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Beaten to the punch?

In the Book of Animals, abu Uthman al-Jahith (781-869), an intellectual of East African descent, was the first to speculate on the influence of the environment on species. He wrote: “Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.”

There is no doubt that it qualifies as a theory of natural selection - even though the Book of Animals appears to have been based to a large extent on folklore rather than on zoological fact.

Despite the strong feelings Darwin provokes among many Muslims - many Islamic scholars see the Koran as creationist, and so at odds with evolution - it seems astounding that al-Jahith’s quote has been largely ignored.

- Science: Islam’s forgotten geniuses, Telegraph.co.uk, January 29, 2008.

2. We’ve seen numerous car manufacturers and tech companies make noise about their plans to launch autonomous vehicles in the near future, including Tesla, Google, Ford and BMW. But it looks like Uber will beat them to the punch in bringing self-driving technology to consumers.

Bloomberg reports that Uber will roll out a small number of modified self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs from its 100-vehicle fleet in downtown Pittsburgh later this month. But you’ll still be in the back seat, as each car will have a human supervisor behind the wheel.