Adaptation is one of the driving forces behind evolution, along with selection and the appearance of new species, say a group of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München researchers, but they say that the interpretation familiar since Darwin - these processes increase the "fitness" of the species overall, since, of two competing species, only the fittest would survive - is actually a case of the fittest being the 'weakest'  most often.

University of Leicester biologist Dr David Harper has conducted research for over 25 years at Lake Naivasha in Kenya and says today that your cheap boyfriend's (unless you are are the cheap boyfriend, in which case he means you) cut-price Valentine roses which are exported for sale to the UK are 'bleeding that country dry.'

Harper claimed that cheap roses grown by companies that had no concern for the environment were having a devastating effect on the ecology of Lake Naivasha - the center of Kenya's horticultural industry.  Instead, he urged UK shoppers to buy Fair Trade roses produced by companies that  he says are environmentally conscientious and had a transparent supply chain.

Are you smarter than a pigeon?   We don't mean smarter as in able to figure out why it's $14  a day for lousy internet access in a hotel or $14 to see an old movie in your hotel room or the hospitality industry's general preference for the number 14, we mean practical social smarts, like meeting the opposite sex.    Animals have "social smarts" too, it turns out, with a range of behaviors that can enhance species survival, according to studies being presented here in Chicago at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting. 

Evolution shouldn't leave out social behavior, it seems.

Neandertals were the closest relatives of currently living humans. They lived in Europe and parts of Asia until they became extinct about 30,000 years ago. For more than a hundred years, paleontologists and anthropologists have been striving to uncover their evolutionary relationship to modern humans.

A multi-institutional team of researchers has reported the sequences for all of the 99 known strains of cold virus, nature's most ubiquitous human pathogen. The feat exposes, in precise detail, all of the molecular features of the many variations of the virus responsible for the common cold, the inescapable ailment that makes us all sneeze, cough and sniffle with regularity. 

Conducted by teams at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the J. Craig Venter Institute, the work to sequence and analyze the cold virus genomes lays a foundation for understanding the virus, its evolution and three-dimensional structure and, most importantly, for exposing vulnerabilities that could lead to the first effective cold remedies. 

BARCELONA, Spain, February 13 /PRNewswire/ --

Stantum Technologies (www.stantum.com), a pioneer developer of multi-touch sensing technology, is introducing a new version of its SMK series of multi-touch demo, evaluation and development kits, which enable vendors and OEMs to evaluate the performance of Stantum's technology and develop their own multi-touch applications.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090212/LA70551)

Within the next few years it may be possible to go to Walmart, pick up a gallon of milk, and then stop by and have your genome sequenced while you wait. Sound unbelievable? Recent developments in the sequencing of your genome may make this a reality in the near future.

A company called Complete Genomics has recently announced that they intend to market the $5000 complete genome sequencing package. $5000 is not cheap, but it is definitely cheaper than some of the earlier efforts at genome sequencing.

FLORHAM PARK, New Jersey, February 12 /PRNewswire/ --

Global Crossing (Nasdaq: GLBC), a leading global IP solutions provider, will conduct a conference call on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. EST. CEO John Legere and CFO John Kritzmacher will discuss the company's financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2008.

NOTE: Global Crossing will issue the earnings press release on Monday, February 16, 2009 after 4:00 p.m. EST.

BARCELONA, Spain, February 12 /PRNewswire/ --

- Leading international developer partners show carriers the very latest 'must have' video-enabled mobile applications as video becomes the new voice

Dialogic Corporation (Dialogic), a global provider of world-class products and technologies for media and signal processing (http://www.dialogic.com/products), and several of its world-class developer partners, will be demonstrating examples of their latest multimedia VAS solutions for carriers and mobile operators on the Dialogic stand at Mobile World Congress, February 16-19, 2009.