Chapter 4 of Survival of the Sickest.

Then next class we worked on our paleontology projects. The class after, our homework was to read chapter 4 of the book Survival of the Sickest. In this chapter, we learned about fava beans, how genetics come into play with evolution, etc. People with G6PD deficiency (so they can't eat fava beans or they'll die), have less chance of getting malaria because mosquitos are repelled from their blood by making the red blood cells a less hospitable place for the disease. Their genetic mutation is also a benefit. To sum up nicely about the chapter, I wrote a poem:

Oh great almighty fava bean,

How can you be so nice and mean?

You make people sick and you make people heal,

All from just eating your meal!

The enzyme deficiency in 400 mil,

Is just as useful as taking an anti-malaria pill.

Mosquitos repel from favism.

Which gives us optimism.

Yet some of us with G6PD deficiency,

Are killed by fava beans with great efficiency

What can we really trust?

Our genetics will tell us whom we must.  

Also we learned that plants have way of fighting off predators by producing chemical and toxins that would repel them. The cassava plant produces cyanide, and the nightshade plants, hot peppers, produces a sticky poison called Caspian, and Jimsonweed produces hallucinogens.  

Then picked what animals we were going to create transitional fossils for in our paleontology projects. My lab partner and I chose to do Phiomia, Early Elephants.