J. Baylor Roberts, National Geographic, 1949

Respect the Weed: My New York Times Story on One of Evolution’s Champions

ByCarl Zimmer
July 16, 2013

For 10,000 years, we’ve created a new evolutionary arena where a new kind of plant has evolved: the weed. In today’s New York Times In today’s New York Times, I talk to evolutionary biologists who are studying how weeds first arose, and the marvelously devious strategies they’ve evolved to thrive on farms. You may have be seeing headlines these days about how GMO crops are creating “superweeds.” The new generation of resistant weeds is definitely a serious problem, but it’s not some new Frankensteinian phenomenon. Weeds are just doing what weeds have done so well before. Understanding their evolution may help farmers fight them more effectively and safely. Check it out.

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