contagiousmemes
200 yrs ago.
In his 1995 book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life", philosopher Daniel Dennett refered to Darwin's theory as a "universal acid" which "eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways"
I wonder what he would be capable of today where not only we decode DNA, something that he wasn't aware of, but also sequence entire genomes (a group of italian researchers did Pinot Noir's grape two years ago).
Also his great idea appears to be far more complex as DNA sequencing is revealing some interesting things. Of course bold New Scientist dedicated the cover story to it.
Organisms are not only passing their traits down (vertically) to their offsprings, but also across huge taxonomic distances, in what is known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). This horizontal swapping of genes seems to happen both at unicellular (bacterias) and at multicellular level. HGT in multicellular organisms is known as hybridisation and its most likely caused by viruses and bacterias. Turns out that cow genome contains a piece of snake DNA transfered horizontally by a virus 50 billion yrs ago - the NS goes on mentioning many other examples. I bet gene fusion will reveal that we too have random DNA pieces that support vital functions in the organism.
It seems like there's a big messy shuffling going on; "If there is a tree of life" says John Dupre' at Exeter Uni "it's a small anomalous structure growing out of the web of life".
Well it seems like the tree isn't the only pattern, if there's one at all.
200 yrs ago.
In his 1995 book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life", philosopher Daniel Dennett refered to Darwin's theory as a "universal acid" which "eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways"
I wonder what he would be capable of today where not only we decode DNA, something that he wasn't aware of, but also sequence entire genomes (a group of italian researchers did Pinot Noir's grape two years ago).
Also his great idea appears to be far more complex as DNA sequencing is revealing some interesting things. Of course bold New Scientist dedicated the cover story to it.
Organisms are not only passing their traits down (vertically) to their offsprings, but also across huge taxonomic distances, in what is known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). This horizontal swapping of genes seems to happen both at unicellular (bacterias) and at multicellular level. HGT in multicellular organisms is known as hybridisation and its most likely caused by viruses and bacterias. Turns out that cow genome contains a piece of snake DNA transfered horizontally by a virus 50 billion yrs ago - the NS goes on mentioning many other examples. I bet gene fusion will reveal that we too have random DNA pieces that support vital functions in the organism.
It seems like there's a big messy shuffling going on; "If there is a tree of life" says John Dupre' at Exeter Uni "it's a small anomalous structure growing out of the web of life".
Well it seems like the tree isn't the only pattern, if there's one at all.