Re: The humanness genes
Tim Ikeda (tikeda@sprintmail.com)
Sun, 27 Sep 1998 13:53:18 -0400Hello Glenn,
You wrote:
[...]
] Perrot allowed laboratory cutlures of E. coli with rpsL mutations to
] evolve in an antibiotic-free medium for 16 days or 160 generations.
] They then completed these evolved bacteria against drug-sensitive E.
] coli and found that they are almost as fit. 'That suggests that they
] evovled a compensatory mutation,' says Levin-a second genetic mutation
] that makes up for the loss of fitness from the first.
] "Schrage and Perrot, with Levin and Nina Walker, confirmed that suspicion
] by making their evolved E. coli strain drug-sensitive again. They
] replaced the bacteria's streptomycin-resistant rpsL gene with a sensitive
] version of the gene, then set this genetically altered strain and the
] resistant strain against each other ina another fitness-competition bout.
] The genetically altered E. coli failed miserably-implying that the
] compensatory mutation reduced its fitness when not paired with the
] resistance gene.
[...]
Good heavens, yet another "irreducibly complex" system arises! Did the
researchers happen to notice a big guy with a white beard (not Santa)
hanging around their lab during the experiments? Were they able
to rule out extranatural assembly as the source of the compensatory
mutations or did someone who was supposed to monitor the incubator
fall asleep one night?
- Tim Ikeda
tikeda@sprintmail.hormel.com (despam address before use)