7 ms·
Legendary bacterial evolution experiment enters new era
- jjcon 4y ago> During their 75,000 generations of growth, the bacteria have made huge gains in their fitness — how fast they grow relative to other bacteria — and evolved some surprising traits. I am probably misunderstanding something, but this whole thing seems like a bad idea given the past couple years
- denkmoon 4y agoI can't imagine the rate of mutation is higher for these colonies than, eg. those that are in your own gastro-intestinal tract. The difference is with the lab colonies they don't have the same selection pressure as bacteria in the wild. So my naive understanding is that they would actually be less fit in most environments outside the lab. For example, how fast they grow - the mutated growth strategy is probably optimised to the lab conditions and could result in an unviable lineage outside of the lab. Even accounting for the generation of dangerous (to humans) mutations, the benefits gained from our increased understanding of bacterial lineages and genetics almost certainly outweighs the danger.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago> I can't imagine the rate of mutation is higher for these colonies than, eg. those that are in your own gastro-intestinal tract. What? Why not? Rate of mutation is an evolutionary parameter just like everything else. Compare this other sidethread comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31775592
- 14 4y agoI think bacteria are already doing this kind of thing in nature. Just here we get to document the results.
- culi 4y agoYeah but in nature these organisms are forced to adapt more as generalists to the large variety of environments they're exposed to One of the most invasive species in the world is the argentine ant. Which evolved over many many years under a very specific set of conditions until one day they were exported by colonists and have basically taken over the world. It turns out that that intense Amazonian environment, one which is very rare to find anywhere else, just happened to be an amazing training ground to evolve certain traits that gave them the ability to take over the rest of the world When you leave organisms in such specific conditions, there's always the chance that you're selecting for incredible fitness for a specific ability. A specific ability that might not evolve in a more diverse set of conditions because perhaps it doesn't pay off until it's sufficiently developed. With argentine ants this might be how well adapted they are at having multiple queens and quickly reproducing to recover from any sort of damage
- taneq 4y agoArgentine ants are fascinating! And also a pain in the neck because they’re so hard to get rid of.
- popcube 4y agobut this is difficult to get sample
- codeflo 4y agoIf the colonies were fed human cells, I’d agree.
- mynameisash 4y ago> Thirty thousand generations into the experiment, one of the 12 lines evolved the ability to consume citrate, instead of just glucose. And that garnered quite a lot of attention, and even some, shall we say, hostility from some people who are sceptical of the power of evolution. In case you haven't heard of this, Dr. Lenski dealt with some science deniers who tried to smear the experiment: https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Lenski_dialog https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Lenski_dialog
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chadcmulligan 4y agoThat is one interesting web site
- DoItToMe81 4y agoConservapedia is interestingly stupid, in that it attracted the ire of many communities back in the day who, in addition to raiding it, stuck around and Poe's Law'd their way in. There was a point where some of the more ridiculous claims were primarily from communities like /b/, seeing how insane they could be before they were called out. But the Conservapedia administration actually took it seriously.
- eru 4y agoKeep in mind that much of the content of Conservapedia might as well be written by trolls. It's sometimes hard to say.
- DoItToMe81 4y agoMy view on it has always been that the admins are dead serious, but the users may not completely be.
- 4y ago
- undersuit 4y ago>Thirty years and 75,000 generations — it’s a drop in the evolutionary bucket. So I would guess that if we could come back — in one million years or whatever, the bacteria probably would have extremely reduced genomes. That’s a reason to keep it going. Can't speed up nature, though I wonder if we could add something to the medium that increases the chance of deletions.
- p1esk 4y agoCan't speed up nature We can, with computers. Well, maybe not today, not at the atomic level, but quite possible in a few decades.
- robbiep 4y agoSo… we can’t?
- eru 4y agoWe can't today, but maybe in the future.
- robbiep 4y agoSo we can’t
- eru 4y agoThat's pretty weird position. Eg I can fly to Hong Kong. Not today, because I haven't booked a flight and it's getting late, but probably in the next few days, if I really wanted to. You'd say that I "can't"?
- robbiep 4y agoIt is currently feasible for anyone, with the right resources, to fly to Hong Kong. It is not currently feasible for anyone to speed up or simulate nature in silico. These are quite different positions, the idea that you would equivocate them frankly is bizarre
- culi 4y agoI did this same experiment to make my sourdough starter. Would recommend
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chrisbrandow 4y agoJeez. I’m old enough to remember when this experiment was just getting started.
- seofreelacer 4y ago[flagged]
- iovrthoughtthis 4y agois this human spam or some gpt3 spam?
- Maclennan 4y ago[dead]
- veddox 4y agoThis is an absolutely fantastic experiment and probably part of the reason I'm a biologist today. Keeping a single experiment going for so long is quite a feat, and it has payed off handsomely. Lots of great science came out of the Lenski lab in the last 30 years, not least because of the consistency and thoroughness of their work. Glad to see the LTEE moving on to a new chapter - many happy landings!
- flobosg 4y agoIt is worth mentioning that Richard Lenski has a blog where he writes about the LTEE: https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/ https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/
- seofreelacer 4y ago[dead]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]