#evolution!

Metro Man has both long range and close range capabilities. he literally has a built in long range weapon, and his eyes are so much better than a scope could ever be. his people are fucking Jacked (and it is genetic; when Hal was injected with MM's DNA, his entire bone structure changed to be able to support the super strength), and Megamind-strength hits (i.e. strong enough to flip a fuckin whale) do absolutely nothing.

what kind of steroids were the prey species of his planet on? I'm guessing they were one punch man levels of awesome. probably flight based, given how he can fly, fast as hell, with hides tougher to damage than steel. my main concern is: how fast does an animal have to be to develop super speed like that! what the fuck! he literally paused time long enough to have a midlife crisis, read a shelf's worth of self help books, eat lunch, and come up with a plan to fake his death!

also: how does Metro Man fly? he doesn't seem to subscribe to gravity on a regular basis, and the way he floats over the crowd during the Metro Man Day scene makes me thinks he's attuned with the earth's magnetic fields. which is! wild! what kind of biology?????

Blind Cavefish Offer Evidence for Alternative Mechanism of Evolutionary Change

In a blind fish that dwells in deep, dark Mexican caves, scientists have found evidence for a long-debated mechanism of evolutionary change that is distinct from natural selection of spontaneously arising mutations, as reported this week in the journal Science. [...]

Using the cavefish, the team demonstrated for the first time in nature how "standing" or "cryptic" genetic variations in an animal, which have been inherited from prior generations without causing any physical changes in the animal, can be "unmasked" by the shock of entering a new environment. Gene variants that improve the animal's ability to adapt to that new environment can then be selected for, and passed on to its progeny. This is distinct from the established evolutionary mechanism of "de novo" genetic mutations that arise by chance after the animal has entered the new environment, which also provide a substrate upon which natural selection can act.

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Rapid Evolution of Novel Forms: Environmental Change Triggers Inborn Capacity for Adaptation

In the classical view of evolution, species experience spontaneous genetic mutations that produce various novel traits -- some helpful, some detrimental. Nature then selects for those most beneficial, passing them along to subsequent generations.

It's an elegant model. It's also an extremely time-consuming process likely to fail organisms needing to cope with sudden, potentially life-threatening changes in their environments. Surely some other mechanism could enable more rapid adaptive response. In this week's edition of the journal Science, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and Whitehead Institute report that, at least in the case of one variety of cavefish, that other agent of change is the heat shock protein known as HSP90.