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> 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 so

by 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 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. 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 ago
I think bacteria are already doing this kind of thing in nature. Just here we get to document the results.
- culi 4y ago
  Yeah 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 ago
    Argentine ants are fascinating! And also a pain in the neck because they’re so hard to get rid of.
- popcube 4y ago
  but this is difficult to get sample
codeflo 4y ago
If the colonies were fed human cells, I’d agree.

by jjcon 4y ago

denkmoon 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. 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 ago

I think bacteria are already doing this kind of thing in nature. Just here we get to document the results.

culi 4y ago
Yeah 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 ago
  Argentine ants are fascinating! And also a pain in the neck because they’re so hard to get rid of.
popcube 4y ago
but this is difficult to get sample

codeflo 4y ago

If the colonies were fed human cells, I’d agree.