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"The new genes also proved to be remarkably durable. Of all the genes in the human genome, 55 percent were already present in the first animal." I read a line
by dclowd9901 9y ago
"The new genes also proved to be remarkably durable. Of all the genes in the human genome, 55 percent were already present in the first animal."
I read a line like that and I can't help but think of a Prometheus-style situation with the Earth and its species.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y agoDidn’t we all think that? ;)
- dboreham 9y agoI've long wondered about this : if it can be shown that there isn't enough delta(t) in earth history for all of evolution to have happened, then some of evolution must have occurred somewhere else. Life, in at least some form, moving from other star systems seems at least not completely impossible.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y agoSure, but the issue is humans would be such an accident that you’d have to think we’d almost be considered an undesirable element or virus to whatever intentions a pollination device would have had. Hope they never come back to check on us, one look at Instagram and we’re gone.
- noir_lord 9y agoAliens: "What did you do?!, The Polar Bears are Brown" (paraphrasing Louis CK).
- searine 9y agoEvolution functions on a model of "punctuated equilibrium". Lots of time doing nothing, with sporadic bursts of change. So there is more than enough time for evolution to occur, even on a drastically shortened earth timeline. Most of the time, life is just maintaining the status-quo, until outside factors tilt fitness in one direction and the system readjusts.
- dboreham 9y ago>So there is more than enough time for evolution to occur, even on a drastically shortened earth timeline. Curious to know how this is known as a fact? Also, I realize that in the fossil record we see "jumps" from one species to another in a relatively short time but is that how the underlying changes in DNA actually occurs? If so, how? Everything I've learned suggests that DNA modifications are made under some stochastic process.
- sulam 9y ago"(Humans have about 20,000 protein-coding genes.)" "The researchers found 6,331 genes that were present in the common ancestor of all living animals." "But 1,189 of the genes in the ancestral animal can’t be found in our closest known single-celled relatives." So, 5142 genes are common between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, okay. But where is this 55% number coming from? This article is confusing.
- reubenswartz 9y agoProkaryotes and single celled eukaryotes are very, very different. Like a billion years of evolutionary history different, 4-5 orders of magnitude in size different, different chromosomal structure different, and lots of complex cellular machinery different.
- sulam 9y agoI conquered high school biology so this isn’t news. Can you explain their math?
- reubenswartz 9y agoNo, ha ha-- I had the same problem you did with the numbers. ;-)
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoI'm not so sure. You build on a foundation, any foundation, you quickly can't live without it. Not clear that a different initial foundation wouldn't also have been frozen forever. Don't have to imagine 'intelligent design'
- lainga 9y agoYour comment only unsettles me and makes me think we're carrying around the COBOL of genes...
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoHey the Internet rests on old POP servers etc. Bad ideas from the 90's, compounded to the Nth degree. Its turtles all the way down.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Hey the Internet rests on old POP servers etc. Bad ideas from the 90's POP, even POP3, is from the 1980s. And I'd actually newer than a lot of the stuff the internet rests on. Ideas, bad or otherwise, from the 1990s, aren't comparatively new,.as much as “the 90s” seems to often be used as a generic term for ancient history.
- e40 9y agoThat's what the theory of panspermia is about.