May 19, 2011 • 27 mins
In the process of parallel evolution, two seemingly unrelated species living in isolation can evolve surprisingly similar traits -- but how does it work, and why does it happen? Join Chuck and Josh as they break down the process of parallel evolution.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I am here, sir, and that
(00:24):
makes this stuff you should know. Indeed, the Friday versions
been while on the Friday, it is Friday, isn't it?
Are we shouting out to Kiva? First thing? I think
we definitely should, dudes and do debts. We have surpassed
half a million bucks as a team in micro loans
to Kiva dot org. And that was our goal was
(00:46):
to hit it in May, and darn it all if
we didn't do it. We totally did it, and we
started our team October ten, two nine, and but by
the next October we'd already passed our two fifty dollar goal,
and then we wanted to get to five hundred thousand
(01:08):
in May. I didn't think it was possible. We totally did.
It's possible because of people like Glenn and Sonja who
helm the team for us. There are de facto captains.
It's because of people like Blake this guy who came
in and UM basically put sixteen lemons I think on
his credit card because he said he was sick of
(01:28):
us being so close to half a million dollars but
not quite there. Um. And everybody who's a member on
our team who's contributed anything, well at least five bucks. Yeah,
we're number three on all of Cuba in the number
of team members, ahead of Team Obama in Australia and Europe.
We're just so proud of you. We're very proud of everybody,
(01:49):
and it's just cool. And I guess Glenn and Sonia
will probably help us figure out the next goal, which
I guess will be a million bucks. I would say
we I'd say a million why not, let's do it.
Might take a year from now, but I ain't going anywhere.
We'll find out. Let's do it, okay, So our goal
now is to lend a million dollars on Cuba through
our stuff. You should know team Let's go, guys, all right,
(02:11):
way to go. Everybody eat a cupcake, that's right, a
good one too. And if you want to know about
CIVA and you don't know about our team, you can
find that at k I D A dot org slash
team or is it teams team team slash stuff. You
should know you can join up at the team and
just make one little lousy loan and you can get
(02:33):
your money back and then you can pull it out
if you want, but you're probably gonna want to reinvest it,
which is kind of cool. And you know what before
you do, before you sign up um, or if you
just recently signed up, you should read our two part
blog post on CIVA and how we feel about Cuba
because it's not a perfect system. Um and after a
while everyone inevitably runs up against the flaws and it
(02:54):
and talks about quitting and all that and um, so
we wrote a couple of posts on it so you
could sort whis why we land at s Y s
k um and uh, that will bring it up on
the blogs, right yeah, And just you know, what I've
learned is just like regular loans, micro loans are no different.
There are people that get in trouble and should not
(03:15):
have borrowed what they borrowed. And it's even sadder I
think that people borrow you know, six hundred bucks and
can't for that, and so there are there are some downsides,
but we found not only that there are also tons
of predators out there lending to people at horrible rates.
But we believe in Kiva and we found that there
are many, many more positive associations. So agreed, Moving on,
(03:35):
Moving on, dude, um So also probably wouldn't hurt to
go listen to our micro Lending How micro Lending Works
podcasts where we first discovered Cuba. That's right, um So, Chuck,
We're going to talk about something that has absolutely nothing
to do with CIVA as far as I know. Okay,
I think you're right. Um let's talk first about Australia. Uh,
(03:57):
Australia is this awesome little all natural laboratory, a giant
Petrie dish if you will. Just from childhood, I've always
been amazed that it's a country and a continent. My
hats always gone off to Australia. So to all of
our peeps down in Australia, Chuck, take off your hand. Okay,
there you get You're supposed to say, ohit oit oi, yes,
(04:19):
just pretend I just did. Um and Uh. The reason
being is because at one point the the continents all
formed a super continent, Pangaea, some of the other continents.
Um kind of stuck together a little more. Australia went
off by itself, as Australians do. It went off to
do its own thing, that's right. And um, there were
animals in existence about sixty million years ago when it
(04:42):
broke off. Um that we're living on Australia. Yeah. I
pictured the little crack forming and then separating and literally
animals looking at their little species brethren going by. That's
a that's a really good way to look at it too,
because it's not like these cracks happened like you know
this this species lives over here and this species lives
(05:03):
over there, right, I mean that's pretty much exactly how
it happened. I mean not that quickly, maybe using time
and last photography, but um, essentially that gave that gave
rise to related species evolving in in completely different parts
of the world, that's right. So Australia gave us some
(05:24):
freak shows like koala, bears, kangaroos, wombats, Tasmanian devils that
are really different than other animals and other parts of
the world exactly. Um, but it also gave us a
little something called the flying falangists. I've never heard of this, Okay,
the flying falangists looks it's a it's a rodent, has
(05:45):
a tail that has a tiny head just covered in fur.
It'll give you some sort of pestilent disease if you
eat it raw. Yeah. Um. But it also has this
weird little um bit of in that were tracks, except
when it's jumping from tree to tree, it spreads its
(06:06):
arms and legs out yep, spread eagle, and this flap
of skin in between its arm and say it's ribs
and then its legs and it's so say buttocks. This
skin flaps out to allow it to glide. It's like
it's like those flying dudes that you see now, the
skydivers that they basically wear a little flying suits. Yeah,
(06:29):
wingsuit yeah, wings Those things are awesome. It's pretty cool,
um and way dangerous. So this is like the original.
This is the o G of that. Yeah. I think
it was based on that flying flanges. It sounds like, again,
a total freak show until you remember, oh yeah, North
America has flying squirrels that are the exact same thing.
And I had a pet one. I think I mentioned
that before you did, didn't you. Okay, So if you
(06:52):
go back far enough on the family tree, you're going
to find that both of these animals ancestors were living
on Australia and elsewhere in the world at the time.
That's right. Okay, so when they when they split off,
when Australia broke off, um, this this animal's habitat was disrupted,
and so you had two members of the same species
living on different parts of the world but evolving completely differently. Right.
(07:17):
So they've gotten to the point now where the flying
squirrel and the flying flanges they're not the same animal.
They're different species because they can't engage in successful reproduction
any longer. But they still both evolved independently these flaps,
which are just totally odd. That's what's called parallel evolution, right,
That's right. And um, the flying flanges and flying squirrel
(07:40):
are far from the only species that are no longer related,
that are no longer the same species that have evolved similarly,
which poses a really big question for biology and evolution.
How is this happening? It's right. Well, parallel evolution um.
Further defined is when they're related species that have been split.
(08:01):
When two different species share these traits, it's morphological similarity
kind of neat, huh. And when two completely unrelated species
develop this morphological similarity. It's called convergent evolution. And it's
kind of hard to tell because we don't know exactly
how things were millions of years ago. When sure exactly
which one of these uh we're similar back then? But
(08:23):
we do know in like the case of the squirrel
in the Philanger Philanger, Yeah plane filangists, Philanger, I've been
saying philangists, Philanger. Yeah, it's a Philanger, the flying Philanger.
What they should is called a squirrel. M. Well, that
that that occurred to me. Maybe maybe there isn't such
a thing as parallel evolution. Maybe it's all humans. We're
(08:45):
just not calling everything the same thing. It's our naming convention.
There's problem solved. So one of the reason and it's
pretty simple actually, and it makes a lot of sense
that parallel evolution can occur is that, um, when you
have a similar environment with two species, uh, population pressure
is gonna lead to similar traits, Like we gotta survive,
(09:07):
So if we live in a similar environment, then we're
probably gonna evolve similarly. Like if it's really cold, we're
probably gonna have thick fur as you know, different species. Um,
it's pretty basic. Another really good example I think that
was used with teeth, Yes right, yeah, I know that
it's jumping around a little bit, but that's all right.
(09:28):
Teeth things we take for granted, they're so ubiquitous. Sharp teeth.
Sharp teeth are found in all carnivores. And the reason
why is because it's a really good trait. Yeah right,
because we can dig into meat. Same thing though, although
I can't with my stupid bum tooth. I'm I'm devolving
someday again through technology, I hope. So. So, what you're
(09:49):
talking about, Chuck is Um with natural selection is that basically,
if you imagine dropping an animal into a an environment,
so a jungle, right, there are parts of it that
are going to allow it to thrive. There are things
that are going to make it less likely to thrive.
The things that make it likelier to thrive, or the
(10:11):
the traits that are going to get passed along from
generation to generation. As long as they hang along, hang
on long enough to to survive through the reproduction process,
then it gets ingrained and boom, you've got yourself a
trade well by nature, the the traits that allow it
to hang on long enough to reproduce are going to
(10:31):
be most successful traits because with reproduction, those are the
ones that are going to get passed around the most frequently,
and then eventually the one the animals that had more
of the traits that didn't allow it to thrive are
gonna die out. They're not going to reproduce. So on
a long enough time scale, this reproduction will lead to
um higher frequency of traits that make an animal fit
(10:56):
for its environment. Right, Like the guerrilla, for instance, used
to have a large ale with a pin wheel on
the end of it, but it was really you know,
I didn't really do much for him, so over time
it just kind of went away. Right. That's not true, though,
is it? No, it's not true. What do you mean?
Is it all right? It was making sure? Um? So
these changes though, these traits, right, they just kind of
(11:17):
seemed to pop up here there, if you're in our
current understanding of genetics, same nineteen eighties understanding of genetics,
they just kind of pop up out of nowhere. Um.
But chuck, if I may digress for a second, please,
have we ever explained what came first the chicken or
the egg. Yeah, it's been a while though it has,
(11:38):
but we have already yeah, but it's been a while.
I think it deserves a recap okay, because you actually
know the answer, Yes, I do. I can say that
the egg came first because the genetic mutation that gives
rise to new species, to new animals occurs UH in
the zygotic stage of development. Right. So that means a
(12:00):
non chicken and a non chicken got together and created
as I got that had a mutation that eventually turned
it into a chicken. Its jeans were expressed to be
a chicken. To the egg came first. The egg came
before the chicken. Eventually the egg hatched and you had
the first chicken. But the egg came first, all right, Um.
But the point of me saying that is that the
(12:23):
mutations that appear, these traits that change over time or
show up that make an animal more fit for its environment,
happened in the reproductive level of zygote, That's right. And
the accumulation of those traits, the beneficial traits that make
it able to survive UH in a certain place, like
(12:44):
a polar bear in the cold, is called an ecological niche.
Niche and some people say, we talked about the polar
bear before um separating from the Brown Bear and the
Black Bear and Evolution in Isolation, which was kind of
a companion podcast of this one. Did you write that one, Yeah,
I wrote that one. I didn't write this one that
this was the grabster. Yeah, that's right, of course. So
(13:04):
that's an ecological niche and um animals, like we mentioned
the polar bear, that have adapted to live in a
cold area. You throw a polar bear out in the
savannah of Africa and it's not gonna do too well, right,
which brings up another point I think that is there's
a lesson in all of this what we're talking about,
especially with ecological niches. We especially us being humans at
(13:27):
the top of the food chain and the smartest things
ever since slight spread um or prairie dogs go ahead, okay,
tend to look at evolution as um basically a ladder
and we're at the top, baby, right, that's not the
case an ecological niches point that point that out. If
you if humans okay, great example, if you take a
(13:50):
human and put it at the bottom of the Marianna trench,
it's not going to thrive, It's going to drown or
its heads going to explode. We're not suited for it.
So we're not evolved. We're not at the top of evolution.
If evolution were a ladder and we were at the top,
we'd be suited for any environment. We're not at a
good point. So, as a guy named Matt Ridley points
(14:10):
out in a book called The Red Queen, Sex and
the Evolution of Human Nature, um that evolution is not
a ladder, it is a treadmill. Yeah. No, animals necessarily
better than another more highly evolved. It has to do
with adapting to your local environment. That's one of the
(14:30):
processes of parallel evolution. Makes sense. We adapt to our
local environment or our ecological niche. That's right. That's a
very good point. And the reason we're pointing out ecological
niche to begin with is because animals are I'm sorry
organisms period that have parallel or convergent evolution are usually
(14:51):
or more likely to have a similar ecological niche. It's
a really really long way of putting that, was it. Yeah. Uh.
For instance, you look at um an animal like the
wildebeeste or North American cattle, they're actually sort of parallel
evolutionized and they because they live in very similar areas.
(15:13):
You know, planes, hot, grassy, and uh so they're really
similar in the end, even though they're on two different continents.
Number one evolutionized t shirt. Okay, okay, Number two, that's
absolutely right, all right, yeah, thank you, absolutely right? Right? Okay, great,
what do you think? I thought you said? Wrong? And
(15:33):
it's absolutely white? Okay, that's absolutely blite. But Josh, absolutely
sometimes convergent evolution does not depend on this ecological niche
because the trait is really advantageous for all kinds of organisms.
And that's when you brought up the sharp teeth, limbs, wings, arms.
(15:55):
Consider this the arms. Uh we can say now looking
at Jean Ms, that arms are a direct relative of fins.
This again goes to the idea that evolution is a treadmill,
not a ladder. Right, So it's not like arms are
the inevitable and of fins. What are you laughing about.
(16:18):
It's that fins are better suited for swimming around the water. Right.
But the same genes, the same genetics set, the same
genetic code that give you fins also give you arms
if you're walking around, maybe swinging from trees or need
to climb them, or need to like, you know, high
five somebody to keep society going right. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Yeah,
(16:39):
you're right, but you know, we're not the only things
that evolved limbs. But limbs are so advantageous, just like
teeth um that we are. That a lot of different,
completely unrelated species evolved limbs to walk and to grab things.
And which is what is that convergent evolution? Yes, I
(17:00):
would say so we're the very least parallel. You know.
I have to say I'm surprising myself, extremely passionate for
this one. I don't understand why. Well, it's cool. And
you know, we haven't covered evolution in Earnest as a podcast,
but we've hit on it in so many I think
we're covering it in the long run one way or
the other. You know what I think it is. I
am just barely hanging on by my fingernails. So I'm
(17:21):
really like, yeah, if I say it really fast, it'll
it'll be right. All right. Let's talk about genetics in
this whole mess a parallel evolution. There are two things
to think about when you think about genetics, and the
first one, I think it's kind of cool. The genetic
code for species potentially has a hidden blueprint almost for
(17:42):
what it could do but not necessarily does do. And
the grab stre likned it too. Let's say you have
a blueprint of a house and the architect designed it
such that you can add on a master bedroom here
in this spot, but you never do it. But it's there.
You've got the land and the blueprint it for it.
You just don't use it right because the architects said,
(18:03):
don't build that edition yet they don't have the money
for it. They're just building the house exactly. But it
still exists in the in the master blueprint. And the
same can be said of let's say a jellyfish, which
is round right. There's no right or left side of
a sea and and and and intomy has radial symmetry, right,
a jellyfish or an anemony so hard for me? Anemone
(18:24):
show off an enemy now it's not an enemy, uhete
and chuck. There is no left or right side as
a radial body plan. It's circular and which is not
a funny shape at all. And the genetic code, though
is there. So eventually, one day, let's say the jellyfish
needed to evolve to have a left or right side
(18:45):
for some reason, it could do that genetically speaking, the
code is there. Yeah, for bilateral symmetry, which I have,
which you have? That you could as down the middle.
We could be folded in half. Yes, if you put
a mirror up to your knows perpendicular to your nose, no,
parallel to your nose, the point of your nose, it
(19:06):
would be half. It looked like you. That's right, right,
you know they say symmetry equals beauty. Yes, that's what
they say. That's what a lot of people say. Um,
you've got a big walleye on one side. That's why
you're not attractive. What are you going after? The eyes?
You mentioned disco? I'm another recent podcast, did somebody Okay? So,
(19:29):
so jellyfish have radio symmetry, but they have a genetic
marker to kick in bilateral symmetry they ever need it,
and believe me, I would run horrified from Maybe that's
what Cathulhu is. It's a it's a jellyfish who's like
bilateral symmetry has started to kick in a little bit. Nice. Um.
The point is is it's not just jellyfish. There are
(19:51):
a lot of dormant jeans just ready to go off
with the right mutation um to change all sorts of
stuff and they think. Also, I read the article that
he cited, the art technical article that the jellyfish have
that so that they can develop their mouth. Yeah, cool,
because the mouth requires bilateral symmetry jellyfish. The reason we
(20:13):
mentioned this to begin with, though, is that the belief
that you can develop similar traits even though you evolve separately,
which is what we've been talking about this whole time,
because the trait has always been in your genetic code
to begin with, just dormant, right, it's just very very ancient,
and then it can express in different ways, like apparently
they looked at the fins of a fish, right and
(20:35):
found that they have pretty much the same genes that
we do for our arms, okay, and bilateral symmetry. Those
genes are the same for everything. Right, So we're all
a lot more related, I guess than we thought now
that we're starting to look into it. I wonder if,
well we probably know this by now, if we have
any dormant genetic codes and humans like, we could potentially
(20:57):
grow that tail if we needed to. Well, apparently we
do have tales in some embryotic development stage. We still
have distigial tales, and there are people who are born
with him who don't shed them. That's pretty cool. Who
had the tale? Uh? Jason Alexander had one in one
of the Fairly Brothers movies. Yeah, we're like, if it
was was it? There's something there's something about Mary. Wasn't it? No, No,
(21:20):
he wouldn't in that. Are you sure that wasn't it? Yes?
Thank you? Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant to. Didn't
one of the friends have a tale? No? No, no,
Channel had a third nipple? Yes, superfluous Nipplesony Krusty the clown.
He so, Josh, what's the second thing to consider? Well,
I guess the other thing we've been what got biologists
(21:42):
into the idea of looking at jeans is that we
were looking at morphological changes, right. Stuff we can see
like this flying squirrel is not related to that flying squirrel,
but they're both flying squirrels, even though we call them
different things. Philanders um. When we look at the genetic level,
we're finding that like the same morphological traits, the similarities
(22:02):
are are also found on the genetic level, right, So
basically they're thinking, like you can you can look at
the ecological pressure, the environmental pressure that caused a polar
bears coat to become white right um on an internal
level with the interactions between amino acids and proteins that
(22:25):
are causing these genes to be expressed, so internally and externally,
these changes are are occurring um to form flying filangers
and squirrels on two different continents. Thank you the freak
show that is Australia for basically pointing science in the
right direction. They love it when we talk about them too.
We always get email from masses that are just like you.
(22:48):
Guys are the best. Another and they gave us another
one too. Um the Tasmanian wolf now extinct wolf which
is um almost completely unre related to any other wolf.
It's extinct, like I said, um, but it is the
spitting image of the gray wolf here in North America,
(23:10):
even though they're like they were not related, same everything.
This is the kind of science I dig. Yeah, cool science. Yeah,
not that physics magnetism. You're into physics that sort of
just that a necessity, I guess. Yeah, but you you
have an appreciation more than I do. I think. Really, Yeah,
you don't like full crumbs? What is wrong with what's
(23:32):
the full crumb? The full crumb is the point it's
like a see saw, right, and that the full crumb. Yeah, okay,
it's the it's the point of balance on a on
a sea saw. It's the point that he saw balance. Yeah, yeah,
same thing. You got anything else? Are we just gonna
evolve separately? Here? I think? So? Okay, if you want
(23:53):
to learn more about evolution, UM, you should type in
evolution in the search part how stuff works dot com. Um.
Also check out can animals evolve in isolation? That's a
cool article, Um, This article we've been talking about from
the grabster, How can two seemingly unrelated species that live
in isolation from each other evolve into identical forms? You
(24:15):
can also reach it by typing in parallel evolution in
the search bart how stuff works dot Com. So there's
a lot for you to go check out there, all right? Yeah,
And I would say just type in evolution and how
stuff works, and you're gonna get a whole bevy of
cool cool stuff. That's what I said first. Yeah, I'm
reinforcing that well, Chuck said search bart how stuff works? Right, Yeah,
(24:37):
I did too. It means it's super super time for
listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this um
Mountaintop removable coal mining email from an inside one of millions. Yeah,
we got a lot of positive feedback from this, and
surprisingly not one person is written in yet that said,
(24:58):
you jerks. You never think about the the minor side
of things. Most people have been like, yeah, this is
probably shouldn't be. Some some guy on Twitter basically said
I don't like it when they get political, but this
one was pretty good. All right, Yeah, I'll take that. Man.
Hey guys, I've heard all your podcasts from day one,
and keep up the good work. Please. Uh sometimes you
are all I need to get away from the day's stress.
(25:19):
I mean mining engineers. Student enrolled at the University of
Kentucky Go Wildcats, one of the largest exporters of eager
and to do mining engineers. In reality, the decision to
enroll here had more to do with scholarship opportunities than
a lifelong love of Appalachian mining. However, after being surrounded
by over zealous students who would personally blow up the
(25:42):
earth for an ounce of coal because it keeps the
lights on, I have become entirely infatuated with this mindset.
I've interviewed for all the big name companies some of
which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars recruiting new workforce.
When I interviewed for these companies, they seem to be
in complete denial of this satistics, occasionally showing a picture
of a deer standing on a patch of grass and
(26:04):
claiming that it's as if we were never there in
the first place. As I have been shown firsthand what
the mining field entails, I have nothing but devout respect
for what these people do on a daily basis. And
that's something I don't know. If we make clear we're
not anti minors, we know these people were very thin. Yeah,
I have nothing but devout respect for what these people
(26:24):
do on a daily basis to make sure that I
can send this email on my electricity powered laptop. At
the same time, I shudder in disappointment that they wishfully
remain ignorant of the science involved in the harm they
are doing. Part of me wishes to enter the field
to reinvent the idea that providing energy must come at
a sacrifice that compromises our ability to take care of
(26:45):
the environment in our neighbors. Wish me luck, as I
have a lot of work ahead of me, and I
asked him if you want to remain anonymous, and he
said it's probably a good idea. So that's anonymous, but
pretty cool. He thinks a lot of anonymous pretty trade. Yeah,
changing changing the place from the inside, right, Good luck, buddy.
(27:06):
We like anonymous emails right there, usually the most like
what ones right? Exactly? All right? Well, if you want
to send us an anonymous email, we would love to
hear from you. Um, you can address it too. Stuff
podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For more on
(27:27):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
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Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I am here, sir, and that
(00:24):
makes this stuff you should know. Indeed, the Friday versions
been while on the Friday, it is Friday, isn't it?
Are we shouting out to Kiva? First thing? I think
we definitely should, dudes and do debts. We have surpassed
half a million bucks as a team in micro loans
to Kiva dot org. And that was our goal was
(00:46):
to hit it in May, and darn it all if
we didn't do it. We totally did it, and we
started our team October ten, two nine, and but by
the next October we'd already passed our two fifty dollar goal,
and then we wanted to get to five hundred thousand
(01:08):
in May. I didn't think it was possible. We totally did.
It's possible because of people like Glenn and Sonja who
helm the team for us. There are de facto captains.
It's because of people like Blake this guy who came
in and UM basically put sixteen lemons I think on
his credit card because he said he was sick of
(01:28):
us being so close to half a million dollars but
not quite there. Um. And everybody who's a member on
our team who's contributed anything, well at least five bucks. Yeah,
we're number three on all of Cuba in the number
of team members, ahead of Team Obama in Australia and Europe.
We're just so proud of you. We're very proud of everybody,
(01:49):
and it's just cool. And I guess Glenn and Sonia
will probably help us figure out the next goal, which
I guess will be a million bucks. I would say
we I'd say a million why not, let's do it.
Might take a year from now, but I ain't going anywhere.
We'll find out. Let's do it, okay, So our goal
now is to lend a million dollars on Cuba through
our stuff. You should know team Let's go, guys, all right,
(02:11):
way to go. Everybody eat a cupcake, that's right, a
good one too. And if you want to know about
CIVA and you don't know about our team, you can
find that at k I D A dot org slash
team or is it teams team team slash stuff. You
should know you can join up at the team and
just make one little lousy loan and you can get
(02:33):
your money back and then you can pull it out
if you want, but you're probably gonna want to reinvest it,
which is kind of cool. And you know what before
you do, before you sign up um, or if you
just recently signed up, you should read our two part
blog post on CIVA and how we feel about Cuba
because it's not a perfect system. Um and after a
while everyone inevitably runs up against the flaws and it
(02:54):
and talks about quitting and all that and um, so
we wrote a couple of posts on it so you
could sort whis why we land at s Y s
k um and uh, that will bring it up on
the blogs, right yeah, And just you know, what I've
learned is just like regular loans, micro loans are no different.
There are people that get in trouble and should not
(03:15):
have borrowed what they borrowed. And it's even sadder I
think that people borrow you know, six hundred bucks and
can't for that, and so there are there are some downsides,
but we found not only that there are also tons
of predators out there lending to people at horrible rates.
But we believe in Kiva and we found that there
are many, many more positive associations. So agreed, Moving on,
(03:35):
Moving on, dude, um So also probably wouldn't hurt to
go listen to our micro Lending How micro Lending Works
podcasts where we first discovered Cuba. That's right, um So, Chuck,
We're going to talk about something that has absolutely nothing
to do with CIVA as far as I know. Okay,
I think you're right. Um let's talk first about Australia. Uh,
(03:57):
Australia is this awesome little all natural laboratory, a giant
Petrie dish if you will. Just from childhood, I've always
been amazed that it's a country and a continent. My
hats always gone off to Australia. So to all of
our peeps down in Australia, Chuck, take off your hand. Okay,
there you get You're supposed to say, ohit oit oi, yes,
(04:19):
just pretend I just did. Um and Uh. The reason
being is because at one point the the continents all
formed a super continent, Pangaea, some of the other continents.
Um kind of stuck together a little more. Australia went
off by itself, as Australians do. It went off to
do its own thing, that's right. And um, there were
animals in existence about sixty million years ago when it
(04:42):
broke off. Um that we're living on Australia. Yeah. I
pictured the little crack forming and then separating and literally
animals looking at their little species brethren going by. That's
a that's a really good way to look at it too,
because it's not like these cracks happened like you know
this this species lives over here and this species lives
(05:03):
over there, right, I mean that's pretty much exactly how
it happened. I mean not that quickly, maybe using time
and last photography, but um, essentially that gave that gave
rise to related species evolving in in completely different parts
of the world, that's right. So Australia gave us some
(05:24):
freak shows like koala, bears, kangaroos, wombats, Tasmanian devils that
are really different than other animals and other parts of
the world exactly. Um, but it also gave us a
little something called the flying falangists. I've never heard of this, Okay,
the flying falangists looks it's a it's a rodent, has
(05:45):
a tail that has a tiny head just covered in fur.
It'll give you some sort of pestilent disease if you
eat it raw. Yeah. Um. But it also has this
weird little um bit of in that were tracks, except
when it's jumping from tree to tree, it spreads its
(06:06):
arms and legs out yep, spread eagle, and this flap
of skin in between its arm and say it's ribs
and then its legs and it's so say buttocks. This
skin flaps out to allow it to glide. It's like
it's like those flying dudes that you see now, the
skydivers that they basically wear a little flying suits. Yeah,
(06:29):
wingsuit yeah, wings Those things are awesome. It's pretty cool,
um and way dangerous. So this is like the original.
This is the o G of that. Yeah. I think
it was based on that flying flanges. It sounds like, again,
a total freak show until you remember, oh yeah, North
America has flying squirrels that are the exact same thing.
And I had a pet one. I think I mentioned
that before you did, didn't you. Okay, So if you
(06:52):
go back far enough on the family tree, you're going
to find that both of these animals ancestors were living
on Australia and elsewhere in the world at the time.
That's right. Okay, so when they when they split off,
when Australia broke off, um, this this animal's habitat was disrupted,
and so you had two members of the same species
living on different parts of the world but evolving completely differently. Right.
(07:17):
So they've gotten to the point now where the flying
squirrel and the flying flanges they're not the same animal.
They're different species because they can't engage in successful reproduction
any longer. But they still both evolved independently these flaps,
which are just totally odd. That's what's called parallel evolution, right,
That's right. And um, the flying flanges and flying squirrel
(07:40):
are far from the only species that are no longer related,
that are no longer the same species that have evolved similarly,
which poses a really big question for biology and evolution.
How is this happening? It's right. Well, parallel evolution um.
Further defined is when they're related species that have been split.
(08:01):
When two different species share these traits, it's morphological similarity
kind of neat, huh. And when two completely unrelated species
develop this morphological similarity. It's called convergent evolution. And it's
kind of hard to tell because we don't know exactly
how things were millions of years ago. When sure exactly
which one of these uh we're similar back then? But
(08:23):
we do know in like the case of the squirrel
in the Philanger Philanger, Yeah plane filangists, Philanger, I've been
saying philangists, Philanger. Yeah, it's a Philanger, the flying Philanger.
What they should is called a squirrel. M. Well, that
that that occurred to me. Maybe maybe there isn't such
a thing as parallel evolution. Maybe it's all humans. We're
(08:45):
just not calling everything the same thing. It's our naming convention.
There's problem solved. So one of the reason and it's
pretty simple actually, and it makes a lot of sense
that parallel evolution can occur is that, um, when you
have a similar environment with two species, uh, population pressure
is gonna lead to similar traits, Like we gotta survive,
(09:07):
So if we live in a similar environment, then we're
probably gonna evolve similarly. Like if it's really cold, we're
probably gonna have thick fur as you know, different species. Um,
it's pretty basic. Another really good example I think that
was used with teeth, Yes right, yeah, I know that
it's jumping around a little bit, but that's all right.
(09:28):
Teeth things we take for granted, they're so ubiquitous. Sharp teeth.
Sharp teeth are found in all carnivores. And the reason
why is because it's a really good trait. Yeah right,
because we can dig into meat. Same thing though, although
I can't with my stupid bum tooth. I'm I'm devolving
someday again through technology, I hope. So. So, what you're
(09:49):
talking about, Chuck is Um with natural selection is that basically,
if you imagine dropping an animal into a an environment,
so a jungle, right, there are parts of it that
are going to allow it to thrive. There are things
that are going to make it less likely to thrive.
The things that make it likelier to thrive, or the
(10:11):
the traits that are going to get passed along from
generation to generation. As long as they hang along, hang
on long enough to to survive through the reproduction process,
then it gets ingrained and boom, you've got yourself a
trade well by nature, the the traits that allow it
to hang on long enough to reproduce are going to
(10:31):
be most successful traits because with reproduction, those are the
ones that are going to get passed around the most frequently,
and then eventually the one the animals that had more
of the traits that didn't allow it to thrive are
gonna die out. They're not going to reproduce. So on
a long enough time scale, this reproduction will lead to
um higher frequency of traits that make an animal fit
(10:56):
for its environment. Right, Like the guerrilla, for instance, used
to have a large ale with a pin wheel on
the end of it, but it was really you know,
I didn't really do much for him, so over time
it just kind of went away. Right. That's not true, though,
is it? No, it's not true. What do you mean?
Is it all right? It was making sure? Um? So
these changes though, these traits, right, they just kind of
(11:17):
seemed to pop up here there, if you're in our
current understanding of genetics, same nineteen eighties understanding of genetics,
they just kind of pop up out of nowhere. Um.
But chuck, if I may digress for a second, please,
have we ever explained what came first the chicken or
the egg. Yeah, it's been a while though it has,
(11:38):
but we have already yeah, but it's been a while.
I think it deserves a recap okay, because you actually
know the answer, Yes, I do. I can say that
the egg came first because the genetic mutation that gives
rise to new species, to new animals occurs UH in
the zygotic stage of development. Right. So that means a
(12:00):
non chicken and a non chicken got together and created
as I got that had a mutation that eventually turned
it into a chicken. Its jeans were expressed to be
a chicken. To the egg came first. The egg came
before the chicken. Eventually the egg hatched and you had
the first chicken. But the egg came first, all right, Um.
But the point of me saying that is that the
(12:23):
mutations that appear, these traits that change over time or
show up that make an animal more fit for its environment,
happened in the reproductive level of zygote, That's right. And
the accumulation of those traits, the beneficial traits that make
it able to survive UH in a certain place, like
(12:44):
a polar bear in the cold, is called an ecological niche.
Niche and some people say, we talked about the polar
bear before um separating from the Brown Bear and the
Black Bear and Evolution in Isolation, which was kind of
a companion podcast of this one. Did you write that one, Yeah,
I wrote that one. I didn't write this one that
this was the grabster. Yeah, that's right, of course. So
(13:04):
that's an ecological niche and um animals, like we mentioned
the polar bear, that have adapted to live in a
cold area. You throw a polar bear out in the
savannah of Africa and it's not gonna do too well, right,
which brings up another point I think that is there's
a lesson in all of this what we're talking about,
especially with ecological niches. We especially us being humans at
(13:27):
the top of the food chain and the smartest things
ever since slight spread um or prairie dogs go ahead, okay,
tend to look at evolution as um basically a ladder
and we're at the top, baby, right, that's not the
case an ecological niches point that point that out. If
you if humans okay, great example, if you take a
(13:50):
human and put it at the bottom of the Marianna trench,
it's not going to thrive, It's going to drown or
its heads going to explode. We're not suited for it.
So we're not evolved. We're not at the top of evolution.
If evolution were a ladder and we were at the top,
we'd be suited for any environment. We're not at a
good point. So, as a guy named Matt Ridley points
(14:10):
out in a book called The Red Queen, Sex and
the Evolution of Human Nature, um that evolution is not
a ladder, it is a treadmill. Yeah. No, animals necessarily
better than another more highly evolved. It has to do
with adapting to your local environment. That's one of the
(14:30):
processes of parallel evolution. Makes sense. We adapt to our
local environment or our ecological niche. That's right. That's a
very good point. And the reason we're pointing out ecological
niche to begin with is because animals are I'm sorry
organisms period that have parallel or convergent evolution are usually
(14:51):
or more likely to have a similar ecological niche. It's
a really really long way of putting that, was it. Yeah. Uh.
For instance, you look at um an animal like the
wildebeeste or North American cattle, they're actually sort of parallel
evolutionized and they because they live in very similar areas.
(15:13):
You know, planes, hot, grassy, and uh so they're really
similar in the end, even though they're on two different continents.
Number one evolutionized t shirt. Okay, okay, Number two, that's
absolutely right, all right, yeah, thank you, absolutely right? Right? Okay, great,
what do you think? I thought you said? Wrong? And
(15:33):
it's absolutely white? Okay, that's absolutely blite. But Josh, absolutely
sometimes convergent evolution does not depend on this ecological niche
because the trait is really advantageous for all kinds of organisms.
And that's when you brought up the sharp teeth, limbs, wings, arms.
(15:55):
Consider this the arms. Uh we can say now looking
at Jean Ms, that arms are a direct relative of fins.
This again goes to the idea that evolution is a treadmill,
not a ladder. Right, So it's not like arms are
the inevitable and of fins. What are you laughing about.
(16:18):
It's that fins are better suited for swimming around the water. Right.
But the same genes, the same genetics set, the same
genetic code that give you fins also give you arms
if you're walking around, maybe swinging from trees or need
to climb them, or need to like, you know, high
five somebody to keep society going right. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Yeah,
(16:39):
you're right, but you know, we're not the only things
that evolved limbs. But limbs are so advantageous, just like
teeth um that we are. That a lot of different,
completely unrelated species evolved limbs to walk and to grab things.
And which is what is that convergent evolution? Yes, I
(17:00):
would say so we're the very least parallel. You know.
I have to say I'm surprising myself, extremely passionate for
this one. I don't understand why. Well, it's cool. And
you know, we haven't covered evolution in Earnest as a podcast,
but we've hit on it in so many I think
we're covering it in the long run one way or
the other. You know what I think it is. I
am just barely hanging on by my fingernails. So I'm
(17:21):
really like, yeah, if I say it really fast, it'll
it'll be right. All right. Let's talk about genetics in
this whole mess a parallel evolution. There are two things
to think about when you think about genetics, and the
first one, I think it's kind of cool. The genetic
code for species potentially has a hidden blueprint almost for
(17:42):
what it could do but not necessarily does do. And
the grab stre likned it too. Let's say you have
a blueprint of a house and the architect designed it
such that you can add on a master bedroom here
in this spot, but you never do it. But it's there.
You've got the land and the blueprint it for it.
You just don't use it right because the architects said,
(18:03):
don't build that edition yet they don't have the money
for it. They're just building the house exactly. But it
still exists in the in the master blueprint. And the
same can be said of let's say a jellyfish, which
is round right. There's no right or left side of
a sea and and and and intomy has radial symmetry, right,
a jellyfish or an anemony so hard for me? Anemone
(18:24):
show off an enemy now it's not an enemy, uhete
and chuck. There is no left or right side as
a radial body plan. It's circular and which is not
a funny shape at all. And the genetic code, though
is there. So eventually, one day, let's say the jellyfish
needed to evolve to have a left or right side
(18:45):
for some reason, it could do that genetically speaking, the
code is there. Yeah, for bilateral symmetry, which I have,
which you have? That you could as down the middle.
We could be folded in half. Yes, if you put
a mirror up to your knows perpendicular to your nose, no,
parallel to your nose, the point of your nose, it
(19:06):
would be half. It looked like you. That's right, right,
you know they say symmetry equals beauty. Yes, that's what
they say. That's what a lot of people say. Um,
you've got a big walleye on one side. That's why
you're not attractive. What are you going after? The eyes?
You mentioned disco? I'm another recent podcast, did somebody Okay? So,
(19:29):
so jellyfish have radio symmetry, but they have a genetic
marker to kick in bilateral symmetry they ever need it,
and believe me, I would run horrified from Maybe that's
what Cathulhu is. It's a it's a jellyfish who's like
bilateral symmetry has started to kick in a little bit. Nice. Um.
The point is is it's not just jellyfish. There are
(19:51):
a lot of dormant jeans just ready to go off
with the right mutation um to change all sorts of
stuff and they think. Also, I read the article that
he cited, the art technical article that the jellyfish have
that so that they can develop their mouth. Yeah, cool,
because the mouth requires bilateral symmetry jellyfish. The reason we
(20:13):
mentioned this to begin with, though, is that the belief
that you can develop similar traits even though you evolve separately,
which is what we've been talking about this whole time,
because the trait has always been in your genetic code
to begin with, just dormant, right, it's just very very ancient,
and then it can express in different ways, like apparently
they looked at the fins of a fish, right and
(20:35):
found that they have pretty much the same genes that
we do for our arms, okay, and bilateral symmetry. Those
genes are the same for everything. Right, So we're all
a lot more related, I guess than we thought now
that we're starting to look into it. I wonder if,
well we probably know this by now, if we have
any dormant genetic codes and humans like, we could potentially
(20:57):
grow that tail if we needed to. Well, apparently we
do have tales in some embryotic development stage. We still
have distigial tales, and there are people who are born
with him who don't shed them. That's pretty cool. Who
had the tale? Uh? Jason Alexander had one in one
of the Fairly Brothers movies. Yeah, we're like, if it
was was it? There's something there's something about Mary. Wasn't it? No, No,
(21:20):
he wouldn't in that. Are you sure that wasn't it? Yes?
Thank you? Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant to. Didn't
one of the friends have a tale? No? No, no,
Channel had a third nipple? Yes, superfluous Nipplesony Krusty the clown.
He so, Josh, what's the second thing to consider? Well,
I guess the other thing we've been what got biologists
(21:42):
into the idea of looking at jeans is that we
were looking at morphological changes, right. Stuff we can see
like this flying squirrel is not related to that flying squirrel,
but they're both flying squirrels, even though we call them
different things. Philanders um. When we look at the genetic level,
we're finding that like the same morphological traits, the similarities
(22:02):
are are also found on the genetic level, right, So
basically they're thinking, like you can you can look at
the ecological pressure, the environmental pressure that caused a polar
bears coat to become white right um on an internal
level with the interactions between amino acids and proteins that
(22:25):
are causing these genes to be expressed, so internally and externally,
these changes are are occurring um to form flying filangers
and squirrels on two different continents. Thank you the freak
show that is Australia for basically pointing science in the
right direction. They love it when we talk about them too.
We always get email from masses that are just like you.
(22:48):
Guys are the best. Another and they gave us another
one too. Um the Tasmanian wolf now extinct wolf which
is um almost completely unre related to any other wolf.
It's extinct, like I said, um, but it is the
spitting image of the gray wolf here in North America,
(23:10):
even though they're like they were not related, same everything.
This is the kind of science I dig. Yeah, cool science. Yeah,
not that physics magnetism. You're into physics that sort of
just that a necessity, I guess. Yeah, but you you
have an appreciation more than I do. I think. Really, Yeah,
you don't like full crumbs? What is wrong with what's
(23:32):
the full crumb? The full crumb is the point it's
like a see saw, right, and that the full crumb. Yeah, okay,
it's the it's the point of balance on a on
a sea saw. It's the point that he saw balance. Yeah, yeah,
same thing. You got anything else? Are we just gonna
evolve separately? Here? I think? So? Okay, if you want
(23:53):
to learn more about evolution, UM, you should type in
evolution in the search part how stuff works dot com. Um.
Also check out can animals evolve in isolation? That's a
cool article, Um, This article we've been talking about from
the grabster, How can two seemingly unrelated species that live
in isolation from each other evolve into identical forms? You
(24:15):
can also reach it by typing in parallel evolution in
the search bart how stuff works dot Com. So there's
a lot for you to go check out there, all right? Yeah,
And I would say just type in evolution and how
stuff works, and you're gonna get a whole bevy of
cool cool stuff. That's what I said first. Yeah, I'm
reinforcing that well, Chuck said search bart how stuff works? Right, Yeah,
(24:37):
I did too. It means it's super super time for
listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this um
Mountaintop removable coal mining email from an inside one of millions. Yeah,
we got a lot of positive feedback from this, and
surprisingly not one person is written in yet that said,
(24:58):
you jerks. You never think about the the minor side
of things. Most people have been like, yeah, this is
probably shouldn't be. Some some guy on Twitter basically said
I don't like it when they get political, but this
one was pretty good. All right, Yeah, I'll take that. Man.
Hey guys, I've heard all your podcasts from day one,
and keep up the good work. Please. Uh sometimes you
are all I need to get away from the day's stress.
(25:19):
I mean mining engineers. Student enrolled at the University of
Kentucky Go Wildcats, one of the largest exporters of eager
and to do mining engineers. In reality, the decision to
enroll here had more to do with scholarship opportunities than
a lifelong love of Appalachian mining. However, after being surrounded
by over zealous students who would personally blow up the
(25:42):
earth for an ounce of coal because it keeps the
lights on, I have become entirely infatuated with this mindset.
I've interviewed for all the big name companies some of
which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars recruiting new workforce.
When I interviewed for these companies, they seem to be
in complete denial of this satistics, occasionally showing a picture
of a deer standing on a patch of grass and
(26:04):
claiming that it's as if we were never there in
the first place. As I have been shown firsthand what
the mining field entails, I have nothing but devout respect
for what these people do on a daily basis. And
that's something I don't know. If we make clear we're
not anti minors, we know these people were very thin. Yeah,
I have nothing but devout respect for what these people
(26:24):
do on a daily basis to make sure that I
can send this email on my electricity powered laptop. At
the same time, I shudder in disappointment that they wishfully
remain ignorant of the science involved in the harm they
are doing. Part of me wishes to enter the field
to reinvent the idea that providing energy must come at
a sacrifice that compromises our ability to take care of
(26:45):
the environment in our neighbors. Wish me luck, as I
have a lot of work ahead of me, and I
asked him if you want to remain anonymous, and he
said it's probably a good idea. So that's anonymous, but
pretty cool. He thinks a lot of anonymous pretty trade. Yeah,
changing changing the place from the inside, right, Good luck, buddy.
(27:06):
We like anonymous emails right there, usually the most like
what ones right? Exactly? All right? Well, if you want
to send us an anonymous email, we would love to
hear from you. Um, you can address it too. Stuff
podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For more on
(27:27):
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the
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