Collectivist Genes: Are bullying, haranguing, collectivists just expressing adaptive evolutionary behavior? A new paper in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B suggests that when societies are hostile to individualism, sexual selection may be to blame. [Reason]
Evolution Goes Wild in Once-Polluted Lake: The cleanup of a polluted Washington lake appears to have driven evolution backwards for the threespined stickleback fish living there. Marine-dwelling versions of these fish are covered in bony plates, but as sticklebacks migrated into freshwater, a strong selection pressure caused them to lose their armor. [Discovery]
Missing link fossil settles frog evolution debate: Now a Texan fossil, Gerobatrachus hottoni (”Hotton’s elder frog”) from around 300 million years ago, proves the previously disputed fact that some modern amphibians, frogs and salamanders evolved from one group of ancient primitive amphibians called temnospondyls, some of which were up to 1.5 metres long. [Telegraph]
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