The history of evolution shows us that when there is a pressure change that threatened the survival of an organism, the organism evolves to continue living.  That shows us that for future evolution, for example, homo sapiens might start to have more and more hair due to the recent climate change and issues of global warming, so they can continue to live and keep warm throughout the decades to come.  If the world where to become flooded, leaving very little land but enough for people to migrate and find new sources for food and shelter etc., then we would have to find another alternative to the way we live now. If people had to swim from point A to B, I don’t think that we would necessarily grow gills, but I do think that our lungs would grow larger and bigger. If you were to look at a mammal that lives in the water, such as a dolphin, whale, or sea lion, they do not have gills. They need to resurface from time to time to get oxygen. So, if  the world did start to flood you could only imagine that people would start to hold their breath longer and probably have webbed fingers and toes to help swim in the water.

I don’t think that evolution can be determined by looking at history and seeing what has happened.  I believe to see the future in evolution you have to look to the present and see what is happening now in front of you.  If there are no selection pressures maybe evolution will just start to get rid of what we don’t need, like the pinky toe or the male nipple.  The problem with the theory of evolution is that there is nowhere near enough data to say this is how evolution works.  The reason being for that, even though evolution is amazing on its own, it takes centuries for it to occur. 

Asexual reproduction is a form of reproduction, which only involves one parent. Plants for example use asexual reproduction or in their case vegetative reproduction. Vegetative reproduction is when parts of the old plant fall off and develop into new plants. The new plants will grow very close to each other and to the parent. This will cause a struggle for soil, nutrients and light, and will consequently cause the plants to be less healthy. During asexual reproduction there is no chance of an evolution occurring, the offspring would almost always be of the same species and would be identical to the parents, so diseases are also passed down directly from the parents to the offspring.

Sexual reproduction is reproduction involving the union or fusion of a male and a female gamete. During sexual reproduction is that there is a large chance of an evolution-taking place. The new species will be able to adapt to environmental conditions, and the new character that is formed with the mixed gametes of the parents so there is a chance that the parent’s diseases would not be received by the offspring.

Sexual reproduction is important when talking about evolution because it also facilitates the increase in fitness under natural selection, leading to the 'best' combinations of genes. Sex can impede the increase in the fitness of the population the how it can remain the dominant form of reproduction across all manner of species. Sex at its foundation of merging of genes from different individuals creates genetically unique genes. If the goal is to maximize fitness by finding a particularly good combination of genes, asexual reproduction - which increases a population's numbers at a much faster rate than sexual reproduction works pretty well. 

University of Iowa. "Value of Sexual Reproduction Versus Asexual Reproduction." ScienceDaily, 25 January 2010. Web. 15 November 2010. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121161238.html

Ridley, Matt. "The Advantages of Sex." 4 December 1993, Print. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/sex/advantage/index.html

How did meat eating begin?

Meat eating has been said to go as far back as 2.5 million years for humans. Fossils of tools used to butcher meat are found to have gone back that far. It is believed that we started eating meat because of the competition for food between other species. Craig B. Stanford points to an example of this in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. This forest is the only forest where mountain gorillas and chimps live together. Chimps eat meat while Gorillas don’t meaning that they can coexist together because they have two different diets.

 How meat eating affected the evolution of humans

Long ago when humans started to eat meat it triggered tons of evolutionary changes. For one thing, our jaws have gotten smaller so we can chew meat better. And because of our diets being chocked full of meat we have evolved to have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat.  Also, scientist say that eating meat helped our brains to grow bigger and our figure slimmer. All these positives from meat though did not happen until we started cooking meat. To get the caloric energy you get from meat you have to cook it. So we really didn’t start reaping the benefits of meat until we discovered fire.

Being a meat eater isn't all positive

But everything that has evolved from meat eating was not good. Because our jaws are downsized are teeth cannot fit inside. So it’s rare to find someone who has perfectly straight teeth that did not have any dental work on them. Also us evolving to cooking and using forks and knives has made out big teeth useless because our food is so soft. 

Sources:

Mayell, H. (2005, February 18). "evolving to eat mush": how meat changed our bodies. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0218_050218_human_diet.htm

Joyce, C. (Producer). (2010, August 2). Food for thought: meat-based diet made us smarter [Audio Podcast]. NPR Series: The Human Edge. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908

This picture from left is of castings of teeth from a chimpanzee, Australopithecus afarensis and a modern human

It is no easy task to predict what the future of the human race will be. According to US News, “Humans are evolving faster than ever before, picking up new genetic traits and talents that may help us survive a turbulent future.” The human race, which is a quite intelligent, evolves everyday. Until recently scientists believed that the human evolution had slowed down, due to the lack of visual changes, failing to look deeper into the issue. Human are now evolving within their genomes and DNA, it has been scientifically inferred that with so many changes within the human body as opposed to the physical features, will one day start to change humans outer body.

A recent study in the news, (available on livescience.com) shows that speculation that changes in human mating patterns may be contributing to the increase in autism. Others track how humans have morphed in response to changing circumstances, including enhanced abilities to metabolize sugar and fight disease. One of the biggest changes within human DNA is that some humans are becoming more resistant to the HIV virus and it will become more common in the future, as well as changes in human body makeup. One of the factors of that is that it a new form of DNA testing helps parents choose the genetic makeup of their children, rejecting embryos with inherited flaws or embracing those with desired traits—such as being the right sex. The future of human evolution is based on the future of new testing techniques.

Sorry this is late, I thought I uploaded, but didn't...

Mary Altamuro

When we think of the mentally handicapped or those with mental disorders, we instantly feel pity.  We usually do not stop to wonder why or how a person came to be stricken with the disability or disorder that afflicts them.   I find myself curious about why these disorders still exist generation after generation even after all the scientific effort at uncovering the causes and possible cures.  A great deal of time and attention has been spent on how these disorders came to exist and what might make them worse and how to make them better, but there is still so much we still need to learn.  Thankfully, scientists have given us a great deal of information that can be very beneficial in understanding, treating and hopefully someday curing or preventing mental and emotional issues. 

Recently, studies have shown that a genetic predisposition may be hidden in people that makes them prone to certain characteristics that when provoked, can create emotional or mental conditions.  This predisposition, in conjunction with a triggering event or simply by the quality in that person’s environment and upbringing can cause these characteristics to become problematic and spark a mental or emotional abnormality. This peculiar phenomenon is called the diathesis-stress model.

According to this theory, when provoked, a characteristic may go into overdrive, causing a person to have a legitimately diagnosable illness. Environmental stimuli that may cause such a thing to happen are social issues or trauma that may have occurred at a young age.

 One of the most common problems that can cause such a change in people would have to do with their parents. If a young person does not receive the right kind of attention as they are maturing, it can cause emotional and social problems for them later in life.  An overbearing or judgmental parental figure can cause a person to have low self-esteem, which could then inflict disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, social anxiety disorder or even depression.   Parents who get divorced have also been shown to cause obsessive-compulsive disorder in as children of divorced parents tend to feel they have a loss of control in their lives and obsessive-compulsive disorder is a disorder driven by a person’s overwhelming need and drive for control. 

These disorders reveal themselves when people who are predisposed for the characteristics are triggered by an emotional or social stress. This ignites an inner need to balance themselves out, mentally. Sadly, they often emotionally overcompensate; leaving them worse off then they were in the beginning.

       The thumb is arguably the best adaptation humans have. We don’t think about it, and we take if for granted, but the thumb is used everyday, and makes things so much easier. However we didn’t always have thumbs, nor are we the only ones who have them. The first actual record of a thumb, was back when the Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the most known is probably the iguanodon. So thumbs have been around for a long time, even sauropods that walked on all 4 legs seemed to have some resemblance in their feet to a thumb bone, But what about with humans?

One of the earliest apes (even before the Humans) that had a thumb was called the Proconsul; This ape lived around 17-23 Million years ago, Although not human, they evolved from the same  relative (The

Kenyapithecus) they are one of the first mammals on record to have a thumb. The first humans ever were the Homo habilis, they too had a thumb. 

            This all just means the thumb is a hard evolutionary trait to trace, they appeared way before humans and apes, but did not appear to be used as an opposable thumb until the first mammals.  Now here are some pictures of animals with thumbs:

Sources

http://www3.nsta.org/main/news/stories/science_and_children.php?news_story_ID=49036

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Opposable_thumb