Thoughts w/ Casey

 Hey guys, since there is no actual prompt for the blog post this week and it is not required, I thought I would just write about something that is very interesting to me.  Anyways, I remember talking about this specific story in a class last year, but I cannot remember which one. Nevertheless, over the past 150 years, scientists have examined the reproductive organs of 814 cricket frogs in Illinois. The discoveries were horrifying. As a result of the excessive amounts of DDT being used to kill crop-destroying insects such as mosquitos, many frogs in Illinois have developed both male and female organs due to the DDT runoff into the swamps. Scientists have hypothesized that DDT had an anti-estrogen affect in these frogs, which reduced the amount of amount of females in the population and damaged their reproductive organs, causing the frog population to decline. In addition, the highest rates of intersex frogs that were found occurred between 1946 and 1959, the same time period ...

First of all, in order to know whether or not mutation rates evolve, one must first recognize Darwin's postulates:  (1) Individuals within species are variable; (2) some of these variations are heritable ; and (3) individuals that reproduce the most are those with the most favorable variations.   I am mostly restating these postulates so I do not forget them when I writing, not because I think you guys don't know what they are. Anyways, back to the main point. My first instinct tells me that mutation rates cannot evolve. Instead, certain mutations become more common because they benefit the individual's fitness and nature simply selects for  them. However, after further research, I have found that mutation rates can indeed evolve, especially when a cell is under extreme amounts of stress. This stress can cause the DNA repair mechanisms to undergo damage, which leads to more mutations. In addition, mutation rates can evolve...

 For me, fitness is the ability of an organism to thrive in its environment given its physiological characteristics. This "thriving" can be the ability of an organism to have the largest proportion of the food or have success in terms of reproduction. In a natural population, I would define fitness as an organism's ability to survive and reproduce compared to other members of that same population. If the death rate of a population is already very high, an individual who has high fitness in that organization may still have high chance of dying, but not as high as other members in the population. For example, a cheetah with shorter than average legs may have reduced fitness due to the length of stride they are capable of producing. This phenotype could slow them down when they are trying to catch prey. On the other hand, a cheetah with longer, more muscular legs may have the ability to run faster and longer, assuring that they can catch their prey and survive. Due to the hi...

My favorite prediction of Darwin's idea of descent with modification is that Earth and life are old. Although the term "evolution" usually refers to biological organisms, things like planets, stars, galaxies and in essence, the entire universe, continue to evolve throughout time. The changing of the universe, of course, and especially the ecosystems of the Earth, creates natural selection amongst species, which is the driving force of evolution. Whether certain mutations become beneficial for an organism depends on the environment and occurs over numerous generations. During this time, the world these animals live in may evolve as well, creating ecosystems beneficial for certain traits and detrimental for others. Record of life has dated back nearly 3.5 billion years, with the fossils of cyanobacteria being found in what is present day Australia (shown below).   Image Source:  https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/cyanofr.html  Scientists have estimated that the universe was...

Evolution is a lot of things. When I wrote on the board on Thursday, I said that evolution was "like the fluid mosaic model", meaning that it is very dynamic and changes can happen all the time (maybe just not as fast). Similarly, I said that evolution was not "stagnant". Organisms are constantly undergoing small genetic changes from generation to generation, whether you can notice it or not. I also like to think of evolution as a simple equation: E = C/t, with E being evolution, C being change, and t being time (minimum one generation). I think of it this way because my brain can comprehend it better, although I know that this equation does not actually exist.  In regards to the second question, evolution is definitely fact. Although it is only defined as a "theory", most verified theories are based in fact and have ample evidence supporting them. One cannot deny the observations of Charles Darwin when he traveled to the Galapagos Islands. Those who argue...

 Hey guys, my name is Casey Worley and I am from the Kansas City area in a place called Shawnee. One day soon, I hope to be going to KU med and a little farther down the road, I want to be a doctor with my own practice. Something I am passionate about is medicine and making connections with others, so that is why being a doctor is the right path for me. There's nothing (I assume) like seeing the smile on a person's face when you tell them they are going to be alright. What fascinates me about evolution is the fact that (I may be wrong here) we have gone from tiny little single-celled organisms to the big ole humans are now. I can't wait to see what we evolve into next. While I might not notice evolution in my daily life, it certainly exists. The ways that humans have evolved from the beginning of human-being-hood affect my life today and the decisions that we make and the environmental factors that push us will affect populations millions of years from now. That is kind of ...