Imagine a cloth that gets stronger after it is damaged. That is what scientists recently discovered when probing the strength of garden spider webs.

How much time would evolution need in order to make a mouse the size of an elephant?

Since this kind of evolution supposedly occurs too slowly for biologists to observe, one place to look for answers is in the fossil record. But in order to answer this particular research question, a team of evolutionary biologists made some large assumptions.

The first chapter of the timeless text of Genesis states, "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day."¹

Salamanders are slick-skinned amphibians whose diets shift as they mature. Some live their entire lives in water, and others spend their adult lives on land. Those inhabiting water eat plankton when young and then various insects and other small arthropods called "clam shrimp" when older.