http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4721102/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Proc Biol Sci. 2016 Jan 13; 283(1822): 20152547.
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.2547
PMCID: PMC4721102
Experimental macroevolution†
Graham Bell
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Abstract
The convergence of several disparate research programmes raises the possibility that the long-term evolutionary processes of innovation and radiation may become amenable to laboratory experimentation.
Ancestors might be resurrected directly from naturally stored propagules or tissues, or indirectly from the expression of ancestral genes in contemporary genomes. New kinds of organisms might be evolved through artificial selection of major developmental genes. Adaptive radiation can be studied by mimicking major ecological transitions in the laboratory. All of these possibilities are subject to severe quantitative and qualitative limitations. In some cases, however, laboratory experiments may be capable of illuminating the processes responsible for the evolution of new kinds of organisms.
Keywords: macroevolution, innovation, adaptive radiation, ancestral resurrection, ecological transition, experimental evolution
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link
"Therefore, the ancestral
potential to produce supersoldiers cannot
be lost without compromising the developmental
program of soldiers."
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http://biology.mcgill.ca/faculty/abouhe ... o_2014.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"The major goal of ecological evolutionary developmental biology, also
known as “eco-evo-devo,” is to uncover the rules that underlie the
interactions between an organism’s environment, genes, and development
and to incorporate these rules into evolutionary theory. In this chapter,
we discuss some key and emerging concepts within eco-evo-devo. These
concepts show that the environment is a source and inducer of genotypic
and phenotypic variation at multiple levels of biological organization,
while development acts as a regulator that can mask, release, or create
new combinations of variation. Natural selection can subsequently fix this
variation, giving rise to novel phenotypes. Combining the approaches of
eco-evo-devo and ecological genomics will mutually enrich these fields in
a way that will not only enhance our understanding of evolution, but also
of the genetic mechanisms underlying the responses of organisms to their
natural environments."
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"[–][deleted] -2 points 1 year ago
Halo is set in the twenty-sixth century, with the player assuming the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier. The player is accompanied by Cortana, an artificial intelligence who occupies the Master Chief's neural interface. Players battle various aliens as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the eponymous Halo, a ring-shaped artificial world. "
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http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80bea ... usl4i6YMq0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The strangest thing about this Chinese boy’s light blue eyes is not their color. It’s the purported fact that he can see in the dark. His eyes are just like cat eyes, glowing blue-green when you shine a light in them, says this clip from China’s state-run English TV channel. The boy can catch crickets in the dark without a flashlight and even completes a writing test in a pitch-black stairwell. True, or too good to be?
Natalie Wolchover at Life’s Little Mysteries has rounded up some experts and their collective reaction seems to be, “Hmm…” (It doesn’t help that this video has been posted on YouTube under the name, “Alien Hybrid or Starchild Discovered in China? 2012.”) One possibility they consider is whether the boy has a mutation that produced something like a tapetum lucidum, an extra layer of tissue that helps cats see in the dark. James Reynolds, a pediatric ophthalmologist at State University of New York in Buffalo, puts a stop to that idea:
[T]here is no single genetic mutation that could produce a fully formed and functioning tapetum lucidum, Reynolds explained; such an ability would require multiple mutations, which wouldn’t occur all at once. Evolution happens incrementally, he said, not by leaps and bounds. “Evolutionarily, mutations can result in differences that allow for new environmental niche exploitation. But such mutations are modified over long periods. A functional tapetum in a human would be just as absurd as a human born with wings.
Instead of a tapetum, Reynolds suggests the boy may just have an especially high number of rods, our photoreceptors that work well in low light.
As for whether any humans can see in infrared, in an isolated, unverified Navy study during WWII, the U.S. Navy fed volunteers an alternative form of vitamin A, a component of photopigments, but deficient in the normal version. The volunteers supposedly became more sensitive to longer wavelengths, which the Navy hoped would allow them to send infrared signals invisible to the enemy. We don’t recommend trying this at home because you might as well just get some night vision goggles. That’s what the Navy ended up doing.
See more of Wolchover’s investigation over at Life’s Little Mysteries.
