“Bird taxonomy is a difficult field because of the severe anatomical constraints imposed by flight. There are only so many ways to design a bird capable, say, of catching insects in mid-air, with the result that birds of similar habitats tend to have very similar anatomies, whatever their ancestry. For example, American vultures look and behave much like Old World vultures, but biologists have come to realize that the former are related to storks, the latter to hawks, and that their resemblances result from their common lifestyle.” WorldWayLooksDifficultRealizingResultsCommonAirExampleDesignFieldsEvolutionCapableBirdLifestyleFlightFormerBehaveRelatedLatterSevereInsectsCatchingConstraintsAncestryAnatomyResemblanceHawksBiologistHabitatOld WorldVultureTaxonomyStorks Author:Jared Diamond
“A billion homo sapiens are added every 11 years to the planet. The hypertrophy of a single species pushes other life-forms out of bed and into extinction. The decline of biological diversity is real and severe. The alarming loss of soil fertility, forest cover, and coral reef viability and the release of fossilized CO2 that nature put away 300 million years ago in its march toward greater diversity - all these "losses" and many others are the result of one life-form annihilating other life-forms in its immoral confusion of "dominion" with "domination."” YearsRealFormLossResultsMillionsGreaterPlanetsBedDiversityYears AgoSpeciesEnvironmentalBillionsForestsConfusionReleaseSoilMarchDeclineSevereDominationImmoralExtinctionStewardshipDominionHomo SapiensFertilityCo2ReefsCoral Reefs Author:Leonard Sweet