evolution

The Prairie 

 by Carl Sandburg

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.
 
Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam. Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches. Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.

Tree-of-Life Research Project: "With this study, we learned two major things. First, appearances can be deceiving. Birds that look or act similar are not necessarily related. Second, much of bird classification and conventional wisdom on the evolutionary relationships of birds is wrong."  Sushma Reddy, Bucksbaum Postdoctoral Fellow at The Field Museum.

The scientific names of dozens of birds will have to be changed, and biology textbooks and birdwatchers' field guides will have to be revised.

New Keys to Keeping a Diverse Planet

Diversity within a species is necessary to maintain diversity among species, and at the same time, diversity among species is necessary to maintain diversity within a species. And if any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community becomes dominated by a single species.

Researchers Debunk Belief Species Evolve Faster in Tropics

University of British Columbia researchers have discovered that contrary to common belief, species do not evolve faster in warmer climates. By analyzing the DNAs of species that are closely related to one another, the researchers found that speciation -- the process in which one species splits into two -- takes place faster in temperate zones than in the tropics.