A drug resistant strain of Tuberculosis from a Siberian prison has recently been found in New York City. Utilizing DNA analysis, scientists have identified approximately 12000 different strains of Tuberculosis that are immune to our best drugs! Scientists use DNA analysis to track the evolution of Tuberculosis and its wroldwide spread, but the one in New York is a bit different. It descended from an over crowded prison in Russia. This occured because of the low quality antibiotics and inadequate follow up visits to Russian prisoners. Now as a result of that, Tuberculosis has evolved to become resistant to several forms of drugs!

TB (tuberculosis) was once easily curable, but now due to its evolution, it is a considerable enemy! It now rivals AIDS in its mortality rate!

The use and misuse of drugs and antibiotics especially in the United States has prompted the evolution of drug immune forms of pneumonia, gonorrhea and many other infectious diseases. This problem is unique because it is a man made problem! We actually prompted the evolution of a species! By developing so many forms of antibiotics over the past 40 to 50 years we basically "sped up" the evolutionary process for these diseases (remember natural selection and the guppy example)! Eventually if this continues we humans will cause it to come to the point where diseases and microbes will evolve to be absolutely untreatable! The battle against the microbe is one war that humanity is losing.....( Chadwick, D 1997)

Examples of contemporary evolution occurring are around us every day! Our bacteria-phobic society has inadvertently speed up the process of bacterial evolution so that it is now readily viewable several times in our lives!

In addition, evolution can also be seen nowadays due to our selective breeding of food crops and domesticated livestock and pet animals! Selective breeding by us is basically a form of "forced" natural selection which produces many new breeds, types and varieties of creatures. Forexample, in our lifetime we have caused the creation of larger tomotoes with few seeds, 15 new breeds of domesticated animals, bumpless cucumbers and cows that make more milk compared to those of 100 years ago and chickens that lay more eggs than 100 years ago! This may seem like no big deal and is easily glanced over, but this is all evolution due to our "forced" natural selection!

In the last 50 years we have witnessed the evolution of many insects to become immune to many different pesticides! Scientists are now using evolutionary knowledge to try and "slow down" the evolution of these pesticide resistant bugs!

Our destruction of habitats has endangered species and reduced population numbers so that their genetic diversity has decreased, as so in turn their ability to adapt to environmental changes. Our use of technology has and still is allowing us to view, observe and alter the evolution of many species including ourselves!