The lowly milkweed has presented a challenge to the evolutionary assumption that life forms become ever more complex in response to environmental pressures.

For decades, human design engineers have been laboring to make more efficient machines, like propeller blades that produce steady airflow patterns. Our thinking has been fixed on the idea that smooth surfaces are the best basic form, but studies on whales and dolphins are changing that.

Analysis of an unusual Brazilian fossil has led U.S. researchers to link microscopic fossil features to bird feather colors. The fossil has dramatic black and white banding patterns that have been interpreted as post-fossilization bacterial activity. However, there are structures in the rock in which it was found that are the same size and shape as cells from living dark feathers.

Some scientists believe that camels originated in North America around 20 million years ago and migrated from there. Paleoecologist Guy Robinson, a professor at Fordham University, told ABC World News, "The original camel was North American. And it gave rise to all the camels you find throughout the world."¹