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smartexec smartexec
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10 years ago
 You suddenly realize that you have a population of mice living in your attic. You do not want to put out traps or poison, so you decide to get a cat. The cat is fast; however, the cat is not as fast as the very fast mice. There are a total of 20 mice living in the attic. Of the 20 mice, 10 are very fast, 5 are medium fast, and 5 are very slow.

A few weeks pass, and there are fewer mice; however, you still have some mice in the attic. After a few months, it seems that there are even more mice than there were to begin with.

1. Why do you have more mice than you did when you first bought the cat?
2. Why do we not see situations such as this happening in humans as often as we see them in other organisms?

I have to answer this question in a min 200 word essay.

I surmise that the reason that there are more mice than when I first bought the cat is because the very fast mice mated and reproduced offspring that are also very fast. 

I believe that the reason we do not see situations such as this happening in humans as often as other organisms is because humans are slower to evolve than other organisms? 

Please let me know if this is correct / specific details I can include in my essay, which is due tomorrow.

Thanks!!!
Source  Belk, C., & Meier, V. B. (2013). Biology: Science for life with physiology (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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wrote...
9 years ago Edited: 9 years ago, Kekai
Correct, through natural selection it's the quick and the dead => survival of the fittest.

We don't see this in humans as often because our reproductive cycles are longer than most organisms.

For mice, they reach sexual maturity after 4 WEEKS.  For humans, this takes YEARS.  So, the process of making more humans is a more lengthy one, which means, as you said above, humans are slower to evolve than other organisms.

Also note the litter size of mice compared to humans.
wrote...
9 years ago
Always choose the topic that you know something about it.
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