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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/06/2010 : 05:15:29
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When is it going to turn into a bullfrog?
Well, it ain't, but I can hear the YEC's asking exactly that. Inquiring minds want to know, eh? 
Evolution by Religious Selection: Mexican Cavefish Develop Resistance to Toxin
ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2010) — A centuries-old religious ceremony of an indigenous people in southern Mexico has led to small evolutionary changes in a local species of fish, according to researchers from Texas A&M University.
Since before the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World, the Zoque people of southern Mexico would venture each year during the Easter season deep into the sulfuric cave Cueva del Azufre to implore their deities for a bountiful rain season. As part of the annual ritual, they release into the cave's waters a distinctive, leaf-bound paste made of lime and the ground-up root of the barbasco plant, a natural fish toxin. Believing the cave's fish to be gifts from their gods, they scoop up their poisoned prey to feed upon until their crops are ready to harvest.
However, a team of researchers led by Dr. Michael Tobler, an evolutionary ecologist at Oklahoma State University, and Dr. Gil Rosenthal, a biology professor at Texas A&M, has discovered that some of these fish have managed not only to develop a resistance to the plant's powerful toxin, but also to pass on their tolerant genes to their offspring, enabling them to survive in the face of otherwise certain death for their non-evolved brethren.
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There's nothing unusual about this. Creatures develop resistances and sensitivities all the time, the monarch butterfly being a prime example.
Yeah, I know; it's still just a bug and is not going to evolve into a buzzard as scientific creationism demands. However, it has made it's niche in nature a little safer and therefore enhanced the species' overall survival. And that's what it's all about.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Yeah, but it's still a fish!
