Links for Wedneday, March 31, 2010

• Christie Wilcox: Evolution: The Curious Case of Dogs – “* Before domestication, dog’s life was tough, but when people pulled specific wolves out of their packs and began breeding them, we changed everything. There were some traits that made this easy – the social structure of wolves, for example, made them predisposed to belonging to a community. But we opened up a number of genetic traits and allowed them to express variety that would have been fatal in the wild. We not only allowed these traits to persist, we encouraged them.*“
• Washington Post: Second Life’s Virtual Money Can Become Real-Life Cash – “*Last year, as the physical economy withered, Second Life’s economy blossomed, with user-to-user transactions topping $567 million in actual U.S. currency, a 65 percent jump over 2008. About 770,000 unique users made repeat visits to Second Life in December, and the users, known as residents, cashed out $55 million of their Second Life earnings last year, transferring that money to PayPal accounts. *“