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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2006 : 10:55:05
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quote:
It's a pitiless lesson—adapt or die—but the sand-colored mice that scurry around the beaches of Florida's Gulf Coast seem to have learned the lesson well. Now researchers have identified a genetic mutation that underlies natural selection for the sand-matching coat color of the beach mice, an adaptive trait that camouflages them from aerial predators.
In the July 7, 2006, issue of the journal Science, evolutionary geneticist Hopi Hoekstra and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, report that a single mutation causes the lifesaving color variation in beach mice (Peromyscus polionotus) and provides evidence that evolution can occur in big leaps.
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2006 : 14:46:03 [Permalink]
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Cool! Thanks for bringing this to our attention, pleco! When we are seeing more and more evidence of recent, and ongoing, evolution, finding every conceivable "transitional fossil" is becoming a moot point in making the evolution process ever more firmly established as biological fact.
These mice seem to provide evidence of the "punctuated equilibrium" model of evolution.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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