From: invalide@invalid.invalid   
      
   https://phys.org/news/2025-06-tomatoes-galpagos-quietly-de-evolving.html   
      
   On the younger, black-rock islands of the   
   Galápagos archipelago, wild-growing tomatoes   
   are doing something peculiar. They're shedding   
   millions of years of evolution, reverting to a   
   more primitive genetic state that resurrects   
   ancient chemical defenses.   
      
   These tomatoes, which descended from South   
   American ancestors likely brought over by birds,   
   have quietly started making a toxic molecular   
   cocktail that hasn't been seen in millions of   
   years, one that resembles compounds found in   
   eggplant, not the modern tomato.   
      
   In a study published recently in Nature   
   Communications, scientists at the University of   
   California, Riverside, describe this unexpected   
   development as a possible case of "reverse   
   evolution," a term that tends to be controversial   
   among evolutionary biologists.   
      
   That's because evolution isn't supposed to have   
   a rewind button. It's generally viewed as a   
   one-way march toward adaptation, not a circular   
   path back to traits once lost. While organisms   
   sometimes re-acquire features similar to those   
   of their ancestors, doing so through the exact   
   same genetic pathways is rare and difficult to   
   prove.   
      
   However, reversal is what these tomato plants   
   appear to be doing.   
   ...   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)