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MENDELIAN SPECTRUM. "Recombination has always been recognized as an important source of variation; whether such variation is perceived as profound or “monstrous” is a matter of degree rather than kind." http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-012-9209-0 View in LinkedIn

EVOLUTION BY SALTATIONS. "Suggestions to the contrary (to gradualism) were met with ridicule: geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, in 1940, envisioned subtle developmental mechanisms producing great leaps of adaptation, but his use of the phrase "hopeful monsters" was misrepresented as extreme saltationism (perfection in one jump), and equated with belief in miracles." https://lnkd.in/dAC2mFa View in LinkedIn

RISE OF THE HOPEFUL MONSTERS. "But through fish in the murky depths of a British Columbia lake and through bacteria in the flasks of a Michigan lab, the monsters have returned. Experimental evidence has shown that individual genetic changes can have vast effects on an organism without dooming it to the evolutionary rubbish heap." https://lnkd.in/dAC2mFa View in LinkedIn

GRADUALISTIC EVOLUTION. "Since the origin of evolutionary science, biologists have insisted that adaptation is an achingly slow process. ' Natura non facit saltum ' (nature does not take leaps) was a favourite incantation of Charles Darwin. As the combined power of genetic mutation and natural selection became better appreciated in the 1930s and 1940s, theorists solidified a gradualist doctrine: adaptation must rely on innumerable genetic changes, each with effects so small that any attempt to catch them experimentally was considered futile." https://lnkd.in/dAC2mFa View in LinkedIn

MONSTER SALTATIONS. "This small selection of cases serves to illustrate sudden appearance of profound differences between parents and hybrid offspring reminiscent of Goldschmidt’s hopeful monsters." https://lnkd.in/dDz5VYD View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues the theme from last weekend of hybrids, but strays into the theme of gradual versus sudden leaps of evolution and the lovely concept of hopeful monsters. Hybridization as a source of genetic novelty and new species has long fascinated biologists, but many natural hybrids are sterile, making them ‘sports of transmutations’ (Wordsworth). Enjoy this partly historical view of the subject. View in LinkedIn

BINARY FISSION. "Fission, also called binary fission, occurs in prokaryotic microorganisms and in some invertebrate, multi-celled organisms. After a period of growth, an organism splits into two separate organisms. Some unicellular eukaryotic organisms undergo binary fission by mitosis." https://lnkd.in/d_e3R-w View in LinkedIn

PARTHENOGENESIS GENE. "This study presents the first demonstration, to our knowledge, of function for a gene cloned from a naturally occurring apomictic plant that encodes a key component controlling parthenogenesis." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/36/11205.full View in LinkedIn

BLACK BOX. "The molecular mechanisms controlling apomixis, a mode of asexual reproduction in plants leading to clonal seed formation, are largely unknown." https://lnkd.in/dKiMTaq View in LinkedIn

APOMIXIS TRAIT. "When crop species acquire this trait, superior genotypes, including hybrids, will be fixed and seeds will be multiplied without segregation of superior gene combinations." http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/agriculture/abstract.htm?id=16663 View in LinkedIn