E-coli and citrate sitting in a tree...

[=NukeBlaze=]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html


New gene appears during lab study of an e-coli population which enables them to "Nom nom nom" Citrate. Sounds cool to me.

[frosty]

That's really cool! Shame the ignorant bastards had to chime in with their anti-religious "told you so" crap... even though it proves nothing against religion.



By David

Wed Jun 11 08:22:28 BST 2008
First of all, I'll state that I'm Christian. Did you ever stop to think that possibly evolution was the tool God used to create?

Did you ever stop to think that Genisis was written in terms that people of those times could understand? How do you explain to people 6000 years ago what 1 billion years is? How do you explain to people who just learnt how to write what a single cell organism is?

If you can't see that, it just goes to show how closed minded the church & the Christians in the South are.

REPORT | REPLY
Creationists

By David R Allen

Wed Jun 11 12:36:37 BST 2008
No.

And No.

And don't pick on the southern christians or the northern christrians man declare a pogrom on you.

Ps. Science by definition is open minded. Religion is closed. Science changes with the input of new data. Religion denies new data and relies on 2000 year old unverified, unprovable data, then wants to rule the world. Dangerous recipe.

REPORT | REPLY
Creationists

By Dustin Rudzinski

Thu Jun 12 00:52:06 BST 2008
Oh? Really? So all religions are based on 2000 year old texts... (which have been verified on a number of levels) ... And all are out to simply rule the world? All religions are closed minded by definition? Dude, you are as closed minded as the religions you so openly hate, and you prove that with comments like that.

I myself have followed Christianity for a long time now, and never once was I told to deny science by anyone. In fact, we would constantly hold open discussions on the possibilities of evolution being what we directly observe when god makes a change to a species. We would openly debate principles that the bible put forth.

Fact is, for you to put such a label on any religion, much less all of them, only proves that you are even more ignorant than any religion out there. You blast them for being ignorant towards science, all the while turning a blind eye and deaf ear towards all religion and their teachings. So pot, yes... The kettle is also black. But only in some instances, only when corrupt people take a good thing and manipulate it into something evil. That doesn't mean all religion should be hated any more than evolution should be hated by religion. In the end, you are perpetuating more ignorance while trying to call a group of people out for being ignorant.

[Viper]

Unlike those on that site, let's try to keep the dichotomy out of it and focus on the point itself.

Sounds like an awful lot of work ahead of them to track down with changes generated the proper path for that specific evolution.

I wonder if those circumstances are unique to that species or could they be replicated in other organisms? If replicated elsewhere then it can be predicted to the point of possibly even controlling that aspect of evolution.

[Khaos]

This is an exciting discovery! Also, it doesn't disprove religion (obviously); it disproves the common flavors of creationism, as the article said. Agreed.

[frosty]

I'm all for anything that disproves the "young earth" creationists. Those types get on my nerves, as they preach ignorance that flies in the face of every bit of modern science. Preaching faith over intellect. I feel intelligence is a divine gift, so I see that as blasphemous. Anyway, enough about that, as Viper said.

I think it would be a really cool thing to see come to pass, as long as it were kept in check. If mankind were to be able to fully harness evolution and play god so to speak, things could get ugly. I could see species being evolved for the specific purpose of achieving a certain task... like being bred into slavery basically. If you evolve a species that is too dumb to revolt in any way, but is strong enough to do what you want it to... I don't know. There are a lot of moral boundaries that crosses regardless of your theistic point of view. If kept under strict control though, we could maybe eventually control our destiny. For instance, if we saw an impending danger coming years down the line, we could alter our species to evolve traits that would allow us to adapt to those changes more quickly. Things like climate change and such. I really don't know where to stand on it though, because as I said it does come really close to crossing the "playing god" line. Currently as I see it, as long as it's done in a humane way, there isn't anything wrong with it. No more so than us breeding puppies to favor a certain trait like longer hair or smaller size.

But I agree, these guys have a LOOONG way to go. They have thousands of cultures to sift through, like looking for a specific needle in a stack of needles. Hopefully they'll find something soon though, I'd like to know more on what exactly took place.

[Viper]

Haha, yeah, you're looking way beyond what I was thinking. I was considering altering bacteria to achieve specific tasks.

Bacteria in food production could be evolved to increase yields, quality, longevity, etc.. This is far more natural than the artificial means we use today. Imagine how that could help Africa's food situation.

We use bacteria to fight off other bacteria. Specially evolved bacteria could be developed to target bad bacterium that cause diseases and cancer.

Bacteria keep our water clean.

There is even a fuel cell technology in development that uses bacteria to generate electricity.

[frosty]

it could also be used to produce killer bacteria strains that are incurable. like any new discovery of this nature, it must be strictly regulated.

[masonite]

Keep in mind all they've done is demonstrate evolution - technically they haven't "made" the bacteria do anything (although they set up the environment to tip the odds in their favour). Keep in mind also the short generation of bacteria - it took 31,500 generations for this to happen. To apply this in anything with a longer generational timespan than e.coli (pretty much anything) you'd be looking at a much greater timespan. Also, the problem with evolution is that quite often you need the environment to change before the genetic adaptation can take place - hypothetically, if there was a sudden change in climate that caused a severe drop in temperatures, those unsuitable would simply perish.

I'm pretty sure there was a case of galapagos finchs that suffered a hurricane, and the only source of food avaliable to them was nuts that had fallen on the ground instead of seeds from trees and flowers (they'd been blown away in the hurricane). The majority of the population perished, but the ones with slightly sharper, longer beaks (capable of breaking through the shells of the nuts) managed to survive, and repopulate. Now its a trait shared amongst all of the population. I think that's pretty similar to what you're talking about.


"altering our species" to evolve certain traits....we have to be very careful there. The "aryan race" idea was exactly that - to alter the genentics through selection to create "perfect" human beings. The problem is that you either have to discriminate based on human ideas of what is "desireable" genetics, or you have to eliminate the "undesirable" gene sets altogether. It's been attempted before, with horrific consequences.


And as for killer bacteria.... well it's already happening. We're not doing it intentionally, but bacteria are slowly evolving resistances to certain antibiotics - thanks to their incredibly quick generations, we have trouble staying ahead of them.

[frosty]

you make some good points. As for altering our species, I was mainly talking about only using it for impending danger (assuming it could be pulled off in time, though the points you make draw that into question). For instance, altering our bodies so that they would be able to withstand a higher u/v level than we can now if we saw an atmospheric catastrophe coming down the line (as in WAY down the line). I don't know though, as you said, it's one of those things with a very high potential for corruption. We very well could end up with another hitler on our hands if that were to come about. But, thankfully, as you mentioned, time constraints would prevent it from being practical for that kind of use.

[=NukeBlaze=]

We already have some of those various changes, comparing British ghost white, and African dark brown from low and high melanin levels.

Its interesting because Africans extended-visiting Britain during the industrial revolution suffered from Vitaman D deficiencies since thier bodies production of Vitamin D was synced with much high doses of UV radiation.

Its also a wonder that with our brainpower, is environmental manipulation an extension of biological adaptation. More troubling, what is the mix of one or the other, or is there a synergy which assists or impedes long term survivability.

[masonite]

you make some good points. As for altering our species, I was mainly talking about only using it for impending danger (assuming it could be pulled off in time, though the points you make draw that into question). For instance, altering our bodies so that they would be able to withstand a higher u/v level than we can now if we saw an atmospheric catastrophe coming down the line (as in WAY down the line). I don't know though, as you said, it's one of those things with a very high potential for corruption. We very well could end up with another hitler on our hands if that were to come about. But, thankfully, as you mentioned, time constraints would prevent it from being practical for that kind of use.

yeh, those changes would be useful....but would probably be more ethical to use gene therapy than try and selectively evolve certain traits. Which is ironic, considering the massive fits of screaming and convulsions that mere mention of the word "gene" seems to bring out in the popular press atm...

[=NukeBlaze=]

Aye, its a horrible situation for him.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/graphics/2005/06/01/ftwilder01.jpg

[Bryan]

Amazing, Brandon.

But potentially very dangerous.

[=NukeBlaze=]

Like riding on an airplane?

[Bryan]

Yes. The risk is low, but when it goes wrong you're probably fucked.