© Stephencdickson/Wikipedia
A common raven, in its own way reconfiguring Darwinian thought.
A new study of the genetic make-up of ravens has revealed a startling and little-known side to evolution - "reverse speciation". And as science gradually becomes more aware of this phenomenon, researchers are finding it popping up everywhere, including in humans.
In 1837 (or possibly 1838) Charles Darwin sat aboard
HMS Beagle and in his diary sketched the first evolutionary tree, depicting a single species branching out to become many, a visual representation of his ideas about descent with modification. This image is central to the modern understanding of evolution and the generally held belief that the most important evolutionary phenomenon is
speciation - the forming of new species from a parent species.
But this might not be the whole story.
Scientists are beginning to suspect that the evolutionary histories of some organisms aren't all about endless branching and speciation. Rather, some organisms have "reticulated histories", meaning their lines of descent form a network, with lineages occasionally coming together.
This, at least, is the conclusion of recent research on the North American common raven (
Corvus corax)
published in the journal Nature Communications. Lead author Anna Kearns, a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Centre for Conservation Genomics in Washington DC, US, builds on years of research by her colleagues and co-authors to demonstrate that two lineages of common ravens have actually come together to form a new hybrid, which in certain places is replacing both parent species. This is known as "reverse speciation"'.
Comment: Wow. Could it be, after decades of "the war on cancer", some headway has actually happened? It's not surprising that this research is coming out of China, which is likely out of the reach of Big Pharma and their medical monopoly. Whether or not this technology, if proven viable, makes it into Western markets given the hit Big Pharma would take on their cash-cow chemotherapy, remains to be seen.
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