Plants and animals have been interacting with each other for hundreds of millions of years. Insects burrow into tree bark. Thorns pierce flesh. Leaves become dinner. And so it has gone through the ages of life on Earth since long before the time of the dinosaurs.
Animals and plants that benefitted from these interactions were better able to survive and pass on their characteristics to their seedlings or babies. Over countless generations many animal species evolved special adaptations to take advantage of the plants in their environment: grinding teeth to pulverize grasses, strong beaks for cracking tough seeds, and so on. At the same time, plants evolved defenses against being eaten, such as sharp prickles, bad taste, or poison.
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About Skeptic
UPLOADING YOUR BRAIN
SPECIAL ISSUE: Uploading the Mind to a Computer
Mind Uploading: An Argument for the Scientific and Technical Plausibility of Preserving Thoughts Indefinitely by Kenneth Hayworth; Uploading Your Mind Does Not Compute by Peter Kassan; Virtual Immortality: Why the Mind-Body Problem is Still a Problem by Robert Lawrence Kuhn
SPECIAL SECTION: What Motivates Extremists?
Once Upon a Time: Re-Thinking the Fight Against Extremists by Tina Dupuy; Dealing With Islamism: Trust, Costly Signaling and Forming Moral Teams by Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay; Apocalypse Soon?: How Emerging Technologies, Population Growth, and Global Warming Will Fuel Apocalyptic Terrorism in the Future by Phil Torres
ARTICLES
Paleoanthropology Wars: The Discovery of Homo naledi has Generated Considerable Controversy in this Scientific Discipline by Nathan H. Lents; Charlie Sheen’s HIV Goat Milk Doctor by Harriet Hall, M.D.; Massachusetts: Mass Hysteria Cover Up by Robert E. Bartholomew; Agony and Ecstasy: Were Saint Paul’s Christian Beliefs a Symptom of Epileptic Personality Disorder? by Harry White; In Defense of Anti-Science: Why the Anti-anti-science Movement Has Gone too Far by J. Howard Siegal; The Decline of Intelligent Design: The 10th Anniversary of the Dover Decision and the Demise of Intelligent Design by Donald Prothero
COLUMNS
The SkepDoc: Flu Shots Facts and Fallacies by Harriet Hall, M.D.;The Gadfly: How Accurate is the “Cycle of Abuse”? by Carol Tavris
REVIEW
“Sacred Cows: A Lighthearted Look at Belief and Tradition Around the World” by Seth Andrews reviewed by Donald Prothero
JUNIOR SKEPTIC: Man-Eating Plants: The Cannibal Tree of Madagascar by Daniel Loxton.