[SunkenCiv]

a handheld genetic test used to unmask sushi bars pawning off tilapia for tuna could deliver deep insights into evolution, including how new species... The study's most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

If you knew sushi, like we know sushi.

Thanks CondorFlight.

Dead link now, but the archive has probably been moved.

Evolution in Your Face
by Patrick Huyghe
Omni

Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, is home to more than 300 species of cichlids. These fish, which are popular in aquariums, are deep-bodied and have one nostril, rather than the usual two, on each side of the head. Seismic profiles and cores of the lake taken by a team headed by Thomas C. Johnson of the University of Minnesota, reveal that the lake dried up completely about 12,400 years ago. This means that the rate of speciation of cichlid fishes has been extremely rapid: something on average of one new species every 40 years!

[Mr Radical]

"This means that the rate of speciation of cichlid fishes has been extremely rapid: something on average of one new species every 40 years!"
Surely his math is wrong? You cannot simply divide 300 species into 12,400 years. If one believes in random mutation then two species have twice the probability of speciation of one; three have three times the rate, four have four times the rate, etc. A bit like the grains of wheat on the chessboard, you could go from one to 300 in just eight or nine moves. That is 12,000 divided by 8 or 9 ≈ 1400-1500 years on average per (individual) speciation.
The timing of the very first random speciation could make a big difference to the outcome after 12,400 years.
IF one believes in random mutation, of course...

[Red Badger]

...sushi bars pawning off tilapia for tuna...

If you can't see or taste the difference between tilapia and tuna, you shouldn't be in a sushi bar.................

[bert]

For a good look at species and genus and families and taxonomy and failure and extinctness and success.......read this book describing the early beginnings of life.

Many Burgess Shale fossils are on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum Drumheller, Alberta. As the main attraction, the Museum has one of the largest collections of Dinosaur fossils in the world