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VIRAL FOSSILS. “Much of the human genome is repetitive sequence derived from transposable elements. These include copy-and-paste retrotransposons and cut-and-paste DNA transposons. Only retrotransposons are active as undomesticated mobile DNAs in humans.” https://lnkd.in/df3hrCx View in LinkedIn

MASSIVE VIRAL FOOTPRINT. “TEs constitute more than half of the DNA in many higher eukaryotes. We know, too, that the fingerprints of TEs and transposition are everywhere in their genomes, from the coarsest features of genomic landscapes and how they change through real and evolutionary time to the finest details of gene structure and regulation.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6108/758 View in LinkedIn

THE DRUNKARD’S WALK. “The late Stephen J. Gould strongly cautioned against the temptation to ascribe any overall directionality to biological evolution. In a famous metaphor he compared the evolution of a species in complexity space to the random walk of a drunkard who starts out leaning against a wall, but whose movement towards the gutter is unrestricted.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

PROMISCUOUS GENE SHUFFLING. “TEs can contain many types of genes, including those conferring antibiotic resistance and ability to transpose to conjugative plasmids. Some TEs also contain integrons, genetic elements that can capture and express genes from other sources. These contain integrase, which can integrate gene cassettes. There are over 40 antibiotic resistance genes identified on cassettes, as well as virulence genes.” (TE = transposable elements, jumping genes). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn

BIG GENOMES AND SIMPLER CRITTERS. “Salamanders have genomes much larger than humans. The lack of a tight correlation between genome length and our subjective assessment of phenotypic complexity is known as the C-value enigma.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

SLOPPY CUTTING. “Transposons do not always excise their elements precisely, sometimes removing the adjacent base pairs; this phenomenon is called exon shuffling. Shuffling two unrelated exons can create a novel gene product or, more likely, an intron.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element View in LinkedIn

FITNESS IS NOT ALWAYS COMPLEXITY. “Darwinian evolution gives us an understanding of how biological complexity arose, but is less capable of providing a general principle of why it arises. “Survival of the fittest” is not necessarily “survival of the most complex”.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

INCREASING COMPLEXITY? “There is a widespread assumption that the universe in general, and life in particular, is “getting more complex with time.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGICAL GOAL OF LIFE. What is the end-game of biology? This is an old question, and one that most biologists have felt is not a testable, and thus, not a serious, question. It has been left to philosophy and religion to grapple with. But surely, there are abundant clues in the pure biology, across the immensity of time, to give some wet-based suppositions? This is the subject of the next section of posts. View in LinkedIn

The Apprentice review: Trump, Putin and the subversion of US democracy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/04/the-apprentice-review-trump-putin-greg-miller-washington-post?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other View in LinkedIn