Researchers find that conserving marsupials on a predator-free island dampens their avoidance behaviors, which could mean trouble for their reintroduction to mainland Australia.
Evolution needn’t make improbable leaps to facilitate transitions into uncharted biological territory. Adapting new uses for existing structures works just fine.
In the prologue to the book, author Neil Shubin sets the stage for discussing the iterative repurposing that marks several transformational developments throughout evolution.
Splitting Chinook salmon into two groups based on their DNA could aid conservation efforts. But some researchers argue that this would be a misuse of the data.