Carrie Arnold – Quanta Magazine

Evolution: Fast or Slow? Lizards Help Resolve a Paradox.

Carrie Arnold — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 15:30:50 +0000

James Stroud had a problem. The evolutionary biologist had spent several years studying lizards on a small island in Miami. These Anolis lizards had looked the same for millennia; they had apparently evolved very little in all that time. Logic told Stroud that if evolution had favored the same traits over millions of years, then he should expect to see little to no change over a single generation.

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How Supergenes Fuel Evolution Despite Harmful Mutations

Carrie Arnold — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 16:39:48 +0000

Thousands of miles from home in the steamy Amazon rainforest in the mid-1800s, the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates had a problem. More than one, really; there were thumb-size biting insects, the ever-present threat of malaria, venomous snakes, and mold and mildew that threatened to overtake his precious specimens before they could be shipped back to England. But the nagging scientific...

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Ocean Bacteria Reveal an Unexpected Multicellular Form

Carrie Arnold — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 14:13:20 +0000

Close your eyes and imagine bacteria. Perhaps you’re picturing our intestinal Escherichia coli, or the shiny golden balls of staphylococcus, or the corkscrewing ringlets of Lyme disease spirochetes. Regardless of the species and its shape, chances are your mind’s eye conjured up a single cell, or maybe several free-living cells. The problem with this image, says the microbiologist Julia...

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In Sexy Worms, Inheritance Beyond Genes Can Help Evolution

Carrie Arnold — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 16:00:57 +0000

Playing the mating game is risky. Organisms must cope with the existential risk that swiping right on the wrong choice could doom future generations to a lifetime of bad genes. They also have to contend with more immediate burdens and risks: Participants need to gather resources for courting and summon energy to pursue a potential partner. Animals engaged in amorous activities also make easy...

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Evolution ‘Landscapes’ Predict What’s Next for COVID Virus

Carrie Arnold — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:10:28 +0000

In the fall of 2019, the world began one of the largest evolutionary biology experiments in modern history. Somewhere near the city of Wuhan in eastern China, a coronavirus acquired the ability to live inside humans rather than the bats and other mammals that had been its hosts. It adapted further to become efficient at spreading from one person to the next, even before the body’s defenses could...

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