Physical adaptation is usually thought of as a very slow process. It might take a species of bird several generations to evolve a beak suited for eating fruit compared to, say, pecking wood. This change would involve the death of several birds with “incorrect” sets of genes and the survival of one type of bird with a “correct” set of genes. But what if a creature had a huge library of genes, so that they might bypass natural selection by simply expressing the right genes for their environment? That’s what researchers at Washington University at St. Louis have found occurs in the versatile fire salamander.
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