Passage Discussion

by **noah** Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:44 am

Interesting passage (for a science geek like myself!)

P1: Defining a lichen; setting out problem in uncovering evolutionary origins; new technique shows lichen are connected to other fungi

P2: Why it's tough to study lichen - they're symbiotic/parasitic and hard to separate from their host; but, new technique overcomes that, and we now see lichen evolutionary tree (woo-hoo!)

P3: implication of this research: we used to think parasitic relationships always evolve into mutually beneficial ones. Not necessarily so since some lichen evolve in the other direction.

There really isn't a strong scale in this passage, but perhaps one could use "study of lichen not fruitful" vs. "lichen study fruitful."