Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / June 2004

People who exercise at the gym primarily do so for one of two reasons - to
build muscle mass or improve cardio fitness.
Its easy to see why the body only puts on muscle in response to weight
training. If there is excess food available, your body is better storing

TT:-
So: mentioning fitness is confusing, because of the many meanings of
the word - and because the popular meanings lead to misunderstanding.
A measure of absolute fitness would be more acceptable to me.

Researcher Richard Michod and colleagues at the University of Arizona in
Tucson have found that high temperatures make the green algae Volvox
more likely to reproduce sexually.
A news article about the story:

Here's an essay I wrote recently about life's direction.
 http://originoflife.net/direction/
In it I argume that the notion that evoultion is a directionless process
whose direction at any time is contingent on envrionmental conditions is

NAS wrote:-

news:<cb5h28$2un7$1@darwin.ediacara.org>...

interesting that shrews (closely resembling Morganucodon) are venomous.
cheers!
Doc
"Kevin Anderson" <docmartian@verizon.net> wrote in message

Dear NG
because I want to take a look how mutation rate, generation time an
selection pressure interacts with the rate of evolution (evolution
velocity) I need different measurements:

I read this and a question I have does genetic canalization or genetic
redundancy which is dependent on genetic epistatic interactions a
signifigant limiting factor in our further evolution. How are the
processess of Darwinian evolution interacting with genetic

The question that perplexes me - why does evolution progress from the
simple to the complex? The simple bacteria and other "primitive" forms
of live are by no means less "viable" then more complex forms --
animals and humans. Many of these "primitive" species remain the same

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Scientists see new species born
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor
Scientists at the University of Arizona may have witnessed the birth of a

Does anyone have an idea as to why baboons can co-exist with humans?
Seems like they occupy almost the same ecological nitch and would
directly compete with humans for food.  If our species wiped out all
our ancestor species, why not baboons too?

It is very interesting to know, what is the amount of biomass involved in
evolution process, and how does it change from very beginning of evolution
to our days.
Any articles, links, hints are very much appreciated!

Introduction
Classical population- and quantitative genetic theory are largely
theories of additive effects. This does not mean that linear effects are
assumed to be the rule, they are not, but rather that the linear

Because of the danger of UV caused dimers
whenever two pyrimidines are adjacent on
an RNA strand, there are only two ways
to code for a safe anticodon (safe being