On Trump’s way out of the White House, his administration demolished a law that protects migratory birds, putting over 1,000 species at risk. The Biden administration can still salvage it, but only if they act swiftly. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/biden-administration-migratory-bird-treaty-act…
Tag: evolutionary biology
Body Found In Canada Identified As Neo-Nazi Spam King
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Krebs On Security: The body of a man found shot inside a burned out vehicle in Canada three years ago has been identified as that of Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a prolific spammer and neo-Nazi who led a failed anti-government march on Washington, D.C. in 1999, according to news reports. Homicide detectives said they originally…
Evolution: Why it seems to have a direction, and what to expect next
Does evolution always and inevitably generates greater diversity and complexity, having a predictable direction? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/evolution-direction-what-to-expect-next…
Ancient 4-limbed fish reveals origin of human hand
The origin of digits in land vertebrates is hotly debated, but a new study suggests that human hands likely evolved from the fins of the Elpistostege, a fish that lived more than 380-million-years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/elpistostege-ancient-4limbed-fish-fin-origin-human-hand…
Save the giants, save the planet
Protecting large animals such as elephants and whales, and large plants like the sequoias, has a disproportionate positive impact on the health of the planet and resilience to climate change. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/why-to-conserve-large-animals-trees…
Did Protocells Serve As Software ‘Code’ In Early Evolutionary Biology?
Software developer nickwinlund77 writes: A new study following Nick Lane, et al.’s protocell study mentioned on Slashdot offers an explanation for how ”protocells” could have emerged on early Earth, eventually leading to the cells we know today. The work suggests that molecules called cyclophospholipids may have been the ingredient necessary for protocells to form important internal structures called vesicles, which likely…
Why Is Earth So Biologically Diverse? Mountains Hold the Answer
omfglearntoplay shares a report from ScienceDaily: What determines global patterns of biodiversity has been a puzzle for scientists since the days of von Humboldt, Darwin, and Wallace. Yet, despite two centuries of research, this question remains unanswered. The global pattern of mountain biodiversity, and the extraordinarily high richness in tropical mountains in particular, is documented in two companion Science review papers…