Latest news with #evolution
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Museum study shows human impact on chipmunks and voles in Chicago
CHICAGO -- Three stories above the Field Museum's exhibits, rows and rows of taxidermied chipmunks filled a tray in the museum's mammal archives. Pointing to two of the oldest critters, mammalogist Stephanie Smith picked up the pair of chipmunks off the tray, balancing them in the palm of her hand. 'The oldest ones we have are from 1891, and these were collected in Jackson Park over 100 years ago,' Smith said, pointing to the two chipmunks. 'You can see how good-looking they both look, and that's the beauty of this collection. We preserve this material to last, generation to generation.' In many ways, these well-preserved chipmunks mirror those that Chicagoans might see scurrying down alleyways or hopping around in parks today, with their distinctive white stripes and bushy tails. But according to a new study by Field Museum researchers, Chicago's modern-day rodents have evolved to look quite different from what they did just a century ago — mostly because of human development. Smith, along with assistant curator of mammals Anderson Feijó and two Field Museum interns, measured the skulls of nearly 400 rodent specimens — collected from the 1890s to modern day — to see how their skull structure had changed over time. The study, published June 26, focused on chipmunks and voles, aiming to compare the evolution of above- and below-ground species. They found that over time, Chicago chipmunks have overall gotten larger, but the row of teeth along the side of their jaw has gotten smaller. 'It's probably related to the food they're eating,' Feijó said. 'Chipmunks are much more interactive with humans and have access to different kinds of food we eat. So we hypothesize they are eating more soft food and because they require less bite force, which reflects in the tooth rows.' In vole samples, they found that the animals' size had stayed pretty consistent — but that the bumps in their skull that house the inner ear had shrunk. As Chicago grew over the past hundred years, the voles may have adapted to have smaller ears in order to protect them from the noisy city streets, Smith said. 'These two animals are small mammals, so people might sort of put them in the same category in their heads, right?' she said. 'But they're responding to this human alteration of the landscape in different ways. So preservation of natural populations of animals is not a one-size-fits-all thing … as the city changes, as we try and facilitate the longevity of green areas where these animals live, maybe we need to think about different solutions for different animals.' During the 20th century, Chicago was one of the fastest growing cities in the world, expanding from 516,000 residents in the 1910 census to 3.5 million residents by the 1950 census. With this rapid population growth also came rapid urbanization, as buildings, highways and transit grew more and more dense. While just 6% of land in the Chicago area was used for urban development in 1900, this grew to 34% by 1992, according to data compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. With fewer natural areas in the region, native rodents like chipmunks and voles have had to adapt to urban environments and find new sources of food and shelter. The Field Museum team used satellite imagery dating back to 1940 to determine how much of each rodent's habitat had been used for urban buildings at the time that they lived. 'These kinds of adaptations are happening across all different animals, different groups, different areas,' Feijo said. 'It's just a way that animals need to figure out how to survive these new conditions.' Similar trends have been documented in other major cities. A 2020 study of rats in New York City found that these East Coast rodents' teeth have also shrunk over time, similar to those of Chicago chipmunks. The Field Museum houses over 40 million mammal specimens in its archives, mostly collected in Chicago and the surrounding region, enabling scientists to track how different species have changed over time. The museum's exhibits represent less than 1% of its actual collections, according to museum communications manager Kate Golembiewski. In addition to manually measuring the chipmunks' and voles' skulls, researchers also created 3D scans of some of the specimens, which allowed them to more closely compare the differences between each specimens' bone structure. Moving forward, Smith and Feijo hope to use their data to find a stronger correlation between evolutionary change and urbanization. 'These animals, the fact that they are adapting and still relatively abundant shows that they are changing,' Smith said. 'But that doesn't mean that they're gonna be able to do that forever. So it's important to keep an ear to the ground, and try to understand what these guys are up to.' Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mason Jones dials from long distance
Tired of the put-downs, Tennessee town corrects the record with its own Scopes trial play A small town in Tennessee courted publicity when it recruited a teacher to challenge a law banning the teaching of evolution. But Dayton got a lot more criticism than they bargained for. Every summer, locals reenact the trial, hoping to correct the record about the famous Scopes trial. (AP video: Kristin M. Hall and Mike Stewart.)
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Some Tomatoes Are Evolving Backwards in Real Time
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Evolution is often portrayed as stepping toward ever-greater complexity, but the natural world is filled with examples of organisms actually reverting back to a previous evolutionary state. A new study examines this process in progress with tomato plants in Galápagos, finding that plants on the newer, western islands have developed alkaloids similar to eggplant relatives millions of years ago compared to modern tomato plants. It's possible these plants developed this strategy because the newer islands are barren and less biologically diverse, so the ancient molecule might provide better protection in such a harsh environment. The famous ape-to-man illustration, known as The March of Progress, depicts evolution as a one-way street toward evolutionary perfection—but nature isn't always so simple. Many organisms have displayed what appears to be 'reverse evolution,' or regression, where ancient attributes of past ancestors seem to reappear down the evolutionary line. Cave fish, for example, will lose eyesight and return to a state similar to a previous ancestor that lacked this visual organ, but the argument remains whether this is reverse evolution or simply the ending of an evolutionary pathway that creates a vestigial organ. Of course, complex animals are not the only ones that appear to rewind the evolutionary clock. A new study in Nature Communications, led by scientists at University of California (UC) Riverside, analyzed species of tomato in the Solanaceae family, comparing populations from both eastern and western islands of the Galápagos—that famous Pacific island chain that inspired Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory nearly 200 years ago. The team specifically analyzed the tomato's alkaloids, a bitter molecule that acts as a kind of pesticide to deter would-be predators and fungi. On the eastern islands, the tomatoes exhibited alkaloids similar to modern tomatoes, but on the western islands—which are geologically younger than the eastern ones—the tomatoes exhibited changes in four amino acids in the enzyme that makes these alkaloid molecules. They found this simple change caused the tomatoes to create alkaloids more similar to eggplant relatives from millions of years ago, seemingly reversing evolution. 'It's not something we usually expect, but here it is, happening in real time, on a volcanic island,' UC Riverside's Adam Jozwiak, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. 'Our group has been working hard to characterize the steps involved in alkaloid synthesis, so that we can try and control it.' However, this 'reverse' wasn't a spontaneous event. The researchers theorize that the cause of this evolutionary quirk could be traced to the new, western islands themselves. While the eastern islands are millions of years old, the western ones are only hundreds of thousands of years old and are still forming today. This means these islands contain less biological diversity as well as more barren soil. This more ancient landscape may have pushed the tomato to then adopt a more ancient survival strategy. 'It could be that the ancestral molecule provides better defense in the harsher western conditions,' Jozwiak says. 'Some people don't believe in this, but the genetic and chemical evidence points to a return to an ancestral state. The mechanism is there. It happened.' Whether organisms experience 'reverse' evolution could largely be chalked up to semantics. With both cave fish and Galápagos tomatoes, evolution did its usual work of making life fit for the conditions at hand. Usually that means improving into ever greater complexity, and at other, less often times, it means reverting back to a golden oldie. You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tired of put-downs, Tennessee town corrects the record with play about the Scopes trial it hosted
DAYTON, Tenn. (AP) — A small town in eastern Tennessee courted national publicity and attention a century ago when local leaders planned a test trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools. What they got from the eight-day Scopes trial was more than they bargained for. The trial of the century — and the first to be broadcast over the radio — inspired articles, books, plays and movies, including the popular 'Inherit the Wind.' It also characterized Dayton as an uneducated town of strident Christian fundamentalists, a narrative locals have spent decades trying to rewrite. For over 30 years, people in Rhea County have put on a play every July using the trial transcript, aiming to correct the record. In their own words, the actors and director of 'Destiny in Dayton' explain the complexities of the town captured by history. The director Dan Buck was a theater professor at a nearby private university when he got an email seeking a director for the play about the Scopes trial. Buck knew about the trial, but didn't know Dayton had its own play. 'The legacy of little towns telling their own story through theater is rich history, right?' Buck said, noting the tradition was playfully lampooned in the mockumentary, 'Waiting for Guffman.' Locals have put on the play to counter the stereotypes and creative liberties from 'Inherit the Wind,' as well as columnist H.L. Mencken's harsh critique of residents at the time. 'I quickly learned that the people of the town here are not real fond of the play or the movie,' Buck said. 'They call it the 'Scottish play,' which is a reference to Macbeth, the thing you're not supposed to say: the cursed play.' In truth, the story of the trial was more complicated and nuanced than most people think. John T. Scopes, the local teacher, was a willing participant in testing the anti-evolution law, and prosecutor William Jennings Bryan didn't die after the trial because he was defeated by defense attorney Clarence Darrow's arguments. In directing the play on the trial's 100th anniversary, Buck says he is working toward the same mission Dayton leaders had a century ago. 'I am building up the buzz about this town, getting people here to get them excited, putting Dayton on the map,' Buck said. 'Maybe we are trying to use this story and this trial to get a little attention to this specific place.' The descendant Jacob Smith, 23, didn't realize his connection to the most famous trial until he started studying history. His great-great-great-grandmother's brother was Walter White, the county superintendent of schools and one of the key figures who brought the trial to Dayton. Smith plays Dudley Field Malone, a defense attorney for Scopes who gave speeches as equally impassioned and memorable during the trial as Bryan and Darrow. One of Smith's favorite lines to deliver is a reference to the so-called battle between the two sides in court. 'He basically says, 'There is never a duel with the truth,'' Smith said. 'He said, 'It always wins. It is no coward. It does not need the law, the forces of government, or,' and he pauses, 'Mr. Bryan.'' Smith is currently the county archivist, and he delights in seeing people visit Dayton's original courthouse with its squeaky and shiny wood floors, tall windows and impressive stairs that lead up to the wide courtroom on the second floor. 'You can hold the handrails going up to that circuit courtroom, just like those lawyers would have done and all those spectators would have done back in 1925,' Smith said. The 'Great Commoner' Larry Jones has acted in community and local theater since childhood, so he thought he knew the story of the Scopes trial after performing in a production of 'Inherit the Wind.' He later realized the famous play was taking creative liberties to make the trial a metaphor for something else captivating the nation's attention at the time: McCarthyism. Jones plays the role of Bryan, a famous Christian orator and populist politician whose speeches earned him the nickname of 'the Great Commoner.' He says the hardest part was not learning the lengthy speeches Bryan gives during the trial, but rather the sparring he must do when Darrow unexpectedly puts Bryan on the stand to defend the literal truth of the Bible. 'I'm just having to respond spontaneously, and it feels spontaneous every time,' Jones said. 'So part of my mind is going, 'Oh my gosh, is that the right cue? Am I going to say the right thing?'' Jones said audiences still connect to the retelling of the trial a century later because these are issues they continue to deal with. 'People are still arguing the same case,' Jones said. 'What is the role of the federal government or the state government in public school systems? What should be allowed? What shouldn't be allowed? What can parents exert influence over for their children's sake? Whether it's evolution or whether it's literature or any of the political issues that are abundant today, it still is the same argument.' No conclusion The outcome of the trial was no great surprise. The jury found Scopes guilty after a few minutes of deliberation. The defense attorneys' goal all along, however, was to take the legal argument to a higher court. Today, Dayton embraces its place in history with the annual celebration of the trial. Businesses advertise and promote the 'Monkey trial.' And locals have adopted the phrase: 'Dayton has evolved.' 'We're dusting off a very old story, but it's very new,' said Buck. 'It's very, very right now.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Washington Post
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Tired of put-downs, Tennessee town corrects the record with play about the Scopes trial it hosted
DAYTON, Tenn. — A small town in eastern Tennessee courted national publicity and attention a century ago when local leaders planned a test trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools. What they got from the eight-day Scopes trial was more than they bargained for. The trial of the century — and the first to be broadcast over the radio — inspired articles, books, plays and movies, including the popular 'Inherit the Wind.'
