In other news, grass is still green.

[Partha]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/lif ... e-lab.html

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

I know no one here was dumb enough to argue creationism, so this is merely informative.

[Ddrak]

That's pretty cool.



Dd

[Arathena]

Nifty.

Of course, the creationists will complain that it doesn't count because you didn't change a titmouse into a T-Rex, but, who expects them to get it?

[Klast Brell]

If you don't believe in evolution you shouldn't be getting an annual flu shot.

[Ddrak]

If you don't believe in evolution you shouldn't be getting an annual flu shot.

If you "believe in" evolution then you don't understand science. It's like nobody "believes in" gravity.

btw - I've never had a flu shot. Is that bad?

Dd

[Garrdor]

btw - I've never had a flu shot. Is that bad?

Well, have you broken a thermometer and let the contents absorb into your skin? Pretty much the same thing.

[Alluveal]

I believe in intelligent design (not of the Biblical variety, but yes I believe there was a higher power somewhere at the cause of all this wonder.) But, I also think evolution is valid as well. I will say that someone turning a titmouse into a t-rex would rock, though. Or, maybe I just like saying TITMOUSE.

TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE

[Embar Angylwrath]

btw - I've never had a flu shot. Is that bad?

Well, have you broken a thermometer and let the contents absorb into your skin? Pretty much the same thing.

Garrdor myth. Inorganic mercury is hard to absorb even if you swallow it. Drinking a little mercury used to be the prescribed medication for constipation.

Organic mercury compounds.. whole different story. You want to kill someone in a slow but terrible manner? Use an alklyated mercury compound on the skin. A drop or two will travel through any epidural layer, migrate to the nervous system, and turn some poor person's brain into something resembling swiss cheese, and cause death in an agonizing manner. It sequesters itself in potions of the brain, causing necrotic cell death. It also does this in other parts of the body, like the kidneys, neural ganglia, and some selected organs. You rot from the inside out. Great necromancer spell! Draught of Organomercuric!

I used to think that being burned alive was the most horrendous way to die. Now, I think it's poisoning by an organic mercuric compound.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I believe in intelligent design (not of the Biblical variety, but yes I believe there was a higher power somewhere at the cause of all this wonder.) But, I also think evolution is valid as well. I will say that someone turning a titmouse into a t-rex would rock, though. Or, maybe I just like saying TITMOUSE.

TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE
TITMOUSE

I've certainly seen Tit-Rex.....

[Ddrak]

I used to think that being burned alive was the most horrendous way to die. Now, I think it's poisoning by an organic mercuric compound.

I dunno - Ebola would be pretty unpleasant, especially when you add in the social effect that no one would want to comfort you much either.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Yeah, bleeding out of every orifice is a pretty bad way to go.

Now that I think about it, the old indian way of slowly killing a man by sewing him up in a leather bag, then hanging the bag over a fire so that you cook, but not burn... that's a bad way to go.