Computing Science
Magazine
May-June 2010
May-June 2010
Volume: 98 Number: 3
The developmental paths of the human eye—shown on the cover in a colored scanning electron micrograph during the eighth week of gestation—and the octopus eye are examples of convergent evolution. Although formed by entirely different processes and having somewhat different functions, they are remarkably similar. In "Development Influences Evolution," evolutionary developmental biologist Katherine Willmore describes this as one example of developmental forces interacting with selective pressures to determine the course of evolution. In a larger sense, developmental constraints on evolution are the reason that every life form on Earth can be lumped into one of 35 different body plans, all of which originated in the Cambrian Period about 500 million years ago. Known by its practicitioners as evo-devo, the study of such interactions is helping science to understand why life has adopted so many variations. (Photograph by SPL/Photo Researchers Inc.)
In This Issue
- Art
- Astronomy
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Communications
- Computer
- Economics
- Engineering
- Environment
- Ethics
- Evolution
- Mathematics
- Physics
- Policy
- Psychology
- Technology
Revealing the True Solar Corona
Richard Woo
Astronomy Technology
Imaging may have inadvertently led astrophysicists astray in understanding the Sun
Development Influences Evolution
Katherine Elizabeth Willmore
Biology Evolution Physics
A range of factors—including genetics and physics, location and timing—can either constrain an animal's features or amplify changes
To See for One's Self
Darin L. Wolfe
Art Communications
The art of autopsy has a long history and an uncertain future
