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If youre ever feeling down, do yourself a favor and watch some footage from the 2015 Darpa Robotics Challenge. This competition of bipedal beasts put robots up against a number of challenges, from turning valves to driving a car. But they struggled to open doors, much less stand for a decent amount of time. The verdict? Our face-planting future robotic overlords could stand some improvements.

Oh, how the world laughed. And oh, how the world gasped when Boston Dynamics dropped a video of its newest bot, Handle, this week. Its also a bipedbut with wheels instead of feet, screaming around a building and leaping four feet high and doing pirouettes because why the hell not.

Handle isnt just a startling reminder that highly sophisticated robots are here and stealing jobs, but that humans can create robotic forms superior to anything youll find in nature. And Im not just talking about strength. What Boston Dynamics has done with Handle is take what natural selection has craftedthe human formand turned it into a more efficient chimera. Its created an evolutionary marvel.

Dont get me wrongthe human body is a masterpiece of evolution. Walking on two legs frees up our hands, for one, allowing us to manipulate our environment. But it also has its drawbacks. Two legs are far less stable than four. Thats not so much a problem for humans with years of practice, but a serious problem if youre trying to build a bipedal robot that doesnt fall on its face.

Should you crack that problem, though, you have a machine that can navigate a world built for humans like a human. It can climb stairs and open doors. Hell, it could even drive a car if need be. Creating robots in our image is part egomania, sure, but its more about inventing machines that could one day explore places made for bipeds. For instance, taking care of your grandma in her two-story house.

Would Handle be good at that sort of thing? Probably notjust you try climbing stairs on rollerblades. (Boston Dynamics did not reply to a request for comment. About the robot, not the rollerblades.) But if Boston Dynamics video is any indication, its form would do nicely in a warehouse as a heavy lifter or patrolling with soldiers as a kind of pack animal. (The US military wanted the firms BigDog quadruped for such a purpose, but rejected it in 2015 because it was too noisy.) And really, no one robot will be a universal solution. Wheeled bots are great on wide open plains, tracked robots rock when traversing rubble, and bipeds rule buildings built for people.

But what about a robot that can transform itself for each environment? We can wear various contraptions to allow us to skate on ice, go underwater for days at a time, and even fly to the moon, says roboticist Jerry Pratt of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. But we take those skates and space suits off when we return indoors. It would be great to see a version of the Boston Dynamics Handle robot that can roll around fast on city streets but then take off its wheels and walk inside a building.

Indeed, it was a hybrid robot that won the Darpa Robotics Challenge in 2015. South Koreas DRC-HUBO looked like a humanoid, but could actually kneel and scoot around on wheels. And it crushed the competition of almost entirely bipedal humanoids. They won so much time by going over flat terrain with wheels that they had this huge advantage, says roboticist Hanumant Singh of Northeastern University. I think [Handle] is somewhat of a reaction to that.

Whats remarkable about Handle is that it has essentially one-upped evolution. Natural selection never saw fit to give a mammal wheels, for obvious reasonsyoud need a motor and bearings and a perfectly flat world and lets face it I dont need to tell you why natural selection never invented the wheel. But wheels are extremely energy-efficient. So much so that Boston Dynamics claims Handle can travel 15 miles on a charge. Just imagine a bipedal robot trying to stumble that far. (Boston Dynamics Atlas bipedal robot manages about an hour on a charge.)

Handle is an academic robot for now, so dont expect one for Christmas this year. But it represents something exhilarating: Humans are getting very, very good at taking the bipedalism that evolution gave us and not only replicating it in robots, but supercharging it to a quite honestly terrifying degree. Take that, Darwin.

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Boston Dynamics' New Rolling, Leaping Robot Is an Evolutionary Marvel - WIRED

How protein misfolding may kickstart chemical evolution Science Daily Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is well-established -- organisms adapt over time in response to environmental changes. But theories about how life emerges -- the movement through a pre-Darwinian world to the Darwinian threshold ...

The rest is here:

How protein misfolding may kickstart chemical evolution - Science Daily

February 28, 2017 Belemnoteuthis antiquus NHM OR25966, a 166 million year old exceptionally preserved extinct squid-relative was found near Bristol (Christian Malford). These ancient cephalopods with their large internal shell were not as fast as their recently evolved relatives, which survived until today's squid and cuttlefish. Credit: Jonathan Jackson and Zo Hughes, NHMUK

Octopus, cuttlefish and squid are well known in the invertebrate world. With their ink-squirting decoy technique, ability to change colour, bizarre body plan and remarkable intelligence they highlight that lacking a back-bone doesn't always mean lacking sophistication.

Examining their deep evolutionary past, researchers have been spoiled by their generous fossil record, as demonstrated by drawer after drawer of ammonites and belemnites in every natural history museum shop. But, the mostly shell-less modern cephalopods have been less easy to understand.

Now a new study, led by researchers from the University of Bristol, has found out how these remarkable creatures evolved by comparing their fossil records with the evolutionary history chronicled in their gene sequences to shed light on their origins.

Published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, it shows that the cephalopods diversified into the familiar modern octopuses, cuttlefish and squid during a time of great change in the marine world, known as the Mesozoic Marine Revolution, 160 to 100 million years in the past.

Lead author, Al Tanner, a PhD student at the University of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, is a molecular biologist and bioinformatician at the Bristol Palaeobiology Research Groupa world leading evolutionary research group.

He said: "On land this was the time of the dinosaurs, but beneath the seas, ecologies were changing rapidly. Fish, squid and their predators were locked in evolutionary 'arms-races', leading to increasingly speedy and agile predators and prey.

"The cephalopods are now known to have also been caught up in this major transition, evolving to lose the shells of their ancestors and develop as dynamic and uniquely adapted marine animals."

The researchers used a technique called molecular clocks to investigate the timing of when the groups split from each other. Bristol co-author, Professor Davide Pisani, added: "Complex Bayesian models take all sorts of information into account to build a tree of evolutionary time.

"The key element of molecular clocks though is the fact that mutations steadily accumulate in genetic material over time - so by figuring out how many mutations per million years you find, and how it may vary between different groups, we can estimate evolutionary time."

Al Tanner said: "The molecular clock results can be compared to the fossil record. What we see is that while there is some uncertainty in molecular clock estimates, octopuses and squid appear during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution and the two lines of evidence come together to tell the tale of evolution".

Co-author Dr Jakob Vinther said: "By having a reduced internal skeleton compared to their ancient relatives, the modern squids and octopuses could compress their body and more efficiently jet away leaving a baffling cloud of ink with the attacking predator. Before the predator realises what has happened and gains clear view again, the squid is far out of sight."

Al Tanner added: "The research exemplifies why evolutionary biologists are increasingly seeking to understand deep history from the combined study of both living organisms and the geological record. Through this synoptic view, so called molecular palaeontologists are transforming our understanding of how life became so complex and diverse."

Explore further: Despite multicolor camouflage, cuttlefish, squid and octopus are colorblind

More information: Molecular clocks indicate turnover and diversification of modern coleoid cephalopods during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rspb.2016.2818

Researchers at The University of Queensland have established that colourful coastal cephalopods are actually colourblind but can still manage to blend beautifully with their surroundings.

(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has found a trove of marine fossils at a North American site that offers evidence of life bouncing back faster than thought after the most devastating mass extinction in Earth's ...

A study by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum sheds new light on a previously unclassifiable 500 million-year-old squid-like carnivore known as Nectocaris pteryx.

A team of researchers from the University of Bristol studying the 'living fossil' Sphenodon - or tuatara - have identified a new way to measure the evolutionary rate of these enigmatic creatures, giving credence to Darwin's ...

A previously undiscovered species of an extinct primordial giant worm with terrifying snapping jaws has been identified by an international team of scientists.

The researchers from the Bristol Palaeobiology Group, part of the School of Earth Sciences, studied the best way to understand relationships of extinct animals to other extinct species as well as those alive today.

Intensive selective breeding over the past 200 years and high extinction rates among feral populations has greatly reduced the genetic diversity present in domestic goat breeds. The effect these pressures have had on Irish ...

Octopus, cuttlefish and squid are well known in the invertebrate world. With their ink-squirting decoy technique, ability to change colour, bizarre body plan and remarkable intelligence they highlight that lacking a back-bone ...

A University of Florida study shows that mollusk fossils provide a reliable measure of human-driven changes in marine ecosystems and shifts in ocean biodiversity across time and space.

Organic additives found in road salt alternativessuch as those used in the commercial products GeoMelt and Magic Saltact as a fertilizer to aquatic ecosystems, promoting the growth of algae and organisms that eat algae, ...

The Zika virus taking hold of the inner organelles of human liver and neural stem cells has been captured via light and electron microscopy. In Cell Reports on February 28, researchers in Germany show how the African and ...

In the world of fungi, Aspergillus is an industrial superstar. Aspergillus niger, for example, has been used for decades to produce citric acida compound frequently added to foods and pharmaceuticals through fermentation ...

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Shedding new light on the evolution of the squid - Phys.Org

A reconstruction of Anchiornus, based on the new data. (Credit: Julius T. Csotonyi)

Firing lasers at fossils continues to be a winning strategy for paleontologists.

The new techniquebrings hidden details in fossils to the forefront, including remnants of soft tissue invisible to the naked eye. And a team of researchers from China is using the laser-assisted images to help piece together the evolutionary process that turned dinosaurs into the birds we know today.

In a paper published Tuesday inNature Communications, the team fixedits lasers onto a small feathered dinosaur calledAnchiornus to better understand its morphology. The technique, called laser-stimulated fluorescence (LSF), causes minerals within the bones to light up in different colors, betraying thesoft tissues they once were.

An arm of Anchiornus, imaged with laser-stimulated fluorescence. (Credit: Wang XL, Pittman M et al. 2017)

With the new perspective, the researchers spotted a host of bird-like traits inAnchiornus, revealing that avian characteristics were present in some dinosaurs even 160 million years ago.

They found that the dinosaur had drumstick legs, a thin tail and footpads that closely resemble those of modern chickens. In addition, Anchiornuspossessed a structure called a propatagium, found on the front edge of birds wings, which is crucial for flight. Under a microscope, these soft tissues remain hidden, but with the help of lasers, they stand out in psychedelic colors.

Two images showing the fossil under normal light (top) and LSF (bottom). The inset image shows the chicken-like footpads. (Credit: Wang XL, Pittman M et al. 2017)

Anchiornus dates to the late Jurassic Period, which is whenpaleontologists believe birds were just beginning to appear. Finding bird-like features in this dinosaur allows researchers to better track this transition, in addition to offering hints of how vertebrates first developed the ability to fly.

The propatagia they found in Anchiornus look very similar to those found in modern gliding birds, they say, giving them some clues to its function.It still isnt clear, though, if the feathery dinosaurs were able to get off the ground or if the structures merelyrepresent an intermediate step onthe path to flight.

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Lasers Illuminate the Evolution of Flight - Discover Magazine (blog)

Weve known for some time now that Apple has an interest in Augmented Reality (AR). What is it, and why does the iPhone need it? Is AR just another gadget to keep us in an upgrade frame of mind? Or is it fundamental to the evolution of the device we call an iPhone?

I first came across AR when I was reviewing an iOS app called Sun Seeker. This is a fabulous app for surveyors, geologists, movie studios, home builders, navigators and amateur astronomers. It tells you everything about the Sun you need to know from an observational standpoint.

Screen shot from the Sun Seeker iOS app.

Notable is its use of AR to identify the location of the Sun, even if its hidden by clouds, trees or buildings. I bring this up because a fast computer in ones pocket that knows its location and has great optics can be a powerful tool when it comes to overlaying technical information on top of visual information.

The above is a simple example. AR can be much more sophisticated. Heres the definition from Wikipedia:

Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

There are two important aspects of AR to explore. First, AR represents a natural evolutionary trend for a smartphone. With LTE-class communication, GPS, image processing and even future sensory data such as echo-location and/or range finding, its only natural for a strictly visual image on an iPhones display to be supplemented with everything thats applicable to that image.

This is why I insist that the iPhone and smartphones in general, as a concept, will continue to evolve technically. Sure, the Lightning port will go away. The display technology will improve. Communication speeds will get better. Materials science will get better. But the basic idea of having a fast, communicative device in your pocket (or worn or implanted) will never go away.

For more about this, see: Phil Schiller on iPhones Launch, How It Changed Apple, and Why It Will Keep Going for 50 Years. Quoting:

Schiller hopes that 50 years people will look back at this point and say, Wow, they didnt realize how much was to comein fact, others missed it because they were busy running around looking for other things. Everyone has their opinions at this point, but it could be that were only in the first minutes of the first quarter of the game, he says. I believe this product is so great that it has many years of innovation ahead.

And hes right. AR is proof of the opportunities, not a dreamed up fad.

The second aspect to explore is that onecan plainly see some of the opportunities for AR and Apple. First, remember that the smartphone, of which there are billions on the planet, is the modern technical standard. Not eyeglasses, such as the ill-fated Google Glass. So AR on the iPhone isnt a diversion from eyeglasses; its in its rightful, cultural place.

Next, as UBS analyst Steve Milunovich points out, a related technology, Virtual Reality (VR) requires tremendous computational resources and dorky headsets. That isolates people from reality, something the smartphone already does all too well.

AR, instead, connects people to reality. AR can give us additional insights about the settingwerein. For example, at a party, facial recognition can quickly tell you the name of your new boss across the room whose name you forgot. It looks like youre taking a party photo, but a callout on the iPhones display augments your own reality with a reminder.

Recently, Tim Cook was interviewed by The Independent and explained his feelings about AR. Notable:

I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining. I view AR like I view the silicon here in my iPhone, its not a product per se, its a core technology. I do think there can be a lot of things that really help people out in daily life, real-life things, thats why I get so excited about it.

One AR notion is that of better navigating indoors. Structural and content information broadcast to smartphones can go a long way towards helping people avoid tiresome searches in large buildings, stores or libraries. Construction and maintenance crews can have a much better visual idea about underground pipes and cables. There are opportunities for AR in education. See: How to Transform Your Classroom With Augmented Reality.

The possibilities are just about endless, and theyre all enabled by a device with 64-bit computational power, exceptional graphics power, a great display and very fast communications.

Even as the iPhone develops further, I think well spend many years exploring the possibilities when it comes to to Augmented Reality. There could even come a day when a mere voice phone call to another person will become so quaint, it will be slowly dropped from the smartphone feature set. But itll still be called a phone, just like we call a cable modem a modem when it isnt.

I dont know about Phil Schillers claim of 50 years, but this device we call an iPhone will be around for a long time. Were getting ARtechnology in the near future because its nowenabled by a confluence of other technologies, not because its just another cool thing to do.

Original post:

Augmented Reality is a Natural Part of the iPhone's Technical Evolution - The Mac Observer (blog)

What We Can Expect in 2017

This leads us back to 2017 and what we think Google has in store for us. The reins were loosened on backlinks thanks to Penguin 4.0, but we dont know for how long. Google has said they are not planning on announcing any new updates to their Penguin algorithm, but I would expect them to eventually tighten up the reins again. People in the SEO community will see how far they can test the limits, which will eventually lead Google towards placing more control on the issue.

We can certainly expect more updates that emphasize a positive mobile experience for Google users. I suspect its going to expand the use of AMP and place greater importance on those pages. Also, the growing trend is to enhance the search results page with search features that include carousels, rich cards, knowledge graphs, and answer boxes. With Google favoring these types of search results, this will place more emphasis on adding structured data. Google keeps adding more types of rich cards and if you have a website that applies, youll want to mark up your site. In 2017, your goal could be to rely less on ranking #1 and more on showing up in other search feature areas on page 1.

An example of rich cards for hotels.

Movie rich cards in the SERPs.

There has been a surge of fake news sites lately and Google had to remove 200 sitesfor promoting misrepresentative content from its ad network. Facebook is doing the same. Removing these publishers from the ad network is only the first step. If this continues,I would expect to see a new Panda update that targets fake news site as low quality websites.

The other side of the search algorithm is paid search advertising. Google AdWords now takes the top four spots, when it used to only be the top three spots, further pushingdown organic search results. At this rate, organic search results will soon be pushed to page two. Ok, Im being dramatic again, but if that ever happens I predict the end of Google and rise of Bing. I, for one, welcome our new search robot overlords.

4 spots are now dedicated to Adwords, pushing the organic results further down the page.

Being #1 on Google is now less visible, and we all will need to adapt or risk losing out on valuable organic traffic. Google will continue to add new features for their advertisers to entice the searcher to click on their ad, lessening the need for people to scroll down to find the organic search results. Google gets most its revenue from AdWords, so expect them to keep adding features and manipulating the search results page to do whats best to drive paid clicks.

Keeping up with Google sounds exhausting but if you keep at the fundamentals, your site will thrive. In the end, Google just wants to give the searcher what theyre looking for. Its just good business. This means creating quality content that searchers are looking for. This is the best advice I can give you on future-proofing your SEO because it all comes back to that. In all honesty, the only Google update Im really looking forward to is when that Google self-driving car comes out. I look forward to texting and not driving.

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The Google Search Algorithm Evolution of 2017 - Vertical Measures (blog)

Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different lineages. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups. The cladistic term for the same phenomenon is homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight is a classic example, as flying insects, birds, and bats have independently evolved the useful capacity of flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are analogous, whereas homologous structures or traits have a common origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions.

The opposite of convergence is divergent evolution, where related species evolve different traits. Convergent evolution is similar to but different from parallel evolution. Parallel evolution occurs when two independent but similar species evolve in the same direction and thus independently acquire similar characteristics; for instance, gliding frogs have evolved in parallel from multiple types of tree frog.

Many instances of convergent evolution are known in plants, including the repeated development of C4 photosynthesis, seed dispersal by fleshy fruits adapted to be eaten by animals, and carnivory.

In morphology, analogous traits arise when different species live in similar ways and/or a similar environment, and so face the same environmental factors. When occupying similar ecological niches (that is, a distinctive way of life) similar problems can lead to similar solutions.[1][2][3] The British anatomist Richard Owen was the first to identify the fundamental difference between analogies and homologies.[4]

In biochemistry, physical and chemical constraints on mechanisms have caused some active site arrangements such as the catalytic triad to evolve independently in separate enzyme superfamilies.[5]

In his 1989 book Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould argued that if one could "rewind the tape of life [and] the same conditions were encountered again, evolution could take a very different course".[6]Simon Conway Morris disputes this conclusion, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution, and given that the same environmental and physical constraints are at work, life will inevitably evolve toward an "optimum" body plan, and at some point, evolution is bound to stumble upon intelligence, a trait presently identified with at least primates, corvids, and cetaceans.[7]

In cladistics, a homoplasy is a trait shared by two or more taxa for any reason other than that they share a common ancestry. Taxa which do share ancestry are part of the same clade; cladistics seeks to arrange them according to their degree of relatedness to describe their phylogeny. Homoplastic traits caused by convergence are therefore, from the point of view of cladistics, confounding factors which could lead to an incorrect analysis.[8][9][10][11]

In some cases, it is difficult to tell whether a trait has been lost and then re-evolved convergently, or whether a gene has simply been switched off and then re-enabled later. Such a re-emerged trait is called an atavism. From a mathematical standpoint, an unused gene (selectively neutral) has a steadily decreasing probability of retaining potential functionality over time. The time scale of this process varies greatly in different phylogenies; in mammals and birds, there is a reasonable probability of remaining in the genome in a potentially functional state for around 6 million years.[12]

When two species are similar in a particular character, evolution is defined as parallel if the ancestors were also similar, and convergent if they were not.[a] Some scientists have argued that there is a continuum between parallel and convergent evolution, while others maintain that despite some overlap, there are still important distinctions between the two.[13][14][15]

When the ancestral forms are unspecified or unknown, or the range of traits considered is not clearly specified, the distinction between parallel and convergent evolution becomes more subjective. For instance, the striking example of similar placental and marsupial forms is described by Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker as a case of convergent evolution, because mammals on each continent had a long evolutionary history prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs under which to accumulate relevant differences.[16]

The enzymology of proteases provides some of the clearest examples of convergent evolution. These examples reflect the intrinsic chemical constraints on enzymes, leading evolution to converge on equivalent solutions independently and repeatedly.[5][17]

Serine and cysteine proteases use different amino acid functional groups (alcohol or thiol) as a nucleophile. In order to activate that nucleophile, they orient an acidic and a basic residue in a catalytic triad. The chemical and physical constraints on enzyme catalysis have caused identical triad arrangements to evolve independently more than 20 times in different enzyme superfamilies.[5]

Threonine proteases use the amino acid threonine as their catalytic nucleophile. Unlike cysteine and serine, threonine is a secondary alcohol (i.e. has a methyl group). The methyl group of threonine greatly restricts the possible orientations of triad and substrate, as the methyl clashes with either the enzyme backbone or the histidine base. Consequently, most threonine proteases use an N-terminal threonine in order to avoid such steric clashes. Several evolutionarily independent enzyme superfamilies with different protein folds use the N-terminal residue as a nucleophile. This commonality of active site but difference of protein fold indicates that the active site evolved convergently in those families.[5][18]

Convergence occurs at the level of DNA and amino acids. In 2013 the first genome-wide study of convergence was published. Comparisons of the genomes of echolocating bats and the dolphin identified numerous convergent amino acid substitutions in genes implicated in hearing and vision.[19]

Swimming animals including fish such as herrings, marine mammals such as dolphins, and ichthyosaurs (of the Mesozoic) all converged on the same streamlined shape.[20][21] The fusiform bodyshape (a tube tapered at both ends) adopted by many aquatic animals is an adaptation to enable them to travel at high speed in a high drag environment.[22] Similar body shapes are found in the earless seals and the eared seals: they still have four legs, but these are strongly modified for swimming.[23]

The marsupial fauna of Australia and the placental mammals of the Old World have several strikingly similar forms, developed in two clades, isolated from each other.[7] The body and especially the skull shape of the thylacine (Tasmanian wolf) converged with those of Canidae such as the red fox, Vulpes vulpes.[24]

As a sensory adaptation, echolocation has evolved separately in cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and bats, but from the same genetic mutations.[25]

One of the best-known examples of convergent evolution is the camera eye of cephalopods (such as squid and octopus), vertebrates (including mammals) and cnidaria (such as jellyfish).[27] Their last common ancestor had at most a simple photoreceptive spot, but a range of processes led to the progressive refinement of camera eyes with one sharp difference: the cephalopod eye is "wired" in the opposite direction, with blood and nerve vessels entering from the back of the retina, rather than the front as in vertebrates. This means that cephalopods do not have a blind spot.[7]

Birds and bats have homologous limbs as they are both ultimately derived from terrestrial tetrapods, but their flight mechanisms are only analogous, so their wings are examples of functional convergence. The two groups have powered flight, evolved independently. Their wings differ substantially in construction. The bat wing is a membrane stretched across four extremely elongated fingers and the legs. The airfoil of the bird wing is made of feathers, strongly attached to the forearm (the ulna) and the highly fused bones of the wrist and hand (the carpometacarpus), with only tiny remnants of two fingers remaining, each anchoring a single feather. So, while the wings of bats and birds are functionally convergent, they are not anatomically convergent.[3][28] Similarly, the extinct pterosaur also shows an independent evolution of vertebrate fore- and hindlimbs to wing. An even more distantly related group, the insects, have wings that evolved separately from different organs.[29]

Flying squirrels and sugar gliders are much alike in their body plans with gliding wings stretched between their limbs, but flying squirrels are placental mammals while sugar gliders are marsupials, widely separated within the mammal lineage.[30]

Insect mouthparts show many examples of convergent evolution. The mouthparts of different insect groups consist of a set of homologous organs, specialised for the dietary intake of that insect group. Convergent evolution of many groups of insects led from original biting-chewing mouthparts to different, more specialised, derived function types. These include, for example, the proboscis of flower-visiting insects such as bees and flower beetles,[31][32][33] or the biting-sucking mouthparts of blood-sucking insects such as fleas and mosquitos.

Opposable thumbs allowing the grasping of objects are most often associated with primates, like humans, monkeys, apes, and lemurs. Opposable thumbs also evolved in pandas, but these are completely different in structure, having six fingers including the thumb, which develops from a wrist bone entirely separately from other fingers.[34]

Convergent evolution in humans includes blue eye colour and light skin colour. When humans migrated out of Africa, they moved to more northern latitudes with less intense sunlight. It was beneficial to them to reduce their skin pigmentation. It appears certain that there was some lightening of skin colour before European and Chinese lineages diverged, as there are some skin-lightening genetic differences that are common to both groups. However, after the lineages diverged and became genetically isolated, the skin of both groups lightened more, and that additional lightening was due to different genetic changes.[35]

Lemurs and humans are both primates. Ancestral primates had brown eyes, as most primates do today. The genetic basis of blue eyes in humans has been studied in detail and much is known about it. It is not the case that one gene locus is responsible, say with brown dominant to blue eye color. However, a single locus is responsible for about 80% of the variation. In lemurs, the difference(s) between blue and brown eyes are not completely known, but the same gene locus is not involved.[36]

While convergent evolution is often illustrated with animal examples, it has often occurred in plant evolution. For instance, C4 photosynthesis, one of the three major carbon-fixing biochemical processes, has arisen independently up to 40 times.[37][38] About 7,600 plant species of angiosperms use C4 carbon fixation, with many monocots including 46% of grasses such as maize and sugar cane,[39][40] and dicots including several species in the Chenopodiaceae and the Amaranthaceae.[41][42]

A good example of convergence in plants is the evolution of edible fruits such as apples. These pomes incorporate (five) carpels and their accessory tissues forming the apple's core, surrounded by structures from outside the botanical fruit, the receptacle or hypanthium. Other edible fruits include other plant tissues;[43] for example, the fleshy part of a tomato is the walls of the pericarp.[44] This implies convergent evolution under selective pressure, in this case the competition for seed dispersal by animals through consumption of fleshy fruits.[45]

The emergence of seed dispersal by ants (myrmecochory) has evolved independently more than 100 times, and is present in more than 11,000 plant species. It is one of the most dramatic examples of convergent evolution in biology.[46]

Carnivory has evolved multiple times independently in plants in widely separated groups. In three species studied, Cephalotus follicularis, Nepenthes alata and Sarracenia purpurea, there has been convergence at the molecular level. Carnivorous plants secrete enzymes into the digestive fluid they produce. By studying phosphatase, glycoside hydrolase, glucanase, RNAse and chitinase enzymes as well as a pathogenesis-related protein and a thaumatin-related protein, the authors found many convergent amino acid substitutions. These changes were not at the enzymes' catalytic sites, but rather on the exposed surfaces of the proteins, where they might interact with other components of the cell or the digestive fluid. The authors also found that homologous genes in the non-carnivorous plant Arabidopsis thaliana tend to have their expression increased when the plant is stressed, leading the authors to suggest that stress-responsive proteins have often been co-opted[b] in the repeated evolution of carnivory.[47]

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Convergent evolution - Wikipedia

Autism genes may have been conserved during human evolution because they make us smarter, say scientists.

More inherited genetic variants linked to autism have been naturally selected than would be expected by chance, a study has shown.

The same variants were associated with traits linked to brain performance, such as molecular functions involved in the creation of new neurons.

Lead researcher Dr Renato Polimanti, from Yale School of Medicine in the US, said: We found a strong positive signal that, along with autism spectrum disorder, these variants are also associated with intellectual achievement.

Under the laws of natural selection outlined by Charles Darwin, evolutionary variants that have a negative impact on reproductive success are quickly eliminated from a population.

But those providing a better chance of survival tend to remain for generation after generation, if their advantages outweigh their adverse effects.

Meet the Labrador changing the life of a little boy with autism

Study co-author Professor Joel Gelernter, from Yale University, said: It might be difficult to imagine why the large number of gene variants that together give rise to traits like ASD (autism spectrum disorder) are retained in human populations.

Why aren't they just eliminated by evolution?.

The idea is that during evolution these variants that have positive effects on cognitive function were selected, but at a cost - in this case an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders."

The scientists, whose findings are published in the journal Public Library of Science Genetics, studied more than 5,000 cases of ASD and conducted an analysis of evolutionary gene selection.

PA

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Autism genes conserved during human evolution to make us ... - The Independent

For those in Pokemon GO about to evolve their Eevee into the first Espeon or Umbreon theyve ever had, pay attention. The most recent chart of Eevolutions, methods, and best potential outcomes has arrived. Barring all Pokemon GO hacks and whatnot, were having a look at the insides of the software to show you exactly whats possible for Eevee in the wild.

The first thing were going to do is list the most updated chart on whats possible with wild Eevee captures. This list includes the minimum CP and the max CP available for Eevee given power level. The minimum CP of any given Eevee is 10, while the max CP is 969. A max CP Eevee is extremely rare.

Eevee Wild Capture Stats: Max Wild Capture: 830 CP Global Spawn Rate: 2.75% Capture Rate: 30%+ Flee Rate: 10% Max Egg Hatch: 615 CP Egg Hatch Rate: 18%

As such, theres just under 3 Eevee hiding in every 100 Pokemon that pop up around the world at any given moment. The rarity of Eevee in general is dictated by the region in which the user is standing. Eevee is not a region-specific Pokemon, so theres nowhere where Eevee CANT pop up, but itll be more common in places like Residential Neighborhoods and University Campuses.

For those that wish to power up an Eevee before evolving dont even. Using Stardust to power up an Eevee costs the same as an Eevee as it does in any evolved form. It does not matter what evolution the Eevee is at any given time.

Pokemon have a hidden Level which dictates their minimum and maximum CP. Every Pokemon is always a Level between 1 and 40, and each time Stardust is given to a Pokemon, it grows 0.5 level. To raise the level of an Eevee from level 21 to level 21.5, itll cost a trainer 3000 Stardust. To raise the level of any evolved form of Eevee from level 21 to level 21.5, itll cost a trainer 3000 Stardust.

When evolving a Pokemon any Pokemon trainers should ALWAYS wait until the full evolution is complete before deciding to add Stardust. The final evolution will show what moves the Pokemon can do and theyre not always great. For Eevee, the final evolution can be one of five entirely different Pokemon that each have their own unique set of possible moves. Leveling up an Eevee before evolution is not a great idea.

In general its best to wait until finding an Eevee thats as close to maximum level as possible before evolving. Maximum level for Eevee in the wild is 30 thats the same for every Pokemon in the Pokemon GO universe. As such, the max WILD CAPTURE for Eevee is 830 CP.

SEE TOO: How to get Espeon or Umbreon in Pokemon GO

The best Eevee available in the wild will be between 642 CP and 830 CP. Once that Eevee is captured, it can be leveled up with Stardust up to level 40, where its max CP will be between 749 and 969. Again, dont DO that see Section 2. But thats the range youre dealing with.

Eevee Worth Evolving Minimum: 200+ CP* Maximum: 830 CP

*This is our opinion anything less than this and the Eevelution isnt going to be a worthy Gym attacker or defender. This is really up to you, when it comes down to it especially if youre targeting Pokemon types with types that are strong against certain types. If youre battling another Vaporeon, for example, you could potentially beat a level 2,000 with a Jolteon of level 1,000 since water is weak against lightning.

In the end it all comes down to what you want and what youre willing to wait for. For more information on HOW to get the Eevee evolution types youre wishing to get, including Jolteon, Vaporeon, Flareon, Espeon, or Umbreon, have a peek at the timeline below. Weve got more guides than youll know what to do with.

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Pokemon GO update: Eevee evolution charts tweaked - SlashGear

BOSTON In humans mysterious journey to become intelligent, socializing creatures like no other in the animal world, one innovation played an essential role: religion.

Thats the theory that a preeminent evolutionary scientist is setting out to prove.

You need something quite literally to stop everybody from killing everybody else out of just crossness, said Robin Dunbar. Somehow its clear that religions, all these doctrinal religions, create the sense that were all one family.

[Fear of a vengeful God may explain humanitys global expansion]

Dunbar, an evolutionary psychology professor at Oxford University, gained some measure of fame more than 20 years ago for his research on the size of animals social networks. Each species of primate, he found, can manage to keep up a social bond with a certain number of other members of its own species. That number goes up as primates brain size increases, from monkeys to apes.

Humans, Dunbar found, are capable of maintaining significantly more social ties than the size of our brains alone could explain. He proved that each human is surprisingly consistent in the number of social ties we can maintain: About five with intimate friends, 50 with good friends, 150 with friends and 1,500 with people we could recognize by name. That discovery came to be known as Dunbars number.

And then Dunbar turned to figuring out why Dunbars number is so high. Did humor help us manage it? Exercise? Storytelling? That riddle has been Dunbars quest for years and religion is the latest hypothesis hes testing in his ongoing attempt to find the answer.

Most of these things were looking at, you get in religion in one form or another, he said.

[Harvard Medical School professor says faith-based miracle cures could be real]

Dunbar is just one of a recent wave of scientists who are interested in how religion came to be and how people have benefited from it. For most of Western intellectual history since the Enlightenment, religion has been thought of as ignorant and strange and an aberration and something that gets in the way of reason, said Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame who studies religion. In the last 10 or 20 years on many fronts, theres been a change in thinking about religion, where a lot of neuroscientists have been saying religion is totally natural. It totally makes sense that were religious. Religion has served a lot of important functions in developing societies.

In the case of Dunbar and his colleagues, they already published research demonstrating that two other particularly human behaviors increased peoples capacity for social bonding. In the lab, they showed that first, laughter, and second, singing, left research subjects more capable of forming connections with other people than they were before.

Religion is the remaining key to explaining humans remarkable social networks, Dunbar thinks. These three things are very good at triggering endorphins, making us feel bonded, he said last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting, where he presented his teams research on laughter and singing and introduced the forthcoming research on religion.

[Religion doesnt necessarily influence Americans views on science, with two big exceptions]

Religion includes numerous elements of Dunbars earlier studies on endorphin-producing activities. Lots of singing, to start. Repetitive motion triggers endorphins, he said, noting that traditions from Catholicism to Islam to Buddhism to Hinduism make use of prayer beads.

Plus, researchers have shown that doing these activities in synchronized fashion with other people drastically magnifies the endorphin-producing effect: Picture the coordinated bowing that is central to Muslim, Jewish and Catholic worship.

And Dunbars most recent published research demonstrated the effectiveness of emotional storytelling in bonding groups of strangers who hear the story together again, a fixture of religious worship.

What you get from dance and singing on its own is a sense of belonging. It happens very quickly. What happens, I suspect, is that it can trigger very easily trance states, Dunbar said. He theorizes that these spiritual experiences matter much more than dance and song alone. Once youve triggered that, youre in, I think, a different ballgame. It ramps up massively. Thats whats triggered. Theres something there.

Dunbars team will start research on religion in April, and he expects it will take three years. To begin, he wants to map a sort of evolutionary tree of religion, using statistical modeling to try to show when religious traditions evolved and how they morphed into each other.

Of course, religious people themselves might find Dunbars theory odd most dont think of religion existing to serve an evolutionary purpose, but of their faiths simply being true.

But Smith thinks one can easily have faith in both Gods truth and religions role in human development. From the religious point of view, you can say this . God created humans as a very particular type of creature, with very particular brains and biology, just so that they would develop into the type of humans who would know God and believe in God, Smith said. Theyre not in conflict at all.

He added: A lot of people assume, falsely, that science and religion are zero-sum games: that if science explains something, then religion must not be true. If you were God and wanted to set up the world in a certain way, wouldnt you create humans with bigger brains and the ability to imagine?

One more research finding onthe place of God in our brains remember Dunbars number, the five intimate friends and 50 good friends and 150 friends each person can hold onto? Dunbar says that if a person feels he or she has a close relationship with a spiritual figure, like God or the Virgin Mary, then that spiritual personage actually fills up one of those numbered spots, just like a human relationship would. One of your closest friends, scientifically speaking, might be God.

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A scientist's new theory: Religion was key to humans' social evolution - Washington Post