Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
Science Daily has two interesting articles relating to evolution. The first, Freshwater Copepod May Be Several Species, Not Just One concerns rates of speciation in Copepods.
Copepods are the most abundunt form of zooplankton and the Science daily article concerns freshwater copepods. Researchers concluded that the number of copepod species may be much higher than previously thought:
Because enough variation occurred to significantly alter the animals' genetics in just a few laboratory generations...
The interesting thing is that:
"Some identically appearing forms collected from the same pond cannot mate and produce young, thus defining them as different species," said Wyngaard. "By following the parents and offspring of these plankton in the laboratory, we discovered that they reorganize their DNA dramatically from one generation to the next."
Even more interesting is that researchers arfue that the process of speciation may be much more complicated than previously thought:
"This study provides critical evidence that the ways species form and evolve are more complicated than we had previously understood."
Another interesting study, War Between The Sexes Influences Evolution In Some Species, Say Scientists concerns the efects of maternal-effect genes in species with ZW chromosomes:
"We think that the maternal-effect genes are a new arena for conflict in ZW species," said Rice. "The mathematical models support this conclusion. 'Son killers' are predicted to accumulate on the W chromosome and 'daughter killers' to accumulate on the Z."The scientists explain that the sexually antagonistic maternal-effect genes in ZW species lead to an evolutionary arms race.
They state that maternal-effect conflict is increased in ZW species (compared with XY species) because the W, unlike the Y in humans, is expressed in both sexes through the maternal transmission to the egg.
A precedent for another type of sexual conflict is seen in the genetic battle that occurs in the placenta of most mammals and in the endosperm of plants.
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