Bruce MirkenRE: https://toad.social/@tend2wobble/116814074678609906
#NaturalSelection at work -- just not fast enough. #science #medicine
TKSST • seethis.tv 🌈🪐✨💁🏻♀️ TIL: 💧☠️ In the Argentinian #Andes, San Antonio de los Cobres residents drink #water with #arsenic levels 20 times the safe limit.
#Uppsala University researchers found they carry a #gene variant that turns arsenic into a form their bodies can safely flush out.
👉 https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-in-the-andes-seem-to-have-evolved-a-strange-genetic-ability
#argentina #evolution #genetics #naturalselection #dna #biology #science #sanantoniodeloscobres #atacama #health #medicine
Liam O'Mara IV, PhDOn #ThisDayInHistory in 1858, #CharlesDarwin received a paper from #AlfredRusselWallace with his same conclusions about #evolution, i.e., #NaturalSelection. They jointly published a paper and Darwin released #OriginOfSpecies the next year. Wallace has always deserved more credit.
💁🏻♀️ TIL: 🦝🧬 A 2025 study found urban #raccoons have shorter snouts than rural ones – a possible #domestication syndrome signal.
But UC #Berkeley’s Lauren Stanton says #diet, not #genetics, might explain the change. Raccoons’ wild #intelligence is what makes them special, and trying to turn them into #pets would likely backfire.
👉 https://www.popsci.com/science/raccoon-pets/
#domestication #evolution #wildlife #science #biology #animals #dogs #cats #naturalselection #berkeley
Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻💻🧬Thanks to natural selection, Indigenous Andeans may digest #potatoes better than anyone else in the world, study finds
After domesticating potatoes 10,000 years ago, the ancient people of the #Andes evolved to have more copies of a key #gene involved in digesting starch.
#NaturalSelection drove the surge in #amylase genes following the local domestication of potatoes around 10,000 years ago, according to the study published May 5 in the journal Nature Communications.
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/americas/thanks-to-natural-selection-indigenous-andeans-may-digest-potatoes-better-than-anyone-else-in-the-world-study-finds
After domesticating potatoes 10,000 years ago, the ancient people of the #Andes evolved to have more copies of a key #gene involved in digesting starch.
#NaturalSelection drove the surge in #amylase genes following the local domestication of potatoes around 10,000 years ago, according to the study published May 5 in the journal Nature Communications.
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/americas/thanks-to-natural-selection-indigenous-andeans-may-digest-potatoes-better-than-anyone-else-in-the-world-study-finds
Biohacking PathwayHow Humans Changed Fruit Forever
Explore the truth about your favorite fruits! How human intervention has led to the unnatural evolution of fruits like bananas, making them sweeter and easier to eat.
Follow @biohackingpathway for more
#FruitEvolution #BananaHistory #FoodScience #HumanIntervention #SupermarketScience #PodcastInterview #FoodFacts #NaturalSelection #wellnessblog #wellnesswins #wellnessmatters #holisticwellbeing #wellnessmama #wellnesscoaches #SweetFruits #UnexpectedScience
WIST QuotationsA quotation from Robert Ingersoll
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297
More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #robertgreeningersoll #consequences #God #morality #natural #naturalselection #nature #outcomes #punishment #results #reward #causeandeffect
Ingersoll, Robert Green - Essay (1881-08) "The Christian Religion," "Is All of the Bible Inspired?" ch. 2, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297 | WIST Quotations
There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments -- there are consequences. Collected in Allen Thorndike Rice (ed.), The Christian Religion, ch. 1 (1882). See Longfellow (1857).
#Humans in #Andes Appear to Have Evolved Strange #Genetic Ability
For thousands of years, humans living high in the Argentinian Andes have relied on #drinkingwater that would make most people deathly ill, naturally occurring #arsenic in volcanic bedrock leaches into the groundwater, contaminating water with levels of toxic metalloid that would pose serious health risks.
But for one group in north #Argentina #naturalselection may have provided an unusual genetic advantage.
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-in-the-andes-appear-to-have-evolved-a-strange-genetic-ability
For thousands of years, humans living high in the Argentinian Andes have relied on #drinkingwater that would make most people deathly ill, naturally occurring #arsenic in volcanic bedrock leaches into the groundwater, contaminating water with levels of toxic metalloid that would pose serious health risks.
But for one group in north #Argentina #naturalselection may have provided an unusual genetic advantage.
https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-in-the-andes-appear-to-have-evolved-a-strange-genetic-ability
PRETTY GθTH MACHINENatural selection is not a designer.
It's a filter with memory -
not a mind that plans, but a past that refuses to disappear,
stacking constraints until form looks intentional.
No architect-
just enough pressure, long enough,
and structure starts to resemble purpose.
itgrrl 
#PSA: this is your periodic reminder that “survival of the fittest” is NOT about physical fitness* – it means “the best fit for the local environment, which allows an organism to survive, reproduce, and pass on its traits to its offspring”
e.g. people who have the genetically inherited disease sickle cell anaemia are generally “less fit” (in a physical fitness / life expectancy sense) than those who don’t have it, but in areas where malaria is endemic, having sickle cell anaemia provides a degree of immunity from the worst symptoms of malaria^ – so people with sickle cell anaemia are “the best fit” (or “the fittest”) for the local environment compared to those who don’t have it 💁♀️
#SurvivalOfTheFittest
#NaturalSelection
#biology101
^ this is simplified, for more nuance (esp. heterozygosity vs. homozygosity) start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_disease?wprov=sfti1#Malaria
