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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE deals with the thorny issue of what is a species. It is a fundamental concept in evolution and biology. Yet it is far from a clear concept. Darwin, in Origin of the Species, carefully avoided defining it. And today, we know that genes are immensely mobile, sloshing around in a vast global genepool, and that evolution is not linear. To make matters infinitely worse, in 2010 synthetic life was created in the laboratory. Oh what a glorious mess! View in LinkedIn

"HYBRID ZONES are regions where individuals from genetically differentiated populations meet and mate, resulting in at least some offspring of mixed ancestry. Patterns of gene flow (introgression) in hybrid zones vary across the genome, allowing assessment of the role of individual genes or genome regions in reproductive isolation." https://lnkd.in/euQDjEc View in LinkedIn

LBS Healthcare Challenge winners. View in LinkedIn

"HYBRIDIZATION between species can lead to introgression of genes from one species to another, providing a potential mechanism for preserving and recombining key traits during evolution." https://lnkd.in/eaRt-9g View in LinkedIn

LBS Healthcare Challenge competition. View in LinkedIn

"MASSIVE GENE FLOW across the world's most potent marine biogeographic barrier." https://lnkd.in/eeMRa2M View in LinkedIn

HORIZONTAL GENE TRANSFER “is far more pervasive and more radical in its consequences than we could have guessed just a decade ago." Earlier this year, Cambridge (UK) scientists, Alistair Crisp and Chiara Boschetti, writing in Genome Biology, identified 145 genes in humans that have crossed the (quite permeable) species “barrier.” Our ABO blood group system appears to have been inherited from bacteria, for example." https://lnkd.in/eTmZGyK View in LinkedIn

TRANSPOSON PROBLEM. "There was a time—just a few decades ago—when scientists believed genes were fixed and evolution was linear. Standard theory of natural selection did not account for the possibility of complex organisms suddenly acquiring genes from other species. But that model began collapsing in the 1970s, when transposons, colloquially known as ‘jumping genes’ were discovered." https://lnkd.in/eTmZGyK View in LinkedIn

INDISTINCT BACTERIAL STRAINS. "In many laboratory notebooks, there are results of tests of a few strains of different species that gave promise of great usefulness in characterizing species, but, after application of these tests to more strains of each species, the great promise dwindled to nothing because we are dealing with spectra of strains or sections of a spectrum, not with compact packages of strains." https://lnkd.in/exx_wqw View in LinkedIn

"THE TRANSITION from prokaryotes to eukaryotes was the most radical change in cell organisation since life began, with the largest ever burst of gene duplication and novelty. This radical transformation of cell structure (eukaryogenesis) is the most complex and extensive case of quantum evolution in the history of life." https://lnkd.in/enZ4-ZD View in LinkedIn