Peppered Moth

Peppered MothsBritain’s peppered moth has long served as an evolution icon. This month, a new genetic discovery unravels the moth’s once iconic status. As ScienceDaily reports –

“Researchers from the University of Liverpool, have identified and dated the genetic mutation that gave rise to the black form of the peppered moth, which spread rapidly during Britain’s industrial revolution. The new findings solve a crucial missing piece of the puzzle in this iconic textbook example of evolution by natural selection.”

 

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R2d2 Disses Darwin

R2d2 R2D2, short for Artoo-Detoo, is best known as the fictional robotic character in the Star Wars universe series created by George Lucas. Inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003, R2D2 has since been included in the Smithsonian Institution’s list of 101 Objects that Made America.

R2D2 is the good guy, the favorite character of George Lucas – known for always saving the day at least once in every film. However, R2d2 disses Darwin.

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Evolution’s Science Status

Royal Society MeetingThe status of evolution as a science is verging closer to extinction following a workshop in Germany last month. The essence and definition of science were on center stage at this historical convening of the leading physicists and philosophers of science last month.

The meeting convened in the Romanesque-style Ludwig Maximilian University lecture hall. Science writer Natalie Wolchover covered the story for Quanta Magazine entitled “A Fight for the Soul of Science” and later reprinted on TheAtlantic.com entitled “Physicists and Philosophers Hold Peace Talks.”

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Malarial Evolution Nightmare

Malaria 3 (1)Evolution paradigms increasingly struggle to survive under the weight of new scientific evidence. The malarial evolution nightmare is the latest. “Think of a deck of cards,” said Dan Larremore in an interview with Quanta Magazine science writer Veronique Greenwood.

“Now, take a pair of scissors and chop the 52 cards into chunks. Throw them in the air. Card confetti rains down, so the pieces are nowhere near where they started. Now tape them into 52 new cards, each one a mosaic of the original cards. After 48 hours, repeat.”

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New Evolution Dilemma

Tree of LifeA new and unanticipated evolution dilemma now follows the wake of a massive new microbe discovery. Using a new technique, the number of known bacteria has been “bolstered by almost 50 percent,” according to a new article by Kevin Hartnett published in QuantaMagazine.org and reprinted in ScientificAmerica.com.

With a series of successively smaller porous filters, the University of California Banfield Group at Berkeley discovered a massive number of tiny “bacteria representing > 35 phyla… that consistently distinguished these organisms from other bacteria.”

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