Try Not to Die, Monday, October 23, 2023

[sith_happened]

"Right, so there are now a completely unreasonable number of coffee shops on this island and I can't find my wife," Anakin began, "so today's class assignment is to go into town, find a coffee shop, order a black coffee and look for a brunette with a book sucking down the largest drink they carry. Return with the coffee and report your findings."

Was this a sneaky way for Anakin to make his students go on a coffee run for him? Yes, except it wasn't that sneaky.

"Off you go," Anakin said. "She likes Starbucks."

Evolutionary Science for Beginners - Monday, 1st Period

[itsananomaly]

Cutter was in a really good mood when he stood in front of class that morning, he had enjoyed his trip away and he and Connor had decided to try again and he kept smiling over at Connor as they waited for class to begin.

He wasn’t even unsettled by how different Fandom seemed to be these last few days, and a lot more coffee shops than normal.

“Welcome back,” he smiled as he held onto his usual large cup of coffee, which he had gotten from Starbucks. “I hope you enjoyed your trip away and apologies for missing class the previous week, we had an emergency come up at home,” he told them, “this week we’re going to be looking at Adaptability Evolution,”

“Adaptability Evolution has three meanings,” he began, “the first is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment and enhances their evolutionary fitness. The second is a state reached by the population during that process and the final one is a phonetypic trait or adaptive trait and this has a functional role in each individual organism and is maintained and evolved through natural selection,” he smiled over at Connor for him to continue the lecture.

Connor nodded as he set down his Ventii mocha coffee and picked up his notes as he gave a small grin to Cutter.”Adaptation, in evolutionary terms, is the process that species go through in order to become accustomed to an environment. Over many generations, through the process of natural selection, organisms’ physical and behavioral features adapt to function better in the face of environmental challenges. Adaptations are slow and incremental, and the result of successful adaptation is always beneficial to an organism. Snakes eventually lost their legs in order to fit into underground spaces, mice generations survived and grew large ears to hear predators at night, and giraffes ended up with long necks to reach the leaves on tall trees. There are many other examples that can be seen in animals, plants, and even humans.” Connor gave another small smile as he looked back to Cutter when he had finished.

Cutter smiled warmly as he continued the lecture, “this is especially true in the case of niche construction,” he explained, “this is the process where animals including beavers, earthworms and humans use some of their adaptations to change their surroundings so that they can maximise their chances of surviving and reproducing. For example beavers create dams and lodges and that this changes the ecosystem of the valley around them. Darwin noted that earthworms improve the topsoil where they live by incorporating organic matter and finally humans have constructed extensive and varied civilisations such as the Arctic and hot deserts,”

He paused, “for the rest of the lecture I would like you to work on you worksheets and as always feel free to ask myself or Mr. Temple any questions that you may have,”