Tag Archives: natural selection

A Story of Ants, Ageing and Altruism

October 31, 2007 – 11:34 pm

From The Independent by Steve Connor.
King Solomon is said to have told sluggards to look to the hard-working ant and be wise. Aesop, too, extolled the virtues of the humble ant in his fable explaining why the insect’s constant toiling through the summer months would make for an easier winter compared with the fortunes of [...]

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The Amazing Albatrosses

September 4, 2007 – 12:34 am

From Smithsonian by Kennedy Warne.
They fly 50 miles per hour. Go years without touching land. Predict the weather. Mate for life. And they’re among the world’s most endangered birds. Can albatrosses be saved?
Scofield, of New Zealand’s Canterbury Museum and co-author of Albatrosses, Petrels and Shearwaters of the World, has been studying albatrosses for more than [...]

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Researchers Witness Natural Selection at Work in Dramatic Comeback of Male Butterflies

July 14, 2007 – 10:10 pm

From physorg.com.
A male-killing bacteria has led to skewed sex ratios in populations of Hypolimnas bolina butterflies in the South Pacific, but researchers have found that male butterflies on some islands have bounced back thanks to the rise of a suppressor gene.
Within 10 generations that spanned less than a year, the proportion of males of [...]

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