Tag Archives: contemporary
Urban landscapes, where even evolution is fast-paced
It is no surprise that we humans have a powerful effect on Nature. Not just the very large footprint we leave behind on the landscape, ocean life, and the atmosphere – but on life it self. As we increasingly become aware of how quickly at least some species can evolve in response to our heavy-handed […]
Can evolution save the Tassie Devil?
Tasmanian devils are odd enough. They are homely. Bite each other a lot. They are marsupials. And they live in a place that most of us have to look up on a map (OK if we’re from the U.S. that would be most places.) That they are burdened by a truly transmissible cancer (one […]
Life Changing Chemicals
Reposted from Whole Terrain with permission; and from Island Press Field Notes We are a chemically-addicted society. I am not talking caffeine, alcohol, or painkillers–although there is plenty of that–but chemicals designed to kill. Of the nearly 37 million pounds of antibiotics used in the United States each year, some 7 million pounds are ingested […]
Evolution is just warming up
There are many ways we influence evolution in contemporary time, or in our lifetime. While I have been focused on how we influence the process by way of the chemicals we use, life evolves in response to fishing, hunting, driving, and now there is evidence that life is evolving in response to climate change. No […]
Rapid evolution, not all that bad?
In case you missed it, there’s some positive news on the rapid evolution front. We all know that HIV the virus that causes AIDS is a master of evolution. Rapidly evolving in response to both drugs and the human immune response. Yet after battling it out over several decades at the cost of too many human lives, […]
Unnatural Interview with Salon.Com
Recently had the opportunity to chat with Lindsey Abrams of Salon.com about Unnatural Selection book. Here is an excerpt from that interview: Abrams: How much time passed between the time when humans began to have this outsized effect on other organisms, and when we began to really understand the implications of that, or even that […]
An ounce of prevention is worth millions….
You take your yowling preschooler to the doctors. She is tugging on her ears. The doctor swipes the back of her throat to rule out strep. Check. But still there’s the ear thing. Is it bacterial? Viral? And if bacterial what kind? The doc takes her best guess and sends you off with a prescription […]
