X-Men: Evolution was my first experience with what I would come to learn was called shipping hell. There were so many characters and so many options for romantic pairings, and at 11 years old, I didnt know where to start.

This wasnt the most important aspect of the cartoon, which took our favorite X-Men characters and put them in a high school settingwith some of the older mutants acting as teachers and mentorsbut at the time, it was the only thing I could focus on. Would Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde get together since they seemed to be flirting a lot? Would Scott Sommers finally ask Jean Grey out? What about Rogue and Gambit? Was that a thing I should be looking out for? Is it weird because Gambit is an adult and Rogue is still in high school?

The X-Men had been around for decades at that point, and these characters were all established and well known, but this was the first time I had ever encountered them. I didnt know what to expect. I didnt know that these teens would deal with a genocidal mutant, or struggle to take control over their powers or have to battle giant robots and prejudice just for the right to exist openly. I certainly didnt see Apocalypse coming and how he would kill many of the characters outright just as the show was wrapping up.

X-Men: Evolution wasnt the first animated X-Men show on TV. That honor belonged to X-Men: The Animated Series, which ran for five seasons in the early 1990s. That one was more of a straight X-Men comics adaptation, following Charles Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters as they fought in the most recognizable of the franchises story arcs, including the Dark Phoenix saga. Most of the characters were adults by the time we caught up with them, but as the show was for kids, the creators picked a young avatar in Jubilee. She was supposed to be the main character, allowing the audience to experience the world of mutants with fresh eyes. She was new to the team and as such, had a lot to learn. You can argue that she didnt learn much, nor was she depicted in a positive manner, but the idea was there. In order to introduce those not familiar with mutants, Marvel, or X-Men, the audience needed somebody closer to their age. That was the perception anyway.

Whether or not this should be the standard in how people create adaptations of niche material for a broad audience (it probably shouldnt), it certainly helps. So when X-Men: Evolution comes along and introduces a version of the world where the bulk of the characters are teenagers, it might seem like overkill. But the X-Men has always been about a school, and its always built itself around the experiences of teens. For most, and as established in the comics, mutant powers emerged as a result of puberty in a very on-the-nose allegory. Over time as the mutants got older, it distanced itself from these experiences. But one of the core concepts of this band of heroes and villains has always been changing and metamorphosis, regardless of the characters ages. Why not put them in the middle of when those changes would be occurring?

The show revels in this concept, sometimes a little too much. Season one is bland and relies too much on those teen drama/high school elements, and not nearly enough on the comic book material, its drawing from. Its a lot of repetitive introductory episodes that highlight a mutant as they discover their powers and get recruited by Professor X or Mystique, whos putting together a Brotherhood to help Magneto out. The first episode gives us Kurt Wagner or Nightcrawler. The second Kitty Pryde, and so on for about five or six episodes. We get introduced to Spyke, a mutant created specifically for the show. Most things are kept simple and formulaic: a mutant gets introduced, has to deal with their powers. Usually, Mystique shows upand secrets are kept. For those with no knowledge of the X-Men its not obvious, but in hindsight, you cant really cast Magneto in shadow and act like its a big reveal that hes been conjuring up evil schemes for an entire season.

This shifted over time to where it seemed to find the perfect balance between the teen drama and the super heroics. There are instances where the characters have to deal with fresh teen angst, like having to go on a date at the school dance, but its spaced out among fantasy conflicts. Despite not being in high school, we get plenty of episodes where Wolverine has to deal with Weapon X, or the teachers (Storm, Professor X, and others) are faced with governmental threats on their being. By the end of season two, Earth knows about the existence of mutants, leading into the bigotry conversations that the X-Men franchise is known for in season three.

It was in this season that the show seemed to reach equilibrium in juggling all aspects of its identity. It was all genres at once: teen romance, sci-fi action, family drama, and comedy. You can have one episode that exploits the shenanigans between Nightcrawler and Toad, but also one about mental instability in which Rogue becomes overwhelmed by all the personalities shes absorbed. By season four, it went too far away from its light-hearted concept, relying too heavily on the source material it was adapting and not taking the time to have fun with the main cast. In its final season, the show became grim and hopeless.

But this transition from high school drama to large-scale comic book event shows how X-Men: Evolution was able to blend in all parts of the X-Men franchises identity. This included obscure elements from the comics, such the Morlocks.a team of disfigured, underground mutantsBolivar Trask and the Sentinels, mutants such as Mastermind, and even the Szardos family (although theyve been vastly changed from their magic-based comics identities). It even took liberties of its own, having been the space where X-23 (set to make her cinematic debut in Logan) was created. Its voice acting wasnt always great, but what it did with the story was masterful.

But any conversation on whether X-Men: Evolution pays tribute and respects the source material wouldnt work if the creators hadnt spent time crafting personal relationships between the characters. This is why when I think about the show, over 15 years later, I think about the stories that connected the characters and the events that drove them towards one person or another. I would talk about how my first fanfiction ever was written based on X-Men: Evolution, which included my first self-insert, Mary Sue OC (original character) who was the perfect mutant for Nightcrawler because she looked just like him, but I dont think youd want to hear that. But how other mutants treated Nightcrawlerfrom Kitty to Mystique to Rogueshaped his character, turning him from the class clown into a caring, sensitive soul with a complex psychology. Thats just one example, but theres also the will they/wont they nature of Scott and Jean, the way Gambit treated Rogue when she felt isolated, and the star-crossed nature of the romance between Kitty and Avalanche. Its no wonder that its basically Marvel shipping hell and that its stuck around in my mind.

A lot went down in just four seasons of animated kids television. We got a teen drama and an animated comic book. We got a serious take on the consequences of bigotry on those being targeted and moments of kickass girl power. We got Magneto, the Sentinels, and Apocalypse. We got back stories on a number of X-Men characters. We got a Legion episode over a decade before most people knew who David Haller was. We got an introductory crash course on X-Men all told through the eyes of teenagers for a young audience who could relate to simply the emotions of the main characters. If youre adopting an older, dense franchise for a younger audience, X-Men: Evolution set a template and a path. If you wanted to know more, you can always pick up the comics. Or watch the movies, or keep up with it years later. You can engross yourself in internet holes of exposition. Its a good place to start.

All four season of X-Men: Evolution currently avaiable to stream on Amazon for $14.99 per season.

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'X-Men: Evolution' Is the Gateway Drug of Comic Book Shows - Geek

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Niantic and The Pokemon Company have announced that more than 80 new Pokemon are headed to Pokemon Go this week.

The new Pokemon come from the Johto region, originally introduced in Pokemon Gold and Silver, and can be encountered in the wild starting this week. Niantic is also adding new Evolution items for evolving Pokemon, as well as new purchasable outfit and accessory options for customizing your trainer.

Got feedback on our player?

New berries will also be introduced to aid in catching Pokemon. The new Nanab Berry will slow the movements of wild Pokemon, while the Pinap Berry will double the amount of candy earned from catching a Pokemon if the next ball thrown yields a successful catch. The new berries join the Razz Berriesthat were already in the game, which can be fed to a Pokemon to make them slightly easier to catch.

While a full list of new Pokemon isnt available yet, Niantic specifically mentioned that Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile will be among the new additions. The new Pokemon coming this week join the initial set of Pokemon from generation 2 introduced to Pokemon Go in December, which included Togepi, Togetic, Pichu, Elekid, Smoochum, Magby, Igglybuff, and Cleffa.

A few of the new Pokemon and new berry types on display.

Todays announcement arrives as the Pokemon Go Valentines Day event comes to a close, ending a week of double candy rewards and extended six-hour Lure Modules.

The news also ends months of speculation about the full Johto Pokedex appearing in Pokemon Go, following details datamined from previous updates. Additional features found from datamining, including shiny Pokemon variants, have not yet been officially announced.

For much more on Pokemon Go, see IGNs Pokemon Go wiki guide, including a list of original Pokemon that evolve in generation two.

Andrew is IGN's executive editor of news and currently has a full Pokedex for the United States and Europe. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.

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Pokemon Go Adds 80 Generation 2 Pokemon, New Evolution Items This Week - IGN

Fossil discovery rewrites understanding of reproductive evolution ... Science Daily A remarkable 250-million-year-old 'terrible-headed lizard' fossil found in China shows an embryo inside the mother -- clear evidence for live birth. The fossil ... and more »

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Fossil discovery rewrites understanding of reproductive evolution ... - Science Daily

El Club in Southwest Detroit is littered with glow sticks, blow-up palm trees, and balloons. A pair of DJs with skipper hats on are warming up the room with tech-house jams. A few people are already dancing. Unaware this was a themed party, I've got a tiny umbrella in my gin and tonic.

The vibes are warm and fresh, and for a minute, I forget we're in the middle of a Detroit winter. My friend picks up a balloon to volley across the room. The balloon says "Humons." We smile to each other and watch it bounce from human to human until it finds an empty, human-less zone. Both of us track its slow and graceful surrender to the floor while activity whirls around us. So far this is what the night is observing, human-watching girls dressed in smart '90s rave garb, and boys in sweaters, Hawaiian leis, and knit caps.

Washed in a zig-zagging row of bright white lights, two figures emerge onstage. My focus locks on the mic where the man behind the music stands in a royal blue bomber jacket, accompanied by a drummer, who wears a neon green cap on top of a mess of long curly hair. Starting from their single, "Underneath," the show progresses seamlessly, and by the end I'm elbowing my friend, going, "Who knew this would turn into a house show!"

Humons is the creation of Ardalan Sedghi aka Ardi. He's unassuming, with an honest face and an effortlessness about him. He's not trying to win your affection; he's here the same reason you are, to share something with the community he moves within. There's a feeling it was never his intention to get attention, yet here we are.

"I've been writing music since I was a young lad in middle school... that would be around 2003," Ardi says. "Humons started in 2013 and that is the first time I had set to write and release music with some sort of intention or coherent theme."

His setup is simple: a laptop for some backing tracks, a keyboard, a controller designated to a drum machine, and a small vocal effects box that's locked on the mic stand. Oh yeah, and there's the mic. Humons would be a complete one-man live operation if not for the addition of drummer Mike Higgins, which Ardi says, "definitely stepped the live show up a notch. I'm grateful to have his talent and energy onstage."

An eclectic mix of minimal electronic, pop, and experimental sonic animation born from a process and method that continues to evolve with each track Humons draws most of their influence from Detroit. "We are blessed with some of the world's best electronic music be it at Movement or at TV Lounge on any weekend," Ardi says.

At this El Club show, the material Humons is sharing is the recently released Spectrum EP most of which was recorded at Ardi's home studio, "aka my bedroom," he says, "but I did some additional recording at Assemble." The mixing and mastering for Spectrum EP were done at Assemble with producer/engineer Jon Zott (Tunde Olaniran, JRJR, BRNS, ect.). "He is absolutely great to work with," Ardi says of Zott. "He took the EP to the next level with his production prowess."

The album, while pristine in its original form, will be reimagined into a full package of remixes that will come out each week over the next five weeks. The first, a remix of "Underneath" by Detroit-based Mega Powers already dropped at the beginning of the month. Other Detroiters who will join the party are Jon Zott and Monty Luke. Elsewhere, there is Color War from New York and Diamondstein from Los Angeles. "It's a cool project for me," Ardi says, "not only because I'm a fan of what all of them are doing musically, but also because three of the five artists were involved with either Spectra EP itself or were a part of the EP release party."

Having lived in Detroit for the last five years, Ardi is cognizant of the limitations of such a city, as well as the undeniable benefits, which, at times feel like intangible energies rather than citable stats supporting the fact that Detroit is indeed growing from more of an artist "launching pad" to something of a viable "home" meaning that artists won't have to keep leaving to expand their reach, their creativity, their income. But maybe leaving is also part of a necessary process, an experience that any creative might eventually embark upon. One has to remain open, become cultured, grown in a scope that is not always accessible so far removed from the entertainment capitals of the world. We've all noticed a definite shift, growth, and rebirth in Detroit over the years, but I was curious of Ardi's thoughts on what has changed to alter the struggle. The fan base? Raise the ceiling? I had to ask.

"As with most places there's definitely pros and cons," Adri says. "It's easy to survive as an artist financially and there is a lot of hidden talent here, but it's hard to grow beyond a certain level because the industry hasn't been around for a while and there simply aren't that many folks living in the city to build a local following."

If that sounds like the same old problems, well they are, but Ardi seems confident that things are gaining important momentum.

"In the past, it's felt a bit isolated in terms of everybody just doing their own thing, but I think that's starting to change, especially with groups like Assemble Sound," he says. "I'm definitely hopeful about the music scene here, as we start building resources and connections helping our local talent develop into its potential."

That said, Ardi is playing it safe Humons isn't a full-time gig. "Both from a financial and a personal standpoint, I don't think it's the move for me right now," he says.

Not surprisingly, being able to support yourself as a full-time artist is one of those unicorns of the industry a fantasy for most, rare way of life for some those who have talent, luck, dedication, and an amazing work ethic on their side. That said, sometimes that part-time job is fuel too offers balance. We've always been a working-class city. Maybe that balance of jobby-job and artist is unique to what makes Detroit artists such an impressive breed as it's a lifestyle that begs respect rather than the opposite.

"I have been putting in more energy and time into it since about last October leading up to the release of Spectra EP," Ardi says. The opportunity was there to keep on keeping on a natural progression of well-timed successes and good live shows that has allowed Humons the pleasure of riding out that wave.

As for the future, Ardi isn't making any predictions, just figuring out his personal evolution as it goes. "I'm getting more and more interested in dance being a main goal as it relates to live shows," he says. "There is such a great energy that comes with a group of people dancing together."

This interest will likely translate to the next batch of songs he's writing alongside aforementioned co-producer Jon Zott and drummer Michael Higgins. This year they'll all be in the midst of creation, getting heady in the studio, having fun, vetting out ideas, and learning in the process.

"It's a good challenge," Ardi says, "and I think the result will be great with the live drums and synth takes." He hopes to have a new album available by the end of the year.

Other than that, Humons is working on designing some T-shirts. As to his long-term plans, he's keeping it pretty loose. Ardi doesn't imagine a typical music career for himself atypical is more of his flavor anyway, but his goal maintains a basic simplicity. "I want to keep writing music, getting better, playing live shows, and building an audience so that the music is being heard and enjoyed."

The tracks mentioned in this article can be found at soundcloud.com/ humons.

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Humons presents an atypical dance evolution - Detroit Metro Times

February 14, 2017By John Nova Lomax

Houstons status as the Energy Capital of the World is indisputable. So much so, that its hard to even understand how it ascended to that levelitjust is. But if you roll back the clock to the beginning of the twentieth century, its future in black gold was hardly assured.

After all, the Spindletop gusher erupted in 1901 near Beaumont, about 85 miles to the east. Despite the Corsicana field and others elsewhere in Navarro County that preceded it, Spindletop was the true birthplace of the boom, and itwas quickly followed by others in Hardin County, near Beaumont.

With its Neches River port downtown and two other deepwater harbors in Sabine Pass and Port Arthur only a dozen or somiles away, Beaumont didnt need to dig a ship channel to bring in supplies or export crude. Indeed, for a couple of years after the Spindletop gusher, it looked like Beaumont was well on its way to establishing itself as the epicenter of Texass oil boom. Deflated Houston city leaders at the time acknowledged what to them was a sad fact: they resorted to billing Houston pathetically as nothing more than The Gateway to Beaumont.

And thats not to mention the other competitors that followed. Between 1901 and 1929, other boomtowns erupted all over Texas: Corsicana, Ranger, Borger, Odessa, Kilgore. So how did Houston become the vast megapolis that it is today while all the others sizzled briefly for a time and then settled back into large townor small city status?The answer: one mans shrewd business acumen and the multi-decade gargantuan feat of human willpower that is the Houston Ship Channel.

I am not of the opinion that any other city other than Beaumont had a shot at it, says Houston historian and author Mike Vance. To me the turning point was Jesse Jones basically buying a building and essentially giving it to the Texas Company.

In 1907, Jones emerged from a nationwide financial panic relatively unscathed. With rare cash in hand, the 33-year-old wheeler-dealer went on a building spree in Houston, erecting and then expanding the swanky Bristol Hotel, giving the Houston Chronicle a ten-story headquarters in exchange for a half-interest in the citys leading information source, and building another ten-story skyscraper on spec. Ultimately, he planned to use itto extract Joseph Cullinans Texas Companywhich you probably know now as Texacoout of the Golden Triangle and move it to what was then known as the Magnolia City.

Sweeter deals have seldom been tabled: Jones offered the Texas Company a brand-new building for a mere $2,000 a month. And Jones would have to offer such seductiveinducementsCullinan was, at the time, deeply entrenched in Beaumont.As Vance writes, by 1908, the Texas Company had tank farms and a refinery in the area, one linked by a pipeline to both the Sour Lake and Humble fields, not to mention an asphalt factory in Port Neches.

But in the end, Joness deal proved too enticing for Cullinan to pass up. Houston seems to me to be the coming center of the oil business, Cullinan had written to an associate in 1905. He was right. And largely thanks to him, Houston would never be the same.

[The Texas Company] was the big dog, and others followed, Vance says, noting that the Texas Companys move to Houston coincided with a couple of prosperous oil fields near Houston. The Humble field and the Goose Creek field were both bigger than what Beaumont had, and they were both right here in Harris County.

The Harris County fields goosed the industrys momentum. Soon modern-day Texacos forerunner would would be joined byHumble Oil (which eventually became Exxon), and many, many others.Out of Humble there were a lot more fortunes made, Vance says. It just got to be where you couldnt ignore Houston. All the Humble guys were here, and all the smaller companies. There were 89 oil companies in the Houston phone book 100 years ago. And then you had all the tool companies and pipeline companiesit was a gold rush mentality with a modern twist.

Cushy as the Jones deal was, its unlikely Cullinan would have bit had he not known that the Houston Ship Channel as we know it today would open in 1914, just a few years after he moved to Houston. (Vance points out that the 1914 date is somewhat arbitrary, and that Houstons port facilities were much farther along by 1908 than most people understand today.) Its evolution has brought to reality the then-outlandish claim of John and Augustus Allenthe brothers who founded the citythat Houston would one day command the trade of the largest and richest portions of the state and become the the great interior commercial emporium of Texas, even if it finally did so in an industry they couldnt conceive of in 1837.

From the John Nova Lomax Collection

Of all the Texas oil boomtowns, Houstonas the largest of them allwas best able to accommodate the stratospheric population growth that came in with the gushers. City services in the other towns were unable to keep pace with the throngs of fortune- and job-seekers streaming in daily. People lived in shacks or tents without sewage or running water. Staples were expensive.

Take Beaumont, for example, a town with more advantages than most of the other oilfield boomtowns. Its population of almost 10,000 made it practically a metropolis pre-Spindletop. Nevertheless, according to oil field historian H.P. Nichols (as quoted on podcast The Dollop), post-Spindletop Beaumont could only offer soupy drinking water that smelled like fish. Even worse, drinking it gave people what became known as a case of the Beaumonts.

If the name of your town becomes synonymous with diarrhea, thats a bad town, said one of the Dollops co-hosts. And to make matters worse, enterprising wheeler-dealers built outhouses and charged those suffering the Beaumonts the princely sum of 50 cents for a seat on those rickety thrones.

Geologist, legendary wildcatter and Beaumont native Michel Halbouty believed the city of his birth did as much to push the industry to Houston as Houston did to pull it west.Speaking bluntly toward the end of his long life, Halbouty told Upstream that Beaumont didnt have the know-how to do anything like that. Those people in Beaumont are half-deadand I was born in Beaumont. The people there didnt want [oil exploration]. Vance has a more calculated explanation for the reason that Beaumont isnt the Energy Capital of the World:Houston stole it from Beaumont.

Maybe that partially explains the piratical displays of Joseph Cullinan. Born in Pennsylvania and proud of his Irish ancestry, the Texas Company chieftain would hoist three flags each Saint Patricks Day: he flew an Irish tricolor at his Houston home, and raised a Jolly Roger (beneath the Irish and American flags) from atop the Petroleum Building downtown, as a warning that liberty is a right and not a privilege.

No more Houstonian words were ever spoken.

Tags: Energy, Houston

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The Evolution of the Energy Capital of the World - Texas Monthly

From time to time, weve seen scenarios about how the Mac/macOS and the iPad/iOS might evolve as personal computing platforms. We know about the declining sales of the iPad and Apples seeming inattention to the Mac line as whole in 2016. In turn, that has created some discussion about their respective future developments. John catalogs the likely and not-so-likely roadmaps for these products.

What looked like simple evolution has become not so simple.

Each of these plans below is someting Ive read or thought about.Theyre in no particular order, but I have assigned a prognosis for each plan. There may be other brilliant plans being cooked up by Apple, but I thought it would interesting to list the most often discussed evolutionary scenarios for macOS, iOS and possible integration. Here we go.

Plan A. Let it Be. Or: Survival of the fittest. The Intel-based Macs and iPads are allowed to continue as distinct products. They will evolve to work better and better together, and weve seen Apple do that already. But the products remain essentially as they are. Apple will, instead, depend on dramatic improvements in iOS/iPad technologies to stem the decline on iPad sales.

Eventually, an inflection point will come when the iPad can do everything the Mac does today. Then, the Mac, without touch capability, fades into history. Downside. Thousands of great macOS apps depend on Intel and Macs.

Reference: Let iPad be iPad: Why making it a traditional computer isnt the answer, by Rene Ritchie.

Likelihood: Low

Plan B. Here Comes the Sun. Or: Intel plus ARM. Slowly migrate macOS apps to run on ARM by including low-power but fast ARM processor in all new Macs. macOS and iOS, however, remain distinct. Gradually transition more and more tasks to ARM until an Intel CPU is hardly necessary in, say, five years. It helps reduce Apples dependence on Intel. A possible gateway to Plan D.

Reference: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role, by Mark Gurman.

Likelihood: Moderate

Plan C. I Want to Hold Your Hand. Or: The Toaster Fridge. Single out MacBooks that have ARM in the lid and Intel under the keyboard. When connected, the system operates as macOS/Intel Mac with low power ARM functions. When the lid is detached, its an iPad. Desktop, Intel-based Macs will use and ARM for iOS simulator and other supporting operations. One problem is continued dependence on Intel CPUs. Another is cost, confusion and lack of elegance.

Likelihood: Low.

Plan D. Strawberry Fields Forever. macOS apps run in iOS. New, much larger iPads will have a Rosetta-like system with mouse and other needed frameworks added back in. macOS apps remain Intel-based, run on standard Macs, but can also run on large-display iPads. This continues until Macs and macOS apps fade into history, as with the old Classic apps.

This is an attractive option because it avoids a premature obsolescence of the Mac by allowing all those thousands of macOS apps to have new life on the platform of the future, the bigger iPads. It essentially competes with the ground-breaking notion of the Microsoft Surface Studio and buys time for the iPad to evolve. When the iPad reaches technical maturity and can do everything a Mac can, including the role as an iOS development platform, then the Mac can be left behind. In the meantime, macOS apps remain viable.

Likelihood: High. This is just the kind of technical brilliance Apple is known for. They did it before with the Classic to Mac OS X and the PowerPC to Intel transition. It combats the Surface Studio nicely. Apples dependence on Intel goes away.

So there you have it. My four roadmaps for the evolution of macOS and iOS apart or together. What do you think? Have I missed any attractive avenues? Or pitfalls?

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4 Possible Roadmaps For macOS and iOS Evolution - The Mac Observer (blog)

February 14, 2017 by Alan Flurry A female burying beetle feeds her begging young. The parent and offspring are in a mouse carcass prepared by the parent as food. Credit: Allen Moore/UGA

University of Georgia researchers have confirmed that becoming a parent brings about more than just the obvious offspringit also rewires the parents' brain.

The study, published this month in Nature Communications, finds that the transition from a non-parenting state to a parenting state reflects differences in neuropeptides generally associated with mating, feeding, aggression and increased social tolerance.

Neuropeptides are small proteins that allow neurons in the brain to communicate with each other; they also influence behavior.

The team's research-tested on an insect, the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides-provides a predictive framework for studying the genetics of parenting and social interactions.

The burying beetle is intimately involved in raising its children, including regurgitating food to its begging offspring.

"We tested the idea that we could predict the genetic pathways involved in parenting based on old predictions from ethologists in the 1960s and 1970s," said the study's lead author Allen Moore, Distinguished Research Professor and head of the department of genetics. "When [burying beetle] parents feed their babies, they are feeding others rather than themselves and so genes that influence food-seeking behavior are likely to be involved."

Behavioral scientists predicted that genetic changes occur over time to develop parenting in a species. Based on this hypothesis, Moore's team sequenced and assembled the genome of the burying beetle and measured the abundance of neuropeptides. They theorized that behaviors related to parenting stemmed from alterations in existing genes rather than the evolution of new ones.

By looking at parenting and non-parenting beetles, their tests indicated that neuropeptides changed in abundance during parenting.

"When new traits evolve, evolution tends to modify existing genetic pathways rather than create new genes," Moore said.

The research, Moore said, suggests that many of the genes influencing parenting will be the same across many species. The commonality among organisms will help researchers identify genetic pathways important to parenting.

"It is exciting science when you take a step toward predicting the genetic changes involved in a behavior as complicated as parental care," he said. "And it was pleasing to collaborate with colleagues in genetics and Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, which allowed us to apply techniques that wouldn't otherwise be available to test our ideas."

Explore further: Beetles provide clues about the genetic foundations of parenthood

More information: Christopher B. Cunningham et al. Ethological principles predict the neuropeptides co-opted to influence parenting, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14225

A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Georgia has identified many of the genetic changes that take place in burying beetles as they assume the role of parent. Their findings, published recently ...

Research published today reveals for the first time that the different roles of mothers and fathers are influenced by genetics. The study, by the Universities of Exeter and Edinburgh, shows how variation in where males and ...

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A new study has examined the interaction between coparenting and coercive parenting in predicting children's disruptive behaviour.

Toddlers' fussy eating habits are mainly the result of genetic influences rather than the result of poor parenting, according to new research led by scientists at UCL.

(Phys.org)A team of researchers at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences has found that rhesus monkeys can pass the mirror self-awareness test if they are first taught how mirrors work. In their paper published ...

University of Georgia researchers have confirmed that becoming a parent brings about more than just the obvious offspringit also rewires the parents' brain.

Male guppies pay a high cost for their sexual harassment of female guppies including much higher mortality rates a new study from Macquarie University has found.

Scientists at the University of Wrzburg have generated new insights into the intricate molecular underpinnings of ubiquitin signaling. Their results may provide new avenues for cancer therapy.

The protein that helps the sperm and egg fuse together in sexual reproduction can also fuse regular cells together. Recent findings by a team of biomedical researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Argentina, ...

Sardinia sits at a crossroads in the Mediterranean Sea, the second largest island next to Sicily. Surrounded by sparkling turquoise waters, this Mediterranean jewel lies northwest of the toe of the Italian peninsula boot, ...

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Geneticists track the evolution of parenting - Phys.Org

February 13, 2017 The deep sea has its fair share of quirky creatures equipped with odd features, and the cockeyed squid, sporting two different sized eyes, likely doesn'tstand out too much among other bottom ocean dwellers.

But scientists have never before been able to pinpoint a reason for its two vastly different eyes. But now, researchers from Duke University may have finally nailed down an answer, according to a study published Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The cockeyed squid, officially known as Histioteuthis heteropsis, has long puzzled researchers. While the species is born with eyes of the same size, its left eye grows rapidly, becoming tube-shaped and sometimes twice the size of its right eye.

"You can't look at one and not wonder what's going on with them," Duke University biologist and study co-author Kate Thomas said in a press release.

Researchers watched more than 150 videos of the squids swimming in the Monterey Submarine Canyon in Monterey Bay,Calif., which were recorded over the past three decades, observing as they swam in an unconventional upside-down position. While doing so, the squids larger, left eyes continuously looked up, while their smaller right eyes were fixed downward.

Observation and light simulations revealed that the large eye seems to search for shadows of different fish swimming overhead, while the small eye scans the ocean floor for signs of light emitted by other marine organisms.

While the left eye's field of vision picks up shadows from sun shining into the water, that's not an option for the downward-facing eye, scientists concluded. Instead, they detect bioluminescence, the kind of chemically-produced light that comes from living organisms such as fireflies or deep sea fish. That requires a different kind of eye structure than is needed for ambient light. Bigger isn't better when it comes to spotting glowing fish, the researchers found, but larger eyes are better at detecting sunlight.

So while the cockeyed squids design might look odd at first glance, it actually allows the squids to navigate their complex environment.

"The eye looking down really only can look for bioluminescence," Snke Johnsen, the study's senior author and a professor of biology at Duke University, said in a statement. "There is no way it is able to pick out shapes against the ambient light. And once it is looking for bioluminescence, it doesn't really need to be particularly big, so it can actually shrivel up a little bit over generations. But the eye looking up actually does benefit from getting a bit bigger."

Overall, squid species are faring well among their deep sea neighbors. A 2016 study revealed that squid numbers have continuously boomed for six decades, while climate change and warming waters have spelled trouble for some other species.

While that marks good news for cephalopods for now, some wonder what long-term implications for aquatic life the trend could have particularly for the creatures they eat.

"We're seeing a new world here, one we haven't seen before. Any time you push an ecosystem into a different state, there's greater uncertainty in how it will behave, and how it will respond to future changes. Frankly, I think that should make people really worried," Ben Halpern, a biology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the director of the school's Center for Marine Assessment and Planning, told The Christian Science Monitor last year.

"More squid and octopus to eat may seem like a good thing, and in the short run maybe it is. But I'm more worried about the long run," he said.

Read more:

How this cockeyed squid shines a light on deep sea evolution - Christian Science Monitor

TUESDAY, FEB. 14, 2017, 5:30 A.M.

Darwins Demons, a video game created at the University of Idaho, uses mutating aliens to teach students about natural selection and evolution.

The game, which retails for $4.99, was released Monday by video game distributor Steam. The release was timed to follow International Darwin Day on Feb. 12, which honors Charles Darwin and his groundbreaking work on how organisms change over time through the natural selection of characteristics that allow them to compete, survive and reproduce.

In the arcade-style game, players defend their spaceships against hordes of ever-evolving aliens. The fittest aliens, who destroy the most spaceships, produce the most offspring.

The nastiest, meanest aliens have the most babies. They shoot more projectiles, fire faster and move down the screen more aggressively, said Barrie Robison, a professor in UIs Department of Biological Sciences.

Within a few generations, the aliens turn into formidable foes, with genetic adaptations designed to outwit the gamers individual style of play.

Darwins Demons is the work of Robison, computer science Professor Terence Soule and an interdisciplinary team of 20 UI students, who spent last summer working on the game.

The team pulled together students majoring in biology, computer science, art and design, business, English and theater to work on various aspects of developing and marketing Darwins Demons. A National Science Foundation grant for evolution studies helped pay for the project.

The idea for Darwins Demons began several years ago, when Robison and Soule were brainstorming ways to present concepts in evolutionary biology to students.

There is ample evidence that school kids play a lot of video games, Robison said. But we wanted to make a game first, instead of a lesson plan disguised in a game.

Darwins Demons is rated for kids ages 10 and up. While younger kids can play it, they probably wont understand the science concepts, some of which are sophisticated enough for college-age audiences.

The game is based on mathematical models of evolutionary biology. Evolution computation, a sub-field of artificial intelligence, allows the video game to adapt to solve increasingly difficult problems, Soule said.

The game responds in an intelligent way to a players strategy, he said.

So, even though players can beef up defenses and fortify their spaceships, the aliens eventually prevail.

Evolution always wins, Robison said. It doesnt matter what you do, the alien population adapts to your strategy.

Like other arcade-style video games, Darwins Demons players try to beat other players highest score.

Robison has the highest score so far. But after about 20 generations of evolution, the aliens take down his fleet of spaceships.

Darwins Demons debuted on Steam, which is the amazon.com of the video game world for hard-core players, Robison said. By the end of the week, the site should include a demo of the game.

Business students are looking for ways to market the game to a wider audience of science teachers and parents. And Soule hopes to have Darwins Demons available on Xbox Live within a couple of months.

Proceeds from sales of the game will help fund similar projects in the future. If sales take off in a big way, theres also the potential for students to earn royalties from their work.

We want to develop a sustainable video design studio, Robison said. Were hoping we can release an evolutionary game around Darwins birthday each year.

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Evolution always wins: University of Idaho video game uses mutating aliens to teach science concepts - The Spokesman-Review

In a previous article I described how theories of innovation provide insight into the limits of natural selection. I will now apply those concepts to hypotheses regarding the evolution of the vertebrate eye, a subject that, since the time of Charles Darwin, has been near center of the debate over the creative power of natural selection. As Darwin himself stated in the Origin of Species:

He did, however, still believe it could evolve over numerous gradual increments.

Today, evolutionists propose several of the stages in what they believe to be a plausible evolutionary path. Science writer Carl Zimmer has outlined the standard story:

See Wikipedia for a chart illustrating "Major stages in the evolution of the eye."

To add weight to this narrative, two biologists created a computer simulation, demonstrating, in their view, the incremental evolution of an eye in fewer than 400,000 generations.

This often-repeated tale sounds impressive at first, but it is not unlike most supposed explanations of the evolution of complex features. It scores high on imagination and flare but low on empirical evidence and thoughtful analysis. It most certainly does not represent a "detailed hypothesis." Likewise, the simulation does an admirable job of describing how a mechanical eye could develop incrementally, but it is completely disconnected from biological reality. In particular, it ignores the details of how a real eye functions and how it forms developmentally. When these issues are examined, the story completely collapses.

To fully appreciate why that is so requires a basic understanding of developmental biology. During development, cells divide, migrate, and differentiate into a wide variety of types. Throughout this process, the cells send chemical signals to their neighbors, and these signals cause proteins known as transcription factors (TF) to bind to genes in regulatory regions, which control the corresponding genes' activity. The TFs bind to what are called transcription factor binding sites (TFBS), and the correct binding enables the genes to produce their proteins in the right cells at the right time in the right amount.

The evolution of additional components in the vertebrate eye requires that this network of intercellular signals, TFs, TFBS, chromatin remodeling, as well as many other details be dramatically altered, so that each developmental stage can progress correctly. For instance, the seemingly simple addition of a marginally focusing lens -- that is to say, a lens that directs slightly more light onto a retina -- requires a host of alterations:

Ectodermic tissue folds into a lens placode, which then forms a lens vesicle.

Cells in the lens vesicle differentiate into lens fibers, which elongate to produce the proper lens shape.

The lens fibers then undergo several key modifications, including tightly binding together, filling almost entirely with special refractive proteins called crystallins, developing special channels to receive nutrients, and destroying their organelles.

All of these steps must proceed with great precision to ensure the end product focuses light in an improved manner. The development of the lens in all vertebrates is very similar, and it even resembles that in other phyla. Therefore, the development of the first lens should have closely followed the steps outlined above with only minor differences, inconsequential to the basic argument.

The challenge to evolution is that, short of completion, most of these changes are disadvantageous. A lens that has not fully evolved through the third step noted above would either scatter light away from the retina or completely block it. Any initial mutations would then be lost, and the process would have to start again from scratch. In the context of fitness terrains, an organism lacking a lens resides near the top of a local peak. The steps required to gain a functional lens correspond to traveling downhill, crossing a vast canyon of visually impaired or blind intermediates, until eventually climbing back up a new peak corresponding to lens-enhanced vision.

Once an organism has a functional lens, natural selection could then potentially make gradual improvements. However, moving from a reasonably functional lens to one that produces a high-resolution image is rather complex. In particular, the refractive index (i.e., crystalline concentration) has to be adjusted throughout the lens to vary according to a precise mathematical relationship. A gradual decrease from the inside to the outside is needed to prevent spherical aberrations blurring the image.

Even more steps are required for the improved image to be properly interpreted:

Feedback circuitry must be added to allow the lens to automatically refocus on images at different distances.

The retina has to be completely reengineered to process high-resolution images, including the addition of circuits to enable edge and motion detection.

The neural networks in the brain have to be rewired to properly interpret the pre-processed high-resolution images from the retina.

Higher-level brain functions must be enabled to identify different objects, i.e., dangerous ones such as a shark, and properly respond to them.

Until steps 2 through 4 are completed, a high-resolution image would likely prove disadvantageous, since most of the light would be focused on fewer photoreceptors. In insolation, the alterations of perfecting the lens and those involved in step 1 would hinder the analysis of large-scale changes to the field of view, such as identifying the shadow of a predator. Natural selection would thus remove most of the initial mutations, and evolution of the eye would come to a halt.

The difference between blurry and high-resolution vision is well illustrated by the box jellyfish. It has several eyes around its body. Two have lenses, which can produce highly focused images. However, the focal point is past the retina, so the retinal images are blurry. An ability to focus more clearly than is actually useful seems to be an example of gratuitous design. Zoologist Dan Nilsson comments:

However, for the box jellyfish a high-resolution image would be disadvantageous, since its neurology is engineered to respond to such bulky features as the edge of a mangrove. Is this blurry vision the result of the jellyfish not having yet evolved high-resolution vision? No: its neural organization is radically different from that needed for the latter. As Nilsson comments, "Another, more likely, interpretation is that the eyes are 'purposely' under-focused."

"Purposeful"? Yes, it would seem so. The example illustrates that low-resolution vision is not at an inferior point on the same fitness peak as high-resolution vision. Instead, both systems reside near the peaks of separate mountains. For any species, upgrading to high-resolution vision requires massive reengineering in a single step. Such radical innovation, coordinated to achieve a distant goal, is only possible with intelligent design.

Photo: European bison, by Michael Gbler [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

See the article here:

Eye Evolution: A Closer Look - Discovery Institute

Science Daily

How evolution alters biological invasions Science Daily Now, Rutgers University scientists have performed the first study of how evolution unfolds after invasions change native systems. The experimental invasions -- elaborate experiments designed by doctoral student Cara A. Faillace and her adviser ... and more »

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How evolution alters biological invasions - Science Daily

February 13, 2017 The deep sea has its fair share of quirky creatures equipped with odd features, and the cockeyed squid, sporting two different sized eyes, likely doesn'tstand out too much among other bottom ocean dwellers.

But scientists have never before been able to pinpoint a reason for its two vastly different eyes. But now, researchers from Duke University may have finally nailed down an answer, according to a study published Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The cockeyed squid, officially known as Histioteuthis heteropsis, has long puzzled researchers. While the species is born with eyes of the same size, its left eye grows rapidly, becoming tube-shaped and sometimes twice the size of its right eye.

"You can't look at one and not wonder what's going on with them," Duke University biologist and study co-author Kate Thomas said in a press release.

Researchers watched more than 150 videos of the squids swimming in the Monterey Submarine Canyon in Monterey Bay,Calif., which were recorded over the past three decades, observing as they swam in an unconventional upside-down position. While doing so, the squids larger, left eyes continuously looked up, while their smaller right eyes were fixed downward.

Observation and light simulations revealed that the large eye seems to search for shadows of different fish swimming overhead, while the small eye scans the ocean floor for signs of light emitted by other marine organisms.

While the left eye's field of vision picks up shadows from sun shining into the water, that's not an option for the downward-facing eye, scientists concluded. Instead, they detect bioluminescence, the kind of chemically-produced light that comes from living organisms such as fireflies or deep sea fish. That requires a different kind of eye structure than is needed for ambient light. Bigger isn't better when it comes to spotting glowing fish, the researchers found, but larger eyes are better at detecting sunlight.

So while the cockeyed squids design might look odd at first glance, it actually allows the squids to navigate their complex environment.

"The eye looking down really only can look for bioluminescence," Snke Johnsen, the study's senior author and a professor of biology at Duke University, said in a statement. "There is no way it is able to pick out shapes against the ambient light. And once it is looking for bioluminescence, it doesn't really need to be particularly big, so it can actually shrivel up a little bit over generations. But the eye looking up actually does benefit from getting a bit bigger."

Overall, squid species are faring well among their deep sea neighbors. A 2016 study revealed that squid numbers have continuously boomed for six decades, while climate change and warming waters have spelled trouble for some other species.

While that marks good news for cephalopods for now, some wonder what long-term implications for aquatic life the trend could have particularly for the creatures they eat.

"We're seeing a new world here, one we haven't seen before. Any time you push an ecosystem into a different state, there's greater uncertainty in how it will behave, and how it will respond to future changes. Frankly, I think that should make people really worried," Ben Halpern, a biology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and the director of the school's Center for Marine Assessment and Planning, told The Christian Science Monitor last year.

"More squid and octopus to eat may seem like a good thing, and in the short run maybe it is. But I'm more worried about the long run," he said.

Read more:

Cockeyed squid shines light on deep sea evolution - Christian Science Monitor

February 13, 2017 by Luke Dunning, The Conversation Credit: Shutterstock

For 600m years, life has been responding to our changing world. Virtually every conceivable environment in every corner of the planet has been occupied as animals and plants have diversified. Environmental shifts and mass extinctions produce new evolutionary opportunities for organisms to exploit as they compete for survival.

But how do organisms grasp these opportunities? Do they evolve new traits in response to the pressures of new environments, or are they able to move into new habitats because they have already evolved the right adaptations? Much of evolutionary study rests on the the former idea being right. Yet a new study of the development of horses is the latest in a growing body of research that suggests the answer to this chicken-egg situation may be more complicated.

The chances of an organism's survival in a new habitat are governed by the area's biological and environmental conditions and whether these are compatible with the organism's basic requirements (its ecological niche). If they are compatible, the organism may be able to persist, adapt and thrive. The more specialised an organism's ecological niche, the harder it may be to move into a new environment.

For example, the caterpillars of the monarch butterfly feed almost exclusively on milkweed. It's hard to imagine the caterpillars successfully colonising a new habitat that doesn't have this vital food source. Another point to consider is that just because an organism can survive in a new environment doesn't necessarily mean it will be able to get there. For example, it would be practically impossible for polar bears to naturally spread from the North Pole to Antarctica.

Much of our understanding of how organisms evolve new traits to occupy new environments and ecological niches comes from the study of adaptive radiations. An adaptive radiation is the evolutionary process by which organisms rapidly diverge from a common ancestor into multiple different forms. There are numerous charismatic examples documented, including: Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands, cichlid fish in the lakes of East Africa, and Anolis lizards on the Caribbean islands.

From this kind of research it has been shown that adaptive radiations are primarily driven by ecological opportunity, the chance for a species to thrive when its environmental circumstances change. Examples of these opportunities include filling a vacant niche after a mass extinction event when it has fewer competitors or predators, or taking advantage of a newly available resource.

As animals and plants exploit these ecological opportunities, we would expect them to go through rapid physical changes as they adapt to their new environments. The pace of change would then slow over time as the opportunities run out. This prediction has formed the basis of much of evolutionary research, although studies are beginning to question the validity of our assumptions.

Horse history

The evolution of horses is remarkably well documented in the fossil record and is a textbook example of how evolutionary success is linked to trait evolution. Over the past 50m years, horses have evolved from dog-sized forest dwellers into the modern animals we know.

Along the way they have accumulated numerous environmental advantages, such as teeth adapted for grazing and modified hooves for speed. Although there are only seven species from this adaptive radiation alive today (the horse, donkey, plains zebra, mountain zebra, Grvy's zebra, kiang, and onager), fossils of hundreds of extinct species have been unearthed.

Now a new study published in Science has looked at the last 18m years of horse evolution to ask whether the origin of new horse species was linked with rapid physical changes. As you would expect, horse evolution has seen bursts of diversification when there have been new ecological opportunities. These opportunities included increased food availability, which meant larger and more varied populations of horses could be sustained.

Another ecological opportunity horses exploited was being able to migrate from America to Siberia across the Bering land bridge. From there they were able to colonise Europe, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East.

But the fossil record shows these bursts of horse diversification didn't follow the rapid evolution of new physical traits such as body size and teeth shape. Horses didn't need to change to be able to colonise the Old World, presumably because they were already adapted to similar grassland habitats in America.

The physical features that distinguish modern horse species in different locations evolved later. They are likely to be a result of short-term responses to extreme environmental conditions and shifts in resource availability.

The results of this latest study not only increase our understanding of the evolutionary history of one of the most successful lineages of mammals on earth, but also adds to our broader knowledge of when and why organisms adapt to their environment. When it comes to evolution's "which comes first?" question, the answer is probably both.

Explore further: Climate change responsible for rapid expansion of horse species over last 20 million years

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

A University of Cambridge researcher has defined a recipe for the new breed of wildly successful online charity campaigns such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge - a phenomenon he has labelled "viral altruism" - and what might ...

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A team of international researchers, led by Colorado State University's Michael Gavin, have taken a first step in answering fundamental questions about human diversity.

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A new study has revealed that gills originated much deeper in evolutionary history than previously believed. The findings support the idea that gills evolved before the last common ancestor of all vertebrates, helping facilitate ...

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In late 2016, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to invest at least $3 billion to "cure, manage, and prevent all disease" through the creation of a Biohub, a fount of non-profit innovation that would retain the exclusive right to commercialize its inventions. Around the same time, Microsoft said it had plans to "solve" cancer by 2026 and Facebook's co-founder Sean Parker promised $250 million (through his tax-exempt non-profit organization, or 501c3) to fight cancer while retaining the right to patents. The philanthropists Eli Broad and Ted Stanley have contributed $1.4 billion in private wealth to fund the Broad Institute research center (another 501c3, involved in a high-stakes patent battle) and its associated Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, to open "schizophrenia's black box" and hack the genetics of psychiatry. Much like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller of yesteryear, who donated their wealth to build public libraries and establish foundations, today's Silicon Valley billionaires seek a legacy, this time in the realm of health and disease.

But there is a disconnect. Comparing the body to a machine, complete with bugs to be fixed by means of gene modification tools such as Crispr-Cas9, conflicts with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution: machines and computers do not evolve, but organisms do. Evolution matters here because bits of code that compromise one function often enhance a second function, or can be repurposed for a new function when the environment shifts. In evolution, everything is grasping for its purpose. Parts that break down can become the next best thing.

The element of evolutionary time can be lost on technologists who think that more data and money will end disease. For Darwin, evolution of a species depended on natural selection of the individual organism. Discovery of DNA later resulted in what became known as the "modern synthesis," establishing a unifying framework for the influence of tiny things such as genes and large things such as populations, all while preserving Darwin's key principle that selection hinged on the individual. By 1966, the evolutionary biologists Richard Lewontin and John Hubby had proposed the concept of "balancing selection," which suggests that rare versions of genes can stay in a population since they add to genetic diversity. In fact, being heterogeneous, or having a single copy of a rarer form of a gene, even one that is suboptimal or contributes to genetic risk, can often benefit an individual, thus remaining among a species in small frequencies.

The theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman argued that rare genetic variants are the basis of innovation, and may remain in circulation, not by chance, but because they add a fitness benefit to the system of at least a small number of organisms in a population. "Evolution is not just 'chance caught on a wing.' It is not just a tinkering of the ad hoc, of bricolage, of contraption. It is emergent order honored and honed by selection," he wrote in The Origins of Order (1993).

By contrast, a modern data scientist often assumes the reductionist position: that more data and better analysis in biology will lead to problems solved. As the molecular biologist James Watson said in 1989: "We used to think that our fate was in our stars, but now we know that, in large measure, our fate is in our genes." One reason we might favor this explanation is that our brains are wired to seek answers, simple cause-effect relationships. But we have so few drugs and solutions nearly two decades after sequencing the human genome. This might have less to do with the quality of analysis and more to do with the biological principles of evolution and time. Instead of thinking of humanity as a closed system, we'd do better to look through the open lens of ecology, in which the system itself is subject to influence by input from the outside. In even a single lifetime, our bodies take on an onslaught of genetic mutations, hundreds of trillions of synaptic connections rewire our brains by the moment, and pathogens bombard us, penetrating the organs and blood-brain barrier, and creating an ever-changing microbiome that enhances or erodes health.

In evolution, nothing comes for free. Stress can both trigger creativity and compound a raft of chronic maladies. Genetic variants that cause cystic fibrosis can protect against cholera, and those that contribute to Tay-Sachs can protect against tuberculosis. A variant in the gene PCSK9 can lower your LDL cholesterol, but can increase your risk for ischemic stroke. Gene transfer can effectively treat diseases caused by a single errant gene, but risk variants that influence diseases won't go away because they often provide advantages as time goes on.

Even cancer is less a machine with cell circuits that go haywire than an evolving entity that undergoes evolution and change in real time. Shapeshifting tricks that enable a cancer to escape our treatment can be independent of changes to the permanent genetic code. One of the reasons that the immunotherapeutic approach has been so practical is that it treats cancer in terms of ecology. The cancer evolves, but the immune system, primed for that kind of fight, can sometimes keep pace.

Darwin introduced a viewpoint that was radically unsettling: We don't progress to a more perfect form, but adapt to local environments. If humans are machines, then we can simply repair the broken parts. But if there is something more fundamental to the crisis of life than mere mechanisms of biology, then risk, and an element of danger, will always be with us. I will wager something even more: Since genetic variation is the basis of innovation, and diversity, making ourselves too perfect could mean our doom.

This article was originally published by Aeon, a digital magazine for ideas and culture. Follow them on Twitter at @aeonmag.

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Why evolution may be tech billionaires' biggest enemy - The Week Magazine

Jason Cassella/Kingman Resident

In Blake Boggesss opinion piece that evolution is false he made several mistakes, assumptions, and plainly misinformed the public.

He says that evolution has never been observed. This is flat out false. There have been many cases where evolution has been observed in real time, including in species such as fish, moths, and foxes, to name but a few. But the most simple example: why do you think you have to get a different flu shot every year, or that there is a threat that antibiotics might not be as effective as they once were? Its because viruses and bacteria evolve; and we observe this in real time. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

As far as the claim that scientists have not found the missing link, this is misconstrued. There have been many discoveries of intermediate species of human ancestors, over 29, and more are being discovered. The logic of even finding the missing link is outdated and fallacious. When one is found, it creates two more empty spaces around it. Think about it this way. If you lined up every human ancestor back to the divergence from the other apes (yes we are an ape; Homo sapiens means wise ape), 6 to 8 million years ago, you would be hard pressed to see an overt split from one species to another; its that gradual. Finding the missing link therefore, even if we found thousands, would mean that there would be an incalculable many more empty spots. It is a project of infinite regress.

As far as the unknown. Evolution doesnt have the answer for abiogenesis, or the beginning of life. It doesnt claim to. But it has proven that all of life on this planet related. We prove this genetically, through fossils, through observation, and more. The science is settled. Evolution is as much a theory as gravity: its a fact.

The argument that evolution is wrong because God created us is following just a few branches of Christianity (and other religions), mostly prominently Protestant Evangelical Christianity. But evolution is not incompatible with religion, exemplified by the Catholic churchs acceptance of the theory of evolution by natural selection. I personally know a Methodist preacher who is also an evolutionary biologist. The argument is partisan and doesnt hold.

Think of evolution this way: for thousands of years humans have bred animals and plants into various breeds and forms. Nature works the same way through natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, death and sexual selection. Its actually a very simple and elegant idea. Its one of the very best ideas and discoveries of our species.

Just think of the beauty of it. Mountains of evidence shows that at several points there were different hominins living on the planet at the same time. Just imagine coming across different human species, and what that must have been like. And genetically we can even see that if you go back far enough, were related even to the tree in your front yard, much less jelly fish and elephants. Its amazing really. Life is wondrous.

Evolution is the cornerstone of not just all of biology but of other scientific disciplines as well, based on change over time. The science is settled, and those rare few scientists that disagree are a certain brand of Creationists, who ironically attempt to use evolution to prove intelligent design. Those who flat out refuse evolution are of one of a few sects of religion and have none or no pertinent scientific background.

As Neil deGrasse Tyson so very well said, Science is true whether you believe it or not.

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Community Viewpoint: Evolution, like gravity, is much more than theory it is a fact - Kdminer

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The Evolution of Valentine's Day Inside Science News Service Inside Science: Can biological evolution offer any insights into a cultural phenomenon like Valentine's Day? Saad: Ultimately, the Valentine's ritual is one in which all of these Darwinian imperatives are manifesting themselves. I mean, it's a marketer ...

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You may have heard of numerology before and perhaps you didnt give it much credit or brushed it off as some new age mumbo jumbo, but what if you could test it out for yourself and see what it can actually represent? If you found it to be accurate in being able to describe details in your life would you accept that theres actually some truth to it or brush it off as mere coincidence?

Up until very recently, I hadnt given numerology much thought at all, but for the last decade or so, Ive been seeing 11:11 quite regularly. In fact, Im sure a lot of my Facebook friends get annoyed with me because I always feel the need to share 11:11! when I see this on a clock, or license plate or anywhere really.

This number holds a lot of significance to me. Seeing this number has coincided perfectly with my quest for knowledge, truth, and understanding. When I saw it I felt as though it was a message from a higher source telling me that I am on the right path. A little wink from the Universe, if you will. I have had many challenges in my lifetime, and particularly when going through difficult times, I would see this number sequence as if it were a reminder that I was being supported and to keep going. To read more about the significance of 11:11, click here.

Sometimes in my life, these number sequences will change. For a brief period I was seeing 5:55 all the time. Its very interesting, because at times, I would get up, walk to the kitchen, glance at the clock on the stove and it would read 5:55, even though the clock was not set to the proper time. I would then have no recollection as to what I was doing in the kitchen in the first place. So, of course, I felt as though there was something more to this and that I couldnt brush it off as a coincidence. Upon further investigation into numerology, I concluded that I most certainly was seeing this number sequence for a reason.

The meaning of the number sequence 5:55 suggests that huge changes are unfolding in your life or are about to occur throughout various areas of your life. This is generally a sign of positive change that will bring you into greater alignment with your soul purpose with greater love, vitality, and abundance.

This couldnt have been more accurate at the time, and so I became increasingly interested in learning about numerology. You may be wondering

It is often related to occult teachings and is said to be any belief in the divine mystical relationship between a number and one or numerous events that coincide. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician who lived from 569-470 BC is believed by many to be the originator of what we now today call numerology, although the origins of numerology predate Pythagoras.

Evidence of numerology has been found throughout the Hebrew Kabbalah as well. As the theory goes, each number has a unique vibration, which gives it certain properties. This is similar to the way crystals are believed to be used. If each number has a vibration then that means various sequences of numbers will have a specific vibration as well and will mean different things when in different combinations.

In mathematics, everything has a number. And many believe that the Universe is made of math, which makes the whole idea of numerology even more interesting. Galileo stated quite famously that our Universe is a grand book that is written in the language of mathematics. Mathematics is a lot more than just numbers, however, so well save that whole discussion for another article.

Numerology comprises eleven different numbers that can be used to create numerology charts. These numbers are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11 and 22. Sometimes larger numbers occur when adding various numbers together to form the values, but can be reduced by adding the digits together until the sum achieved is one of the core numbers. You can give numeral value to each letter of the alphabet by listing each letter and its corresponding number. For example:

A=1

B=2

C=3

D=4

E=5

When you reach number nine, you start back again at one.

I=9

J=1

K=2

And so on.

Similar to the way astrology can reveal information about your personality and specific traits pertaining to each individual, the process of reading the numerology of your birthdate and name can do the same thing.

By adding the numbers of your birthday together, year month and day you can determine your life path number. By adding the numbers of your given first, middle, and last name(s) you can determine the numerology of your name and your number. You can find out your number yourself using the method described here, butupon doing research for this article, I came across a website that makes this whole process easy for you and you simply type in your first, middle and last name and it will determine your life path number, and provide you with a detailed description of what this number represents. This website also provides you with a soul urge number and an inner dream number.

Once again, upon doing my own name I was quite blown away by how accurate the information that was provided was. I felt as though it described certain characteristics of my personality perfectly! Although I dont agree with it all, the bulk of it was pretty accurate, and perhaps I have embodied or will embody these traits in my lifetime.

Heres a brief summary of the information I was given:

Perhaps I should warn you that not everything that is said is positive

Whats in your name? Find out your number and what it means for free by visiting this website by Paul Sadowski. You can also get a free report based on your name and birth date here.

Much Love

Your life path number can tell you A LOT about you.

With the ancient science of Numerology you can find out accurate and revealing information just from your name and birth date.

Get your free numerology reading and learn more about how you can use numerology in your life to find out more about your path and journey. Get Your free reading.

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Numerology: Here's What Your Name Says About You - Collective Evolution

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The Academy Awards are almost here and many people will be talking about red carpet fashion, comedic monologues, and who got robbed. But few will be paying attention to the most important awards categoryBest Visual Effects. This supercut pulls together all the past winners into a nice little reminder of how much has changed in the field, and how much visual effects changed the way movies are made.

Technically, the Oscar for Best Visual Effects has only been around since 1963. Before that, there was a category for Best Special Effects, an award that was shared by the visual and sound effects teams. But going back to the beginning of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, effects were recognized as a crucial part of filmmaking and in 1927, Wings received a special honor for Engineering Effects.

Along the way, thereve been a lot of no-brainer winners that set a new bar for effects like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park. But there were also some surprising choices in there. Do you remember Innerspace? Id forgotten about it entirely but I think it was good. And can we talk about E.T. beating out Blade Runner? I love E.T. as much as anyone but I just dont see its effects as anywhere close to the Ridley Scott classic.

In two weeks, Deepwater Horizon, Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will face off for the award. Until then, catch up on all the past winners below.

[Burger Fiction]

Read more from the original source:

See the Evolution of Movie Magic With Every Oscar Winner for Visual Effects in History - Gizmodo

By Shira Gould || Staff Writer

This weeks Common Hour was given by J. Albert C. Uy, a biology professor at the University of Miami. He spoke about climate change, the process of evolution, and the benefits of having diversity within a species. According to Uy, science is not enough to reverse the effects of climate change, but rather, applied science is necessary. He did research in the Solomon Islands in order to see the effects of mixed breeding in achieving diversity, and in turn continuing evolution.

Uy began his talk by outlining the logic behind evolution. He said that diversity allows an organism to exploit its environment. For example, there is diversity in communication and food needs, which then leads to survival. The question which guided his research was the way in which diversity happens, and how it continues. According to Uy, there have been five mass extinctions in the past four billion years. The most famous one, he asserts, was the extinction of the dinosaurs. Most scientists agree that we are heading straight into the sixth one, which would be entirely different from the last five because humans are the ones that are causing it. The current environmental climate is increasing the rate by which various species are becoming extinct.

Uy discussed Charles Darwin, who was the first scientist to explain evolution in terms of natural selection. According to Uy, Darwin went to the Galapagos Islands and noticed that birds who looked similar to one another had small discrepancies in appearance throughout the area. He postulated that the birds were of the same family, but were different due to small mutations. Darwins theory of natural selection states that individuals in any given population are variable, and that some species do better than others. Those who survive, mate, resulting in a new species.

Uy studied the bellied flycatchers in the Solomon Islands, which are located in the South Pacific coast of New Guinea. The birds feed on insects, are socially homogenous, and are variable in the Solomon Islands. Uy noticed that the birds with different colored stomachs also sang different songs. One type of bird had a chestnut colored belly and another had a black belly. Uy wanted to test how the black bellied birds would react to the chestnut bellied birds, and found that birds with bellies of the same color tended to become more aggressive to one another than to those with different colored bellies. Uy hypothesized that this was a result of competition in mating. Uy then wanted to determine the cause for difference in color, and what would happen if the colors were mixed. He found that breeding a black-bellied bird with a chestnut-bellied bird resulted in a bird with a mixed-colored stomach. He also found that there are 70,000 genetic markers, and that one gene can begin an entirely new species.

Uy concluded his talk by discussing the loss of tropical forests due to logging. Logging causes damage to lagoons, rivers and forests, which causes a drastic and rapid loss in wildlife in those areas. Additionally, because carbon dioxide contributes to climate change, Uy asserts it is important to change the perspective of those who continue to lobby for logging, to donate money to research, and to focus on conserving energy.

First year Shira Gould is a staff writer. Her email is sgould@fandm.edu.

Photo courtesy of fandm.edu

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J. Albert C. Uy speaks on evolution, biodiversity in bellied flycatcher population - The College Reporter

More order with less judgment: An optimal theory of the evolution of cooperation Science Daily Date: February 7, 2017; Source: University of Vienna; Summary: Mathematicians present a new optimal theory of the evolution of reputation-based cooperation. This team demonstrates that the practice of making moral assessments conditionally is very ...

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More order with less judgment: An optimal theory of the evolution of cooperation - Science Daily