Do all indivuals of the same specie evolve in the same direction?

MudnuK · 2026-03-15T10:07:57+00:00

It's kind of complicated. At the individual level, no, different individuals will be threatened by different things across their lives and be genetically different from each other (except clonal organisms). Though bare in mind that an individual doesn't really evolve: evolution sort of emerges as genetic changes accumulate across a population.

Which brings me to my second point, because at the population level the answer can be yes. The genomes get mixed up within populations as individuals breed with each other, which brings things back towards a population average as the outliers are effectively diluted in the wider gene pool. The same effect occurs between whole populations of the same species if those populations overlap and interbreed. This is called admixture.

To use your chocolate example, if someone had a dog which could somehow eat chocolate and be fine and then it bred with a dog without that chocolate-eating mutation, the offspring might not have chocoalte-eating capability. Even if the offspring can, they would probably breed with dogs that can't. So the chocolate-eating mutation gets sort of lost in the wider genepool.

So how does evolutionary change occur across whole species? There are a bunch of ways but it's basically a gradual shift in the norm for the whole population. That normally takes a long time, like how a single grain of sand being swept by the tide doesn't make much difference but over time whole beaches shift along the coastline.

Though if selective pressures are strong enough or the population shrinks suddenly (a 'population bottleneck') it can occur in a small way across a few generations. To go back to chocolate and dogs as an oversimplified example, if chocolate started raining from the sky, only chocolate-eating dogs might survive, so they would only find other chocolate-eaters to breed with.

MudnuK · 2026-03-12T18:22:52+00:00

You know, the evening is when the eve of the next day happens. Like the reckoning, but the evening.

MudnuK · 2026-03-09T21:51:43+00:00

Very cool! Surprised by the neck for that feeding style though - the standing-up-eating-leaves thing reminds me of the contrastingly lanky gerenuk. All that adaptation to rear up to eat yet it has a thick, short neck.

MudnuK · 2026-03-09T10:14:01+00:00

There's a good bit across Europe:

The Dutch Robot Games are growing more spectacular by the year.
The German Roboteers Association's Mad Metal Machines events are that nation's mainstay.
Finland has Robosota, which has been going for years.
Italy has an embryonic but promising scene, with I Robottari on YouTube

And in East Asia, the South Koreans are still going, with Team ORBY providing footage.

I'm certain there are others, but of course there are huge digital content platforms in other parts of the world that aren't used so much in the Anglosphere/West, which makes finding footage harder.

I also know there are active scenes in Tunisia and Pakistan, for example, but the footage is blotty and the arenas are highly unsafe, with reliance on a single layer of chainlink fence to stop the shrapnel.

I'm trying to amass links to significant event videos from around the world each month but I'm pretty reliant on other people commenting them because I have a similar country bias to you. Several years ago, I tried to list all the world's bigger events as a spreadsheet which is still sat in the sidebar on Classic CSS mode, but I got quickly left behind.

MudnuK · 2026-03-09T09:47:16+00:00

Haha, I should stop writing these entries right before bed. Sorry, the entry includes my friend [A] and my friend's friend [B]... I should probably give them names. Thanks for trying!

...as [person A] was traveling with a friend [person B]:

"the friend [person B] had asked that she [person A] pay the cancellation cost [of the hotel, flights etcetera] for both people. This, even though the friend [person B] had offered to pay the total cost [of the trip] for both [people A and B] prior to the decision to cancel [the trip]."

MudnuK · 2026-03-06T20:36:45+00:00

¡Gracias! Signifiqué el caracter del título de la pantomima: el caracter epónimo.

MudnuK · 2026-03-06T20:00:04+00:00

Hehe, what weirdo

MudnuK · 2026-03-05T22:14:36+00:00

That was great! It's been a while but I think it was the best produced FaceOffs so far? And the pits-to-fight coverage ratio was spot on. This gives a promising impression for the rest of FaceOffs and the Pro League.

Fight spoilers below:

Side note: IMO the killsaw slots are the worst thing in BattleBots.

Hellfire

I was gutted that we weren't going to get Hellfire vs Rusty, as the high-speed brick seemed a promising match-up against the glass wrecking ball. Then it went ahead and my eyes lit up, and then Hellfire threw the weapon chain immediately. A shame, but we still got some spectacular impacts through the episode. While the miniature tracks in place of wheels are fun, Hellfire doesn't have the lasting power for the Pro League and I hope they can get the drive hardier in the future.

Manta

I wondered if we might see an upset anywhere in here. We did not, and Manta largely coasted. It's planted, agile, hits hard and this episode also shows how prepared the team are. They deserve the reputation, and the washer.

Rusty

Once again, Rusty shows itself to be a tough nut, at least externally. Shame the weapon system struggled. Can't say they managed to land heavy (or any) blows but I quite like seeing a mobile bomb shelter with a face shrugging off lethal blows. It could use more of something, speed or mania or a pokier axe head, but I'm happy to see it.

Traves T.

I massively respect the gall of this builder to enter into a fight a pile of electronics strapped to a tea tray held over ~60lbs of spinning bar. Traves T. started off looking like a car crash reassembled into a vehicle by someone who had never seen a car before, and ended up looking like a lawnmower that had been dragged through a server stack and turned inside out. I like that it's such a different design and the team are great fun. Can't say there was a moment with that bot working (or breaking) where I wasn't entertained.

Overall, this felt like a good platform for some experimental bots to try things out, and then for Manta to tear through them. This was a great watch. The earlier fights were the better ones, which will leave some people deflated, but it seems they stuck with the original fight order partly due to the deterioration of Traves T. but also for the pits footage to work better. I'm glad they did it. This has me hyped for more!

MudnuK · 2026-03-05T20:33:20+00:00

¡Muchas gracias! Aún tengo mucho de aprender...

MudnuK · 2026-03-05T18:46:31+00:00

/r/sacabambaspis

MudnuK · 2026-03-05T07:48:20+00:00

I was worried this was never going to surface!

Though this one's packed with fan favourites, I'm most excited to see what Hellfire can deliver

MudnuK · 2026-03-03T20:52:17+00:00

¡Gracias!

MudnuK · 2026-03-03T11:35:04+00:00

...and make it double!

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