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One of the general principals of evolution is that "if a niche is empty, something will evolve to fill it".
Over and over again since life on Earth appeared nearly 4 billion years ago, filling niches presented by new environments-- islands, mountain tops, canyon walls, geothermal pools, etc. --has constantly occurred. What is less known is a subset of this evolutionary process called: convergent evolution which produces organisms that have structures with similar appearances or ...
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In the 1950s when I was a kid in LA I had a buddy who would race his bike around terrorizing the neighborhood with me. With excess of energy and curiosity, we saved major attention for explorations of some vacant fields of weeds, wildflowers, and random junk with vistas of the Pacific Ocean. We grew up watching this undeveloped land convert into tidy suburbs and shopping centers. And, even then, I thought this seemed a poor substitute for the wild place he and I loved exploring together. My ...