Tag Archives: rapid evolution
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 […]
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 […]
Antibiotics: lesson learned?
If you aren’t yet concerned about antibiotic resistance, you should be. With totally resistant TB and nearly resistant gonorrhea and certainly other incredibly resistant pathogens, the implications are clear: we are circling back toward the pre-antibiotic age. In today’s highly traveled and far more populated world, when infection can spread around the globe in a […]
Another one bites the dust, nature conquers bioengineering — again
And another one bites the dust. Corn rootworms, once the scourge of corn growers, stymied by corn engineered to produce Bt toxin (a crystalline toxin that basically pokes holes in the guts of these worms) are back. No matter how you feel about bioengineering, this is bad news because it can only lead to increased […]
Changing the world gene by gene
Here’s the skinny: evolution is happening all the time, all around us. Living things are like one roiling mass of DNA. OK, so that’s a little over the top. But DNA is far more dynamic than once believed, and our use of toxic chemicals — from antibiotics to pesticides — is making this abundantly clear. […]
