Unknown Error creating file '/afs/hcoop.net/user/z/za/za/zacha/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache/906e40466b17053c90cc0336a7f76e96.png'.Richard Lenski: The Best Person in the World

This month’s Best Person in the World is Richard Lenski, a biologist at Michigan State University.

This month he published an important paper (pdf) based on a population of E. coli he’s studied for the past 20 years, which after 33,000 generations suddenly learned to eat the compound citrate. The paper itself seems to address one of the finer points in evolutionary biology debates, but its broader significance is that it lends additional support to evolution, by documenting an actual evolutionary mutation as it took place.

Now, he could have stopped there, but he gains additional points for a richly deserved epic smackdown he recently dealt to a creationist nutter who was antagonizing him. (Especially because he was polite and patient at first.)