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Rate of Evolution Metrics Observed
eldavojohn notes an article up at Science Daily on research demonstrating that smaller animals with warmer blood evolve faster than larger, colder animals. From the article: "Across species from fish to mammals, they found that rates of protein evolution showed the same body size and temperature dependence as metabolic rate. Specifically, their mathematical model predicts that a 10-degree increase in temperature across species leads to about a 300 percent increase in the evolutionary rate of proteins, while a tenfold decrease in body size leads to about a 200 percent increase in evolutionary rates."
Using the estimated rates, scientists projected evolution to have started about 6,000 years ago. ;)
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
My college buddy's ferret had a fever once. Before it was over she evolved wings, grew a sixth digit on each paw, became super-intelligent and built an interociter which she used to summon a rescue saucer from a race of hyper-sapient star-ferrets.
> So that means the dinosaurs (huge cold blooded reptiles) were an evolutionary dead end?
Dinosaur Spokesman: We had a good what, hundred, two hundred million year run? How long you human critters been around? Two mil? Odds on making it to three?
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
smaller got eaten by bigger, and generally, hot is tastier than cold.
Yeah, thankfully evolution has not been demonstrated; if it had, we would have stuff like multi-resistant bacteria and animal breeding (which is nothing more than guided evolution).
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to learn more about how the Sun revolves around the Earth...