What all experiments out there studying evolution and such? I know of those foxes in Russia, that lizard they put on 100s of separated islands and 14 years later they had a ton of differences. What else are people doing these days? Seen some studies on how trophy hunting is effecting the evolution of game animals. Some getting smaller cause we're taking all the big ones or some are getting bigger as a whole to try and have a better chance of living.
This is a big one E. coli long-term evolution experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Also, I heard about a study comparing populations of garter snakes and poisonous newts on the West Coast. Sub-populations of the snakes had evolved immunity to the neurotoxin in the newt's skin, and the levels of resistance corresponded to the levels of toxic newts in the area.
First thing that comes to mind is the Lake Erie water snakes.King & Lawson 1994 I have a degree in evolutionary biology.. I'm sure I'll think of more when I'm not half-asleep.
well, these days, the really hot field in studying evolution is genetics. it's not only re-ordering some families or phylums or whatever by finding where everything branched away from everything else in the evolutionary tree, but it's even GUESSING when although most scientists credit the evolutionary clock with operating at a constant rate when the environment can affect the rate of evolution eg. higher radiation creates more mutations, and you're also going to have more variation of mutations to select from in a larger population, so i don't agree with the premise that the rate of variation is constant. evolution has been studied in fruit flies for a VERY long time as they have suck short life spans and you can go through many generations quickly. the russian foxes were featured in a recent PBS program about the evolution of dogs. i think it was just on this week even. long before i saw that, i once tried to use the variety of dog mutations (species) to show exactly how evolution works with an idiot who said "yeah, but that's just SELECTIVE BREEDING" DUH! evolution works through NATURAL SELECTION where the breeds we've created in a really short time span at that, are pretty much bred for recessive traits. dwarf species arise on small islands to deal with the limited food supplies. on another PBS show about evolution, they talked about a dwarf species of proto humans on a small asian island that also had dwarf elephants. while not an experiment really, during the industrial revolution, "white" moths near a coal burning plant selected for recessive black genes as that's better camouflage for that environment and all of the white moths that were in the area were eaten quickly. you could also consider genetic engineering an artificial form of evolution. oh, that reminds me. computers have been used to create "artificial life" [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA&feature=related]Simulation of Evolution by Natural Selection - YouTube[/ame]somewhere, you can even buy working prototyped models based on the designs the computer came up with. i didn't see the design in this video, but it featured a triangular base with a downward pointing piston at an angle that nudges the critter forward. there was another article i read a few years ago about using the power of computers to create new circuits through evolution, similar to what you see in that video and the computer invented one circuit that worked something like 25% better than ones designed by humans (including 1 or 2 dead end useless parts) that humans aren't able to understand exactly how it works! one other area of artificial evolution that might interest you is AI. you can read up on watson taking the jeopardy challenge, but you can talk to SEVERAL online chatbots right now if you ever wanted to have a random conversation with an AI that just spits what others have said before more or less, but that can't follow the context of whhat you just said one sentence before. it's an interesting diversion for 10 or 20 minutes at a time until you start asking one questions about it's self awareness. these are some human sims...i chatted with one a long time ago Chatbots.org - Chatbots, virtual agents, virtual assistant, chat bots, conversational agents, chatterbots list. Directory and these are just text chatbots... i've chatted with these a few more times Cleverbot.com - a clever bot - speak to an AI with some Actual Intelligence? A. L. I. C. E. The Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity Eliza Chat bot & jabberwacky - live chat bot - AI Artificial Intelligence chatbot - jabber wacky - talking robot - chatbots - chatterbot - chatterbots - jabberwocky - take a Turing Test - Loebner Prize - Chatterbox Challenge - entertainment robots, robotics, marketin etc. i know i've chatted with alice at least 3 times. i just tried eliza, and she didn't even come CLOSE to making me laugh or even understand my comment that i wanted "her" to say something funny.
They've been trying to make yeast evolve into a multicellular organism. I think they may have had some sucess with that.
What...! Flacid penis is evolving. beooweooweee Congratulations, your Flacid penis has evolved into a Full blown erection. Full blown erection has learned a new move "blow load".
I've got a bonersaurus loose in my trousers. i think we're on totally different wavelengths. you didn't get my joke, and i know not what you speak of.