Observable change is happening in humans, albeit slowly and only for certain traits. Scientists have tracked the histories of 14,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, since 1948. Data from 2,238 females participating in the Framingham Heart Study were recently analyzed, including weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and number of offspring.

Good neighborhoods provide families a lot of protection, but even the best of communities remain vulnerable to the threat of criminals invading their homes. Our human bodies are also vulnerable to foreign invaders such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.

Charles Darwin admitted that the sudden appearance of fully formed creatures in fossil deposits was one of the biggest problems with his hypothesis that nature generated living creatures through natural selection.

A boom in affordable housing in the 1950s was helped by the invention of a distinctive multifunctional piece of equipment: the backhoe. Its strong yet relatively slender articulated arm allowed precise yet rapid placement for digging or lifting. The manipulative device is trim and fast, since hoses transfer power to it from a powerful hydraulic pump within the main chassis.

Cambrian rock layers contain fossils that represent almost every modern phylum of animal, plus many that are now extinct. One animal fossil in particular would win the weird prize, if there were one. Paleontologists have been piecing together this strange creature’s body parts, which look as though they were taken from an array of totally different sea animals.