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Not a One-Way Street: Evolution Shapes Environment of Connecticut Lakes

By Guest PostMay 24, 2012Environment, Naturealewife, atlantic coast, bosminia, colonial settlers, colonial times, connecticut, daphnia, david post, ecology, environmental change, evolution, evolutionary change, evolutionary feedback, fish, force, genetic changes, john delong, lake, loop, matthew r walsh, organism, plankton, population growth, predator, prey, torrance hanley, water fleas, yale university, zooplankton

Environmental change is the selective force that preserves adaptive traits in organisms and is a primary driver of evolution. However, it is less well known that evolutionary change in organisms also trigger fundamental changes in the environment.

Yale University researchers found a prime example of this evolutionary feedback loop in a few lakes in Connecticut, where dams built 300 years ago in Colonial times trapped a fish called the alewife.

In a study published May 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Academy B, the Yale team describes how this event fundamentally changed the structure of the alewife and, with it, the water flea that the alewife feeds upon and the food chain that supports them both. (more…)

Biologists Turn Back the Clock to Understand Evolution of Sex Differences

By Guest PostMay 9, 2012Nature, Scienceabderrahman khila, antlers, battle, darwin, ehab abouheif, evolution, hooks, locke rowe, male guppies, mating, mcgill university, moose, peacocks, plumage, rheumatobates rileyi, rna interference, sex differences, sexes, traits in nature, tusks, university of toronto, walruses, water striders, wild colours

Battles of sexes shown to spur adaptive sex differences

Sex differences account for some of the most of the spectacular traits in nature: the wild colours of male guppies, the plumage of peacocks, tusks on walruses and antlers on moose. Sexual conflict – the battle between males and females over mating – is thought to be a particularly potent force in driving the evolution of traits that differ in males and females.

However, the genetic processes responsible for producing such traits are not well understood, nor how they evolved from their simpler less elaborate ancestral forms. We tend to assume that each tiny step in evolution is an advantage. But are they really? (more…)

IBM Study Reveals Critical Shift in the Role of Chief Information Security Executives Globally

By Guest PostMay 3, 2012Technologyasia-pacific, ceos, chief attribute, cisos, david jarvis, Europe, evolution, ibm study, influencer, information security organization, it security, marc van zadelhoff, Technology

Analysis of 130+ interviews presents a new class of security chiefs; CISO role follows the evolution of CIO and CFO with more strategic organizational responsibilities

ARMONK, N.Y. – 03 May 2012: A new IBM study reveals a clear evolution in information security organizations and their leaders with 25 percent of security chiefs surveyed shifting from a technology focus to strategic business leadership role. (more…)

Microsoft’s Certifications Reinvented for the Cloud

By Guest PostApril 11, 2012Technologycloud, cushing anderson, don field, evolution, it environment, mcsa, mcsd, mcse, mcse certification, mcsm, Microsoft, microsoft certification, peter de tender, private cloud, program, public cloud, Technology

*New program reflects changes coming to IT jobs.*

REDMOND, Wash. — April 11, 2012— Microsoft today announced that it has reinvented its certification program to directly address technology’s evolution to the cloud.

Organizations are increasingly turning to the cloud to improve productivity, cut costs and fuel business growth. By 2015 IT innovation produced by the cloud could create US$1.1 trillion a year in new business revenues according to a recent IDC study (1). As a result, top of mind for companies today is making sure they have the right skills and people in place to help them fully realize the benefits the cloud has to offer. (more…)

New Understanding of Earth’s Mantle Beneath The Pacific Ocean

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2012Scienceasthenosphere, boundary, carnegie, crust, earth, evolution, factors, gutenberg discontinuity, lab, lithosphere, lithosphere asthenosphere boundary, mineral, molten rock, nick schmerr, pacific ocean basin, planet, plate tectonics

Washington, D.C. — Scientists have long speculated about why there is a large change in the strength of rocks that lie at the boundary between two layers immediately under Earth’s crust: the lithosphere and underlying asthenosphere. Understanding this boundary is central to our knowledge of plate tectonics and thus the formation and evolution of our planet as we know it today. A new technique for observing this transition, particularly in the portion of Earth’s mantle that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean basin, has led Carnegie and NASA Goddard scientist Nick Schmerr to new insight on the origins of the lithosphere and asthenosphere. His work is published March 23 in Science.

The lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, or LAB, represents the transition from hot, convecting mantle asthenosphere to overlying cold and rigid lithosphere. The oceanic lithosphere thickens as it cools over time, and eventually sinks back into the mantle at Earth’s so-called subduction zones. (more…)

What Makes Ticks Tick?

By Guest PostMarch 11, 2012Healthanaplasmosis, antibiotic therapy, apple, arthritis, babesiosis, bacterium, climate change, dengue fever, disease, durland fish, european ancestry, evolution, infectious diseases, iPhone, lyme disease, maine, malaria, michigan, minnesota, neurological problems, North America, Pennsylvania, placebo, ticks, united states, virginia, west nile virus, wisconsin

Durland Fish has researched ticks and their associated diseases for decades. A professor in the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, he has, among other things, contributed to the discovery that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease has European ancestry and that the disease, once nearly eradicated in North America, roared back with reforestation. More recently he helped develop a Lyme disease “app” for the iPhone and other Apple devices that provides users with detailed information about tick populations in any given area in the United States and even comes with a video on how to safely remove a tick. He has also worked on mosquito-borne West Nile virus and dengue fever. Students selected Fish as the school’s mentor of the year in 2010. (more…)

Evolution of Earliest Horses Driven by Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 24, 2012Environment, Nature, Scienceaaron wood, atmosphere, bighorn basin, body size, cabin fork area, carbon, carbon dioxide, cause and effect, climate model, clydesdale, concentration, doug boyer, dwarfing phenomenon, earliest horse, evolution, florida museum of natural history, fossil, geochemical analysis, global temperature, h richard lane, horse teeth, industrial revolution, jonathan bloch, mammal, national science foundation, natural selection, North America, nsf, ocean, ornithologist, oxygen levels, paleocene-eocene thermal maximum, petm, prediction, ross secord, sifrhippus sandae, stephen chester, temperature, university of florida, university of nebraska lincoln, worland, yale

*The hotter it gets, the smaller the animal?*

When Sifrhippus sandae, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale.

It weighed in at around 12 pounds–and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia.

Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. (more…)

Studying The Evolution of Life’s Building Blocks

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2012Sciencealbert szent gyorgyi, ancient life, bacterium, basic module, beginning of life, beginning of time, british columbia, building block, chemical building block, chemical reactions, evolution, evolution of life, geneticists, michigan state university, molecular complementarity, molecular paleontology, origin of life, paleontologists, physiologist, robert root bernstein, species, vancouver, vitamin c

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Studying the origin of life at its building blocks offers a unique perspective on evolution, says a researcher at Michigan State University.

Robert Root-Bernstein, MSU physiology professor, will answer the question of why a physiologist studies the origin of life at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Feb. 16-20 in Vancouver, British Columbia. (more…)

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