Tag Archives: biology

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Humans are evolving faster than ever

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Evolution fairground sign Thanks to the magic of the wire services, this story is all over the web like a rash – you can read the abstract of the paper that’s caused the hoo-haa on the blog of John Hawks, one its authors.

But the nutshell quote is this one:

“The massive growth of human populations has led to far more genetic mutations, and every mutation that is advantageous to people has a chance of being selected and driven toward fixation. We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals.”

As an early commenter points out on the inevitable MetaFilter thread, faster evolution doesn’t mean we’re improving as a species, because evolution selects for ‘reproductive fitness’ rather than any quality that we might describe as being ‘better’ from a rational point of view.

But it’s an interesting story nonetheless; I’d always thought evolution was a glacially slow process. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the implications are … not to mention the spin that the ‘Young Earth’ folk will try to put on it. [Image by KevinDooley]

[tags]human, evolution, anthropology, biology[/tags]
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Are alien lifeforms already on Earth?

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A cluster of Escherichia coli bacteria Is the emergence of life a localised one-shot fluke, or does it happen all over the place? It’s not a question we can answer with certainty yet, but that’s probably why it’s such a fascinating thing to ponder. Scientists in the latter camp suggest that life may have arisen here on Earth more than once, and according to Scientific American they are engaged in a search for examples of Terran microbial lifeforms which aren’t (or rather weren’t) based on the building blocks of the biology that we’re more accustomed to – which might add evidence in favour of the emergence of extra-terrestrial life. [Via Slashdot] [Image from Wikipedia]

Of course, some of the creatures that have existed on Earth that were based on the familiar biological patterns can still seem pretty alien, if only in the B-movie/pulp magazine manner – 2.5 meter long monster sea scorpion, anyone?

[tags]life, biology, science, extraterrestrial[/tags]
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Photosynthesis2.0 – leaves re-engineered

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leaves Our posts about genetic engineering always accrue some interesting comments, so let’s see what Futurismic readers think of this: researchers at the University of Illinois have engineered a new form of plant that produces more leaves and fruit without any need for fertilizers, by tweaking the enzymes used in the photosynthesis reaction.

Don’t get too panicked, though – the plant only exists in a computer simulation so far. And that’s the interesting question, as far as I can see – will we be more trusting of re-engineered life-forms if they’ve been tested exhaustively in virtual form before being created in the real world? [Link via Our Technological Future] [Image by 4x4jeepchick]

[tags]biology, engineering, photosynthesis, simulation[/tags]
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Bad news for cats: scientists make a better mouse

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An ordinary mouse If Jerry had been one of these, Tom would never have had a chance: Case Western Reserve University researchers have bred a line of genetically modified "mighty mice" that can run five to six kilometres on a treadmill for up to six hours, at a speed of 20 meters per minutes, without stopping. Not only that, they live and breed longer than mighty mice, and though they eat more, they remain fitter and trimmer than their unmodified cousins. And as if that wasn’t enough to concern cats, the new mice are also markedly more aggressive. (Via Science Daily.)

But don’t go getting any ideas about creating your own line of super soldiers for world domination. Richard W. Hanson, lead author of the newly published paper about the achievement, is quick to squelch any such science fictional thoughts:

"The technique used to create the animal model reported in our study is not appropriate for application to humans. The ethical implications are such that this approach should not be used in humans, or is it technically possible at this time to efficiently introduce genes into human skeletal muscle, in order to mimic the effect seen in our mice" said Hanson. "Any attempt to tamper with the metabolic processes in human muscle will surely do more harm than good. We believe that this mouse model will provide important insights into the impact of prolonged exercise on the development of cancer in the animal, the effect of diet and exercise on longevity and will increase our knowledge of the factors that regulate energy metabolism in skeletal muscle."

You can view a video of a wild mouse and a mighty mouse on a treadmill here. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

[tags]genetic engineering, biology, mice[/tags]

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Scientists envision growing human eyeballs

Three-eyed Tadpole 

Researchers at the University of Warwick have stumbled on a genetic switch in tadpoles that causes them to grow three eyes–and could conceivably help scientists to someday grow replacement human eyeballs, or at least specific bits of eye tissue, from stem cells. As neuroscientist Nicholas Dale, co-leader of the study, puts it, "If you knew all the genes, and how to turn them on, that you needed to make an eye, you could start with very early embryonic cells and turn on all the right genes and grow an eye in a dish." (Via LiveScience.)

Now there’s an appropriate mental image for the Hallowe’en season… (Image: Masse, K., Bhamra, S., Eason, R., Dale, N. and Jones, E./Nature.)

[tags]stem cells, medicine, biology[/tags]