Category: Uncategorized

ONLY GENES MATTER. "A common misconception about evolution is that it's optimizing for the maximum survival of organisms. This is not true. Evolution is optimizing for the replication of genes. Organisms are disposable vessels to transport genes from place to place and create congenial circumstances for their replication. Once you've produced your offspring, you're of no further evolutionary use." https://lnkd.in/dfnYR7G View in LinkedIn

Ref for uncted quote: Non-Coding RNAs: A Dynamic and Complex Network of Gene Regulation" "Munshi A, Mohan V and Ahuja YR View in LinkedIn

CENTRAL QUESTION. “Sex has been termed the “queen of problems in evolutionary biology”, and how sex is determined in the animal kingdom has always been a major question with “debates on the origin of the sexes that took place long before the beginning of the scientific era.” https://lnkd.in/dSwmRPP View in LinkedIn

ALL OF EVERYTHING. "The complex genetic phenomena like interference, gene silencing, imprinting, cosuppression, methylation, acetylation, position effect related variegation, transvection and paramutation are hypercyclically interconnected pathways through which ncRNA signalling is affected." (ncRNA = non-coding RNA). View in LinkedIn

REPRODUCTION in nature appears to be a central goal of all living things, along with the generation of increasing genetic fitness, by either complexification or by outsourcing simplification of the driver genome. Reproduction is front and central. All else can be seen as secondary. View in LinkedIn

VIRAL ORIGIN. "Recent emergence of numerous lncRNAs suggests that they continue to be actively synthesized (i) from ancestral genes that have lost their coding potential, (ii) by genes or other lncRNAs duplication, transposition, and mutation and (iii) de novo from intergenic DNA." (lncRNA = long non-coding RNA). https://lnkd.in/d2sxUZQ View in LinkedIn

UNIT OF SELECTION. "This perspective has merit because it identifies the appropriate unit of selection—the clonal genotype—and has led to a focus on the developmental mechanisms and patterns of growth that produce clonal offspring." https://lnkd.in/dWczCFf View in LinkedIn

CLONAL GROWTH. "Vegetative reproduction involves the production of genetically identical individuals capable of independent existence and reproduction as a result of plant growth. Indeed, following Harper, many botanists prefer the term “clonal growth” and deliberately avoid using the terms “vegetative or clonal reproduction”. To quote Harper (ref. 12, p. 27), “clones are formed by growth—not reproduction.” https://lnkd.in/dWczCFf View in LinkedIn

ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION involves only one parent, and mitosis gives identical clones, with 100% the same genes in the offspring as in the parent. It is the simplest method of reproduction, takes little energy, and is best under conditions of abundance. In contrast, sexual reproduction generates genetic variation, takes time in mating, and is well suited in unstable environmental conditions. View in LinkedIn

VERY DIVERSE. “In vertebrates, sex-determining mechanisms range from environmental to simple or complex genetic mechanisms and different mechanisms have evolved repeatedly and independently.” https://lnkd.in/dSwmRPP View in LinkedIn