Evolution Resources

[Dave]

Loads of stuff! PBS Eons has loads of videos related to evolution etc.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzR-rom72PHN9Zg7RML9EbA

Yes, a worthwhile show from one point of view, a horrible waste of money, believe me, from another.

As in it won't get many views, especially in the land of its origin, where its funding comes from?

[Recusant]

As in it's produced by an organization that President Bogus thinks shouldn't get any money from the federal government.

PBS is part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and produces some of the rare decent television shows in the US, in my opinion. Since it isn't Republican/conservative propaganda it's viewed by Republicans and conservatives as leaning to the left, and they've been hankering to ax it for years.

[Tank]

Major fossil study sheds new light on emergence of early animal life 540 million years ago

Model of the Cambrian stem lineage euarthropod Peytoia, based on fossils from the Burgess Shale.
Top left: Closeup of the mouth parts and frontal appendages. Bottom right: Overall view of the body. Credit: Model and image: E. Horn.

All the major groups of animals appear in the fossil record for the first time around 540-500 million years ago—an event known as the Cambrian Explosion—but new research from the University of Oxford in collaboration with the University of Lausanne suggests that for most animals this 'explosion' was in fact a more gradual process.

The Cambrian Explosion produced the largest and most diverse grouping of animals the Earth has ever seen: the euarthropods. Euarthropoda contains the insects, crustaceans, spiders, trilobites, and a huge diversity of other animal forms alive and extinct. They comprise over 80 percent of all animal species on the planet and are key components of all of Earth's ecosystems, making them the most important group since the dawn of animals over 500 million years ago.

A team based at Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the University of Lausanne carried out the most comprehensive analysis ever made of early fossil euarthropods from every different possible type of fossil preservation. In an article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they show that, taken together, the total fossil record shows a gradual radiation of euarthropods during the early Cambrian, 540-500 million years ago.

The new analysis presents a challenge to the two major competing hypotheses about early animal evolution. The first of these suggests a slow, gradual evolution of euarthropods starting 650-600 million years ago, which had been consistent with earlier molecular dating estimates of their origin. The other hypothesis claims the nearly instantaneous appearance of euarthropods 540 million years ago because of highly elevated rates of evolution...

This makes a very interesting read. Next time you swat a fly, eat a prawn or watch a spider run across the floor remember you're seeing the descendent of the earliest and most successful group of animals that have ever existed.

[Bluenose]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that image a reconstruction of Anomalocaris?

Although we have learned quite a bit since it was written, Stephen Jay Gould's book Wonderful Life about the Burgess Shales is a thoroughly fascinating read.

[Dave]

Er, there are Wiki entries for both Anomalocaris and Peytoia, look very similar though the first has a fluked tail and the latter does not in the rendered images. Though both articles use the same size comparison diagram - with fluked tail.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalocaris



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peytoia




Used in both entries. Don't want to meet one whilst paddling about!

[Tank]

Nice work Dave.

[Tank]

Added a new site.

Evidence for the Evolutionary Model An excellent resource for primary information such as ERVs and rebuttal's of creationist codswallop. 

[Icarus]

A silent thread for a long time.

Evolution and its outcomes are mysterious.  Here is an article about fairy circles and termites that might interest some of you.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-mathematician-who-decodes-the-patterns-stamped-out-by-life?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[Tank]

We have some fungus related Fairy Circles on the field right next to us.

[Tank]

What is natural selection?

[billy rubin]

how stupid of me not to have thought of that

[Tank]

Weeded out dead links from the OP.

[Tank]