Enjoyed Making of the Fittest. Some things that caught my attention:
1 * Vision
- Old world monkeys trichromatic vision vs. new world ones . Duplication of opsin on X. Birds have 4 and can see UV! Only 2 for nocturnal vision.
- Whales and eels at similar depth converged on blue sensing of rhodopsin - an ex. of convergent evol.!
- Whales lost color vision
- Only 2 color receptors in primates & many other mammals since they're nocturnal .
- However, howler monkey (NW) has 3 color receptors & fewer olfactory receptors. Same dupl. of gene but smaller size and diff. AA. Represents convergence since only one in lineage.
2 * Smell
- Humans lost VR1 (vomeronasal) genes
3 * Related to other stuff
- MyH16 is pgene in humans but gene in other primates associated w. a big jaw !
- Glivec as tyr kinase inhib. against CML but evo. fights against this
- Incidence of malaria vs mosquito occurrence in Africa
- "Unique among primates, the colobine monkeys have adapted to a predominantly leaf-eating diet by evolving a foregut that utilizes bacterial fermentation to breakdown and absorb nutrients from such a food source." This monkey has a duplicated ribonuclease which works in more acid conditions as it is ruminant .
More of my notes on this book are at :
http://delicious.com/mbgmbg/clust_makingfittest0mg+Tag_Cluster_Overview_Link
(Some even rawer ones are tagged with makingfittest0mg in my email.)
