically the raw material on which evolution acts," Pobiner said.

Mutations can be caused by random errors in DNA replication or repair, or by chemical or radiation damage. Most times, mutations are either harmful or neutral, but in rare instances, a mutation might prove beneficial to the organism. If so, it will become more prevalent in the next generation and spread throughout the population.

In this way, natural selection guides the evolutionary process, preserving and adding up the beneficial mutations and rejecting the bad ones. "Mutations are random, but selection for them is not random," Pobiner said.

But natural selection isn't the only mechanism by which organisms evolve, she said. For example, genes can be transferred from one population to another when organisms migrate or immigrate, a process known as gene flow. And the frequency of certain genes can also change at random, which is called genetic drift.

Even though scientists could predict what early whales should look like, they lacked the fossil evidence to back up their claim. Creationists took this absence as proof that evolution didn't occur. They mocked the idea that there could have ever been such a thing as a walking whale. But since the early 1990s, that's exactly what scientists have been finding.

The critical piece of evidence came in 1994, when paleontologists found the fossilized remains ofAmbulocetus natans, an animal whose name literally means "swimming-walking whale." Its forelimbs had fingers and small hooves but its hind feet were enormous given its size. It was clearly adapted for swimming, but it was also capable of moving clumsily on land, much like a seal.

When it swam, the ancient creature moved like an otter, pushing back with its hind feet and undulating its spine and tail.

Modern whales propel themselves through the water with powerful beats of their horizontal tail flukes, but Ambulocetus still had a whip-like tail and had to use its legs to provide most of the propulsive force needed to move through water.

In recent years, more and more of these transitional species, or "missing links," have been discovered, lending further support to Darwin's theory, Richmond said.

Despite the wealth of evidence from the fossil record, genetics and other fields of science, some people still question its validity. Some politicians and religious leaders denounce the theory, invoking a higher being as a designer to explain the complex world of living things, especially humans.

School boards debate whether the theory of evolution should be taught alongside other ideas, such as intelligent design or creationism.

Mainstream scientists see no controversy. "A lot of people have deep religious beliefs and also accept evolution," Pobiner said, adding, "there can be real reconciliation."

Evolution is well supported by many examples of changes in various species leading to the diversity of life seen today. "If someone could really demonstrate a better explanation than evolution and natural selection, [that person] would be the new Darwin," Richmond said.

Additional reporting by Staff Writer Tanya Lewis, Follow Tanya on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+.

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Darwin's Theory of Evolution: Definition & Evidence

National Center for Science Education (blog)

(Star)bursts of Genetics and Evolution! National Center for Science Education (blog) Since our last kit activity was about climate change, it was time we sent our leaders an activity about evolution. To do this, I teamed up with my longtime friends and Iowa City Science Booster Club interns Laura Bankers and Joseph Jalinsky, who helped ...

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(Star)bursts of Genetics and Evolution! - National Center for Science Education (blog)

Despite reports of the Evolution Mining Company's withdrawal fromPuhipuhi, their New Zealand manager (Jackie Hobbins) has told Te Kea that celebrations in the anti-mining lobby are premature.

It's been widely reported that the Australian company Evolution Mining has all but pulled out of its Northland operation at Puhipuhi. But that's not the case according to the company management.

Despite reports of the Evolution Mining Company's withdrawal from Puhipuhi their New Zealand manager (Jackie Hobbins) has told Te Kea that celebrations in the anti-mining lobby are premature.

Minewatch Northland spokesperson Tim Howard says, "We suspect and it's not unreasonable to suspect that they're just delaying their withdrawal because in the meantime they're trying to negotiate like they're doing in Australia a sell out to another vendor or exploration company."

While their drill program has received some encouraging results, Evolution Mining has told Te Kea they are not sufficient to determine whether an economic resource is present and that will require additional expenditure.

"We're not surprised the delay is deliberate and it's also deliberate on the Government's side. The Government wants this delay so that it keeps this permit alive because they desperately want to mine in Northland and they're not going to get it."

Evolution's drilling operation at Puhipuhi wrapped up in December last year with the company saying they've met their commitments under the exploration permit and willnow focus on other exploration projects. In time a decision will be made whether or not to return to Puhipuhi.

Ngti Hau Anti-Mining Group spokesperson Vaughn Potter says, "If they do come back they will find that there will be a lot more opposition as we were scaling up before we got the news that they'd pulled out. But there is a lot more opposition and the Ngati Hau Anti-mining Group is growing by the day with a heck of a lot of support from the community."

More here:

Reports of Evolution Minings' withdrawal from Northland premature - Mori Television

Brush your fossils twice a day. Do it for yourself and for future researchers and museum visitors. Because if any part of you is going to get unearthed millions of years from now, it'll probably be a tooth. Teeth are stronger than bones, and they are much more likely to survive the ages, writes University of Arkansas paleoanthropologist Peter S. Ungar in his book Evolution's Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet and Human Origins. Not to be confused with Felix Unger, who once invested in a dental adhesive based on the substance barnacles produce to stick to ships. (Watch The Odd Couple, season 4, episode 13: A Barnacle Adventure. Spoiler alert: the glue fails when the patient's mouth gets dry.)

In fossil bones, most of the material that existed while the animal was alive gets slowly replaced over time by minerals. The resulting buried treasure is really a natural cast of the bone with properties more like rock than like what's inside The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson). Teeth start out most of the way there. Teeth are essentially ready-made fossils, Ungar writes. The enamel that coats ours, for example, is 97% mineral. Such prefossilization means there are often hundreds if not thousands of teeth for every skeleton or complete skull we find.... Fortunately for paleontologists, they are also excellent tools for understanding life in the past.

Teeth tell such tales because their shapes and the usage patterns etched on them offer up heaping helpings of information about what animals ate and how they lived. If we can reconstruct diet from teeth, for example, Ungar writes, we can use them as a bridge to the worlds of our ancestors. Likewise, your teeth could one day serve as a bridge. Unless, of course, you have a bridge.

While reading Ungar, I could not help but think about Don McLeroy, a man who vexed scientists and educators for the first decade of this century in his roles as a member and then chair of the Texas State Board of Education. McLeroy fought against the inclusion of evolution in curricula. He believed that the earth is only a few thousands of years old. He was quoted as saying, Evolution is hooey. And that somebody's got to stand up to experts. All those views would be irritating if McLeroy's day job had been as a plumber or an architect or an insurance agent. But what made McLeroy particularly maddening was that he worked on a daily basis with the most abundantly clear evidence of evolution that can be found in the fossil record: he is a dentist.

While you're chewing on that irony, consider that for hundreds of millions of years some animals have avoided the teeth of predators by getting down and dirty. Imagine yourself the size of a shrew and living in environments where dinosaurs are everywhere, writes Emory University paleontologist Anthony J. Martin in his book The Evolution Underground: Burrows, Bunkers, and the Marvelous Subterranean World beneath Our Feet. Yes, that's a mouthful.

Some want to eat you, while others will carelessly step on you and carry your squashed remains like chewing gum on their feet for days, Martin continues. Oh, you say you live in deep burrows where no dinosaurs can find you or compress you into two dimensions? Yes, that will do nicely.... Congratulations, shrew-sized mammal: You win the survival sweepstakes, and one tiny branch of your descendants eventually gets to a point where it can discuss how you outlived the dinosaurs. Plus, when the asteroid bit into a big chunk of what's now the Yucatn Peninsula 66 million years ago, stuff that lived undergroundand far awayclearly had a significant survival advantage.

In fact, Martin argues that the evolutionary paths taken by most modern animals, whether these are crocodilians, turtles, birds, lungfish, amphibians, earthworms, insects, crustaceans, or mammals, are connected to their burrowing ancestors. That passage can be found deep in the book under the subhead Living on Burrowed Time. Holy moly.

I dug both books. Sink your teeth into them.

See more here:

Two New Books Look at Evolution via Teeth and Tunnels - Scientific American

America has lost one of the worlds most valuable commodities.

The following is from our June 19 Trumpet Brief e-mail. These daily e-mails contain personal messages from the Trumpet staff. Click here to join the nearly 20,000 members of our mailing list, so you dont miss another message!

What is one of the hardest things to win back once it is lost? It takes only moments to lose, but you can spend a lifetime trying to regain itand not succeed.

Trust.

America is suffering a trust crisis.

Do you trust those around you? Do you trust the government, the police? Do you trust the financial system? How about scientists, religious authorities, academia?

If you are like most Americans, the answer is noor at least not nearly as much as you used to.

And that is disturbing because trust is what makes the world go round. It is one of the most important factors that historically differentiated Western society from the developing world.

For the past 17 years, Richard Edelman has surveyed people around the world to gauge trust in various institutions. As 2017 begins, his marketing and public relations firm is warning that trust is in crisis in many countries.

You see it across all the four institutions, especial drops in media and government, in ngos and businesses teetering on the edge, he says. Today, were talking about a trust crisis that is causing a systemic meltdown. Only 15 percent of our respondents actually said they trust the system (emphasis added throughout).

Whether it is big media, government, science, the medical industry, religion, academia, industry, the economy, people are rapidly losing trust.

Consider the United States presidency.

What does it mean for the nation when somewhere around half the people in the nation do not trust what comes out of the presidents mouth? When half the nation believes he lies continually, hates women, is colluding with the Russians to subvert democracy? When they believe he is a racist who wants to ban all Muslims from coming to America, and that he is using his office to greedily enrich himself?

What are the effects on the public of being repeatedly told that society is inherently racist, that all white people are racist even if only unconsciously so, that it is in Americas dna, that the police are racist because black people are arrested at higher rates than white people? What is the effect of being told the justice system is racist because African-Americans and Mexicans make up a disproportionately high proportion of the inmate population, that teachers are racist because children of certain minorities get suspended at higher rates than white children and Asians, that America is not the land of opportunity but of suppression and oppressionas Americas last president hallmarked his administration?

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an article from the Guardian titled Why We Cant Trust Academic Journals to Tell the Scientific Truth. It was highlighting a disturbing trend that has some scientists in dithers: lack of trust in scientific findings. Seventy-two percent of scientists know of others who have fabricated results to prove their thesis. Fifteen percent know of scientists who have made up whole data sets. Fifty percent of life-science research cannot be replicated. Fifty-one percent of economics papers cant be replicated. As other journalists have highlighted, up to 40 percent of medical studies published in gold standard peer review journals cannot be replicated. Do cell phones cause cancer? Yes. Then no. Does eating eggs for breakfast increase your risk of heart attack? Or decrease it? Does drinking milk make people obese? Or do certain fats actually help you lose weight? Do women find men with symmetrical features to be better lovers? Do women really think they smell better?

The findings of these studies resonate with the gut feeling of many in contemporary academiathat a lot of published research findings may be false, wrote the Guardian. Just like any other information source, academic journals may contain fake news.

Not even science can be trusted?

Every year, Oxford Dictionaries selects a word or expression that epitomizes the social discourse of the year. 2016s choice?

Post-truth. It means: Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

Thats rather fittingrather disturbing and rather alarming.

We increasingly live in a post-truth world. And the ramifications are only beginning. According to Richard Edelman: lack of belief in the system + economic and societal fears + loss of trust in institutions = populism.

Hes wrong. It doesnt just result in populism. It leads to tyranny and anarchy.

When populism runs rampant, history shows that tyranny is not far behind. Dictatorial leaders follow. And when the system eventually breaksbecause people fail to solve the cause of problems (think Communist Russia and Boris Yeltsin)then anarchy results.

And a whole new system is needed.

This is exactly what America needs. A new system. One that brings happiness, prosperity, justice.

There are solutions to this worlds problems. But people need to be willing to listen and actually do the things God says lead to happiness and peace.

So there are some dark days coming, but God also says that beyond the darkness is fantastic light.

And that is a truth you can trust in.

Go here to see the original:

Poll: Most American Adults Believe in Human Evolution - theTrumpet.com