NEWS: Excuse Me Waiter, But There's Something In My DNA

Damn this must be a bit of a kick in the teeth to those who belive that the world is like only 10,000 yrs old and god put dinosar fosils on earth to test the faith and that god created the world or is this all part of gods master plan.

This explains a lot!

actually your point about mechanism is part of the simple/complex. SOME viruses insert themselves into the host genome.. hence a simple, already in-place mechanism for gene therapy. bacteria.. in addition to doing hundreds of other things (ie being complex) can also insert their genetic material into the host genome. There is a mechanism there, but there so much other stuff bacteria do it'd be tedious and difficult to strip it down to just the insertion of genetic material. hence we stick with the simple virus.

a pig that's all legs is all ham and no bacon... not a winner in my book.

Oh, dude. Creepy.

Dude.

If this is the case, our toilet is pretty evolved.

Only works if you believe in a unproven theory. They keep trying.

And you have a viable alternative theory?

Good article.

It's interesting how the endosymbiotic theory has become Biology 101 in terms of the origin of mitochondria, etc. When Lynn Margulis revived the idea, many people thought it was nuts.

I, for one, reject our new Wolbachia overlords, because they have a disturbing tendency to do things like skew sex-ratios to females, and otherwise eliminate males from populations.

WAIT. I like these new Wolbachia overlords. If they're really in the genome, they can be inherited through both males and females, meaning there's no selection for them to fuck males over! (Most of these guys are found in the cellular material and thus are not passed on in sperm. Since males only reproduce through production of sperm, they represent dead ends for W., so W. has evolved to fuck with the sex ratios in many insect species.)

/salute Wolbachia

Thinking about it, I don't know why the hell I was surprised by this. I mean, (some) life went from single-cell to multi-cell at some point... some mechanism would be needed to do that, and I'm not seeing a reason for it to be discarded, as such.

Fascinating! I have long felt that the radiation => transcription error => mutation => evolution model was dreadfully inadequate.

I wonder what implications this has for the pro/anti GM foods debate?

I have often heard it argued that transferring genes from one species to another is 'unnatural'.

Given that the transfer of genetic material between species is somewhat more widespread than previously realised, perhaps this undermines the argument that GM foods are 'unnatural'.

On the other hand I have a vague recollection that some variant forms of genes implicated in some autoimmune diseases may contain sequences which resemble sequences of viral DNA (viral DNA, not bacterial DNA but, who knows, we probably have bacterial DNA in our genome as well).

When a foreign organism assimilates itself into replicating cells and takes on a needed function it humbles the human idea of dominance. "I'm in your cells and you need me, what now?"

Furthermore the idea of interconnectedness or the unity and oneness of all things has entered a new realm. Eastern mystics and quantum physicists, pay attention.

I am one with the Wolbachia.

No love for mitochondria?

Was a huge fan of this when it hit slashdot. Yay Fluxxorz for bringing it up here.