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SURVIVAL OF THE GENE. "A useful way to look at this problem is Dawkins's "Selfish Gene" picture of evolution, where the fundamental unit to be maintained by natural selection is not the individual, nor the group or the species, but the gene." https://lnkd.in/ecMXQ_u View in LinkedIn

DARK DRIVER OF EVOLUTION. "Evolution advances by means of death (as opposed to the survival of the "fit")? That's a dark spin on Darwinian theory that I didn't expect to come across." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/evolution_by_me066801.html View in LinkedIn

WEEDING THE UNFIT. "Biological evolution, too, is anti-fragile. The death of unfit individuals is what causes a species to adapt and improve." https://lnkd.in/ddsS3VH View in LinkedIn

REJUVENATION. "Unlike the process of clonal senescence, where an entire population progressively declines in fitness, here the life potential of the lineage is continually renewed through young offspring cells (the process of rejuvenation) that are produced at the expense of aged parent cells." http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030045 View in LinkedIn

SYMMETRIC DIVISION. "We find that the old pole is a significant marker for multiple phenotypes associated with aging, namely, decreased metabolic efficiency (reduced growth rate), reduced offspring biomass production, and an increased chance of death. Thus, E. coli, an organism with a morphologically symmetrical division, no juvenile phase, and no identified separation between germ line and soma, is susceptible to aging." http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030045 View in LinkedIn

JUMPING GENE FOSSILS. “Evolution often deactivates DNA transposons, leaving them as introns (inactive gene sequences). In vertebrate animal cells, nearly all 100,000+ DNA transposons per genome have genes that encode inactive transposase polypeptides. In humans, all Tc1-like transposons are inactive.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn

BIRTH AND DEATH. “Beginnings are often difficult to pinpoint, particularly in life cycles, for life is continuous. Life does not tolerate a break (at most a transitory standstill in a stage of quiescence). Life is a continuing process that started some billions of years ago below the level of multicellularity and will end with the death of the last living being. Nevertheless, each individual life that is based on sexual reproduction has two discrete boundaries: fertilization and death.” https://lnkd.in/d6G9geU View in LinkedIn

PROTECTIONS AGAINST TEs. “Because excessive TE activity can damage exons, many organisms have acquired mechanisms to inhibit their activity. Bacteria may undergo high rates of gene deletion as part of a mechanism to remove TEs and viruses from their genomes, while eukaryotic organisms typically use RNA interference to inhibit TE activity. Nevertheless, some TEs generate large families often associated with speciation events.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn

SELFISH DNA PARASITES. “While some TEs confer benefits on their hosts, most are regarded as selfish DNA parasites. In this way, they are similar to viruses. Various viruses and TEs also share features in their genome structures and biochemical abilities, leading to speculation that they share a common ancestor.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn

TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS (TEs) “are found in almost all life forms, and the scientific community is still exploring their evolution and their effect on genome evolution. It is unclear whether TEs originated in the last universal common ancestor, arose independently multiple times, or arose once and then spread to other kingdoms by horizontal gene transfer.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn