Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Evolve or Die

© Mona Lisa Productions

I'm a bit of an evolution junkie. I'm particularly fascinated by the idea of evolution in real time. We tend to think of evolution as something that happens over millions of years, but there is evolutionary change happening right under our noses. See this story on Live Science about fish in southern Mexico who are adapting to a centuries old, yearly religious ceremony practiced by the Zoque people. As part of the ceremony, the Zoque stun the fish with a plant toxin. Most fish knuckle to the toxin, float to the surface and are eaten. The fish that have developed a resistance to the toxin live to swim (and reproduce) another day.
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