New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp

sciencehabit writes "A eucalyptus-like tree from New Zealand is still waging a battle that should have ended over 500 years ago. The tree continues to sport evolutionary adaptations, such as barbed leaves, to protect it from a large, flightless bird known as a moa. There's just one problem: the moa went extinct around 1500 AD."

Comments

Easily explainable.

[Lueseiseki]

That tree is stuck in an endless recursion of time.

Re:Easily explainable.

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, please. The idea of a utopian ideal where "we've outgrown greed" is so funny in both evolutionary terms and biological terms it's... well, it's like thinking that randomness ill cause your hostess's underwear to jump several feet to the left for quantum uncertainty reasons. It can be amusing to discuss, but it isn't going to happen for "evolutionary" reasons. You'll just have to get her underwear moved the normal way, alcohol and fast talking.

Re:Easily explainable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, as far as the tree is concerned, the defence is working - it hasn't been attacked by a moa for 500 years. Why would it change?

Re:Easily explainable.

[SteveFoerster]

How about your kids go first. Then they can all work for my kids.

Re:Easily explainable.

[shird]

Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.

In other related news...

[MenThal]

...why do men still have nipples. Film at 11.

Re:In other related news...

[eclectro]

..why do men still have nipples. Film at 11.

It's 11 and here is the film. Men have nipples so that they can take part in this test which has the potential to increase monetary winnings and thus the man's ability to afford to go out on a date and eventually reproduce. This continued pressure on the nipples hence keeps them around, and may in fact make them more durable in the long term.

Re:In other related news...

[wonmon]

I use mine to fight off large, flightless birds.
(requires constant supply of ice cubes to be effective)

Re:Wrong comparison ?

[noidentity]

A register-limited processor from the 1970s is still waging a battle that should have ended over 150 months ago. The processor continues to sport evolutionary adaptations, such as compactly-encoded instructions, to protect it from a small, slow memory configuration known as 640K. There's just one problem: that configuration went extinct around 1990 AD.

Lets do the Time Warp

[retech]

If you consider two facts this tree comes as no surprise:

• Richard O'Brien, the creator of RHPS and the Time warp comes from NZ
• NZ television is two seasons behind the rest of the world

The tree is just keeping in step with it's environment.

In other news...

[johno.ie]

It was discovered today that newborn humans still grow teeth. Scientists are baffled because the human species developed the technology to build smoothie machines 3 generations ago.

Re:It is a common misconception about evolution

[funkatron]

Could be design by comitee. I never really heard a good reason for choosing monotheism over polytheism.

Re:It is a common misconception about evolution

[lxs]

Whay about efficiency? It like standardization. One god needs only one type of prayer one type of priest and only one myth. Think of the gains our theological monoculture will bring!!!

Re:It is a common misconception about evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words that destroy any possibility of intelligent design: Recurrent laryngeal nerve

Well now, lets look at something right there..

If it is damaged [during surgery], the patient will have a hoarse voice

..and yet all hot blooded males are attracted to a woman with a husky voice! Its obviously designed that way so that women who have had thyroid surgery can still retain their sexual prowess.. Allu akhbar!

Re:It isn't instant.

[MathiasRav]

We have the ability to genetically engineer a human today.

Sure we do: Eugenics! Why leave it to science to experiment, when you can do all the work as easy as selective breeding?

it gets worse

[Hognoxious]

Seen that seam under your ball sack? You really don't want to know why that's there.

Re:it gets worse

[pregister]

How flexible _are_ you?

Re:Evolution is great. (mostly)

[Hognoxious]

the plant defenses didn't actually contribute much if anything towards making Moas extinct, human presence did most of the work there, if not all.

They didn't become extinct, they evolved to eat grass instead of trees.

Haven't you heard of a lawn moa?

Ha! Everyone missed it!

[Anonymous Coward]

The tree isn't giving up it's spiny leaves because of us!

Clearly the Moa will be extinct for only a short while- until we revive the species.

So inconvenient to lose the spines, only to have to get them back a mere 500 years later.

Re:It is a common misconception about evolution

[Dragonslicer]

The Romans and Greeks had gods who were lecherous alcoholic serial rapists... they're perfect?

Did they ever get arrested for it? No? Then I'd say they were pretty darned good at it.

Re:It is a common misconception about evolution

[Hognoxious]

You should take a look at my inbox one day.

Yours,
    God.

P.S. Submit a patch if you want.