Year: 2022

MALADAPTED. "​In the case of humans, the result is a “Paleolithic” genome, which is not adapted to today’s environment and is contributing to “diseases of civilization,” including atherosclerosis and obesity."​ https://lnkd.in/dTCZavA View in LinkedIn

RIGID EXOSKELETON. "The exoskeleton also constrains arthropod evolution by introducing a big problem: how to grow."​ https://lnkd.in/dh8uqsf View in LinkedIn

NO LACK. "Mammals provide a plethora of examples of vestigial structures."​ https://lnkd.in/eMd4h72 View in LinkedIn

ON BLIND FISH AND PYTHONS. "We call this useless anatomical baggage “vestigial.” Every species has some of it. Flightless birds have non-functional wings. Blind fish living in dark caves have eyes that can’t see. Most pythons have atrophied useless pelvises floating inside their abdomens, not connected to anything."​ https://lnkd.in/d8JdtZG View in LinkedIn

MALADAPTATIONS. "Many groups simply never evolve features that might have made them even more successful. Sharks lack the gas bladder that allows bony fish to control their buoyancy precisely, for example, and instead have to rely on swimming, buoyant fatty livers and, occasionally, a gulp of air. Similarly, mammals’ two-way lungs are far less efficient than birds’ one-way lungs. And sometimes creatures evolve features that actually reduce their overall fitness rather than increase it, such as the peacock’s tail."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

STRESS OF CHANGE. "Continual mutation also means that if you don’t use it, you lose it. For instance, many primates cannot make vitamin C, because of a gene mutation. This mutation makes no difference to animals that get plenty of vitamin C in their diet. However, when the environment changes, such loss of function can make a big difference, as one primate discovered on long sea voyages."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

FLAWED DESIGNS. "Evolution’s lack of foresight can produce inherently flawed designs. The vertebrate eye – with its back-to-front wiring and blind spot where the wiring goes through the retina – is one example. Later adaptations have compensated for these problems to a large extent but once natural selection fixes upon a flawed, but workable, design, a species’ descendants are usually stuck with it."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

HUMAN VERSUS VIRUS. "We might like to think of ourselves as the most “highly evolved” species but, in terms of how many rounds of mutation and selection we’ve undergone, we are one of the least evolved species. Around 10 billion new viral particles can be produced every day in the body of a person infected with HIV. By contrast, the total human population on Earth was no more than a few million until a few thousand years ago."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

RAPID MICROBE EVOLUTION. "​In a decade bacteria can produce 200,000 generations — about the number of generations of humans there have been since our lineage split from that of chimpanzees. So it’s hardly surprising that in less than a human lifespan we’ve seen the evolution of new diseases such as HIV and numerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria."​ https://lnkd.in/dv-JiV6 View in LinkedIn

"THE EYE of the Trilobite was already highly sophisticated by Cambrian time - yet, it was hardly a perfect design - rather, it resulted from the tinkering of natural selection on the genomic ingredients that already existed." https://lnkd.in/dfRbEgj View in LinkedIn