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BAD SELFING GENETICS. "The ephemeral nature of selfing lineages may be primarily due to the accumulation of deleterious mutations. Also, a reduced rate of fixation of beneficial mutations can limit the ability of selfing populations to adapt to changing environments." https://lnkd.in/dX-FzGD View in LinkedIn

MICROBIAL MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. "It is now widely recognized that interconnected microbial communities drive matter and energy transformations in natural and engineered ecosystems, while also contributing to health and disease states in multicellular hosts." https://lnkd.in/dF2zqrE View in LinkedIn

IF A MARTIAN were to ask humans whether they had a comprehensive catalog of the creatures living on planet earth, the answer would be that we know much less than 1% of those inhabitants. This staggering ignorance of the most dominant destructive species on the planet speaks for itself. We instead invest our considerable resources in warfare and conflict. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE contemplates a part of biological dark matter. Dark matter in biology includes the large portion of the genome of unknown function ("junk DNA") which was of ancient retroviral origin; the second dark matter in biology, and the subject of this essay, is that of the enormous amount of external genetic material that we know nothing about, supposedly viral or bacteriophage in origin. We do not need to explore other planets to find new frontiers. Our own is full of uncharted territory. View in LinkedIn

ASSUMPTIONS. “Throughout this article, we have drawn attention to areas of research needed to evaluate the two interdependent components of Stebbins’ SEDE hypothesis in flowering plants: the transition rate from selfing to outcrossing is zero; and self-fertilization is associated with a negative diversification rate.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn

REVERSALS. “According to the SEDE hypothesis, transition rates from outcrossing to self-fertilization are unidirectional, with reversals to outcrossing untenable as a result of both genetic and environmental barriers. Generally, evolutionary reversals are considered to occur when populations revert exactly to an ancestral character state.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn

SEDE HYPOTHESIS. "Regardless of whether or not reversals to outcrossing occur, even rarely, the unidirectional evolution of selfing lies at the philosophical heart of Stebbins’ characterization of selfing lineages as evolutionary ‘blind alleys’, contextually interpreted as inescapable entrapments that prevent the elaboration of radically new adaptive devices.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn

LINEAR PATH. “Few believe that transitions from selfing to outcrossing are common.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn

BAD STRATEGY. “The repeated evolution of selfing is thought to be an evolutionary ‘blind alley’, or ‘dead end’.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn

THE GREAT WINNOWING. “Such higher order selection, manifested through different birth and death rates of lineages associated with outcrossing and selfing populations and species, could ensure that selfing lineages fail, presumably because of their limited capacity to adapt to changing environments, or their susceptibility to the accumulation of deleterious mutations.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.12182/full View in LinkedIn