You know I remember the day when giants strode Usenet, using the the power of their awesome minds as rhetorical 2×4’s to swat an ever-regenerating stream of Creationists. PZ Meyers was a titan of Usenet (and I, a cowardly lurker).
Here, he explains a new theory in how at least one set of cave-dwelling critters lost their eyesight. It is a more satisfactory explanation than the “economic” (it pays not to grow eyes) and “neutral” (oy, genes today) models.
And he does a great job of explaining pleiotropy, a very complicated bit of evolution genetics where a single gene can be responsible for a number of different physical features, depending on the cell in which the gene is expressed.
Meyer’s blog, Pharyngula, now lives at Seed magazine. It is required reading. I haven’t really paid attention, but it seems they folded their Science Blogs (or, at least Pharyngula) into the magazine’s online content proper.
okay, yeah, that was a pretty cool article. I wonder what other fun gene pairings are out there. and which theory explains us losing our toes? 😉
>and which theory explains us losing our toes?
I’m pretty sure it was the one that discusses your reckless behavior with power tools.