Lucky Octopi

Last year I went to a fascinating symposium in honor of the great evolutionary biologist George Williams. The March issue of the Quarterly Review of Biology ran a series of papers written by the speakers at the meeting that offered much more detail on how Williams had influenced them in their various fields. Randolph Nesse of the University of Michigan gave one of the most interesting talks at the meeting on maladaptation and what it means to human medicine. You can download the pdf from his web site. To whet your appetite, here's a nice passage on the eye: "It works well when it works, but often it does not. Nearly a third of us have hereditary nearsightedness, and almost no one over 55 can read a phone book unassisted (except for those who have been nearsighted for decades!). The lovely mechanism that regulates intraocular pressure often fails, causing glaucoma. ...