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THE FALSISM. "In fact, a gene alone can neither cause an observable phenotypic trait, nor can it be necessary and sufficient to the emergence of observable characteristics." https://lnkd.in/d3vzXnd View in LinkedIn

THE NUT. "What these over-simplified formulations truly mean is that variation at a given gene causes variation in a given phenotype." https://lnkd.in/d3vzXnd View in LinkedIn

OVERSIMPLIFIED CARTOON. "It is common to find headlines expressing these simplifications, trumpeting to wide audiences the discovery of the “longevity” or “well-being” gene, that sacrifice scientific accuracy to psychological impact." https://lnkd.in/d3vzXnd View in LinkedIn

TOO SIMPLE. "Under the classical scheme, a mutation is compared to a wild-type reference, and its phenotypic effects are used to infer gene function. This framework often leads to a semantic shortcut: from a genetic change causing a variation in phenotype, it is often convenient to assimilate the corresponding gene as a causal determinant of a trait." https://lnkd.in/d3vzXnd View in LinkedIn

ALL-IMPORTANT CONTEXT. "In other words, certain GP relationships are taxonomically robust and present across a large range of species. As underlined by multiple authors, genes and environment act jointly on the phenotype, and in most cases it is impossible to disentangle the effect of one from the other." (GP = genotype-phenotype relationship). https://lnkd.in/d3vzXnd View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend on the theme of genotype to phenotype conversion, or from DNA to observable traits. We have been immersed in the all-powerful theory of genes and destiny, but the truth is rather different. The radical conclusions we are arriving at today were completely unpredictable only 50 years ago. The phenotype is crafted from a combination of genes and the environment, often across diverse species, finding similar solutions in unrelated creatures. View in LinkedIn

CRITICAL QUESTIONS. "These observations raise the two central questions of this thesis. First, why are TEs so common, and the genomes so large, in some species but not others? Second, what prevents TEs from completely taking over and causing genomes to fail to produce functional individual organisms?" (TE = transposable elements). https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/70840 View in LinkedIn

FOSSIL GRIST FOR THE MILL. "Transposable elements (TEs) are abundant in mammalian genomes and appear to have contributed to the evolution of their hosts by providing novel regulatory or coding sequences." https://lnkd.in/dwuaM5f View in LinkedIn

COST ENDURED. "Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements that can self-replicate and insert elsewhere in the genome. This movement often comes with a fitness cost and yet TEs are tremendously common. They contribute more than 80% to the largest plant genomes, but are much less abundant in the smallest plant genomes." https://lnkd.in/dhVd8s4 View in LinkedIn

STABLE FOSSILS. "Since newly inserted TEs rarely undergo deletion they are highly stable polymorphisms." (TE = transposable elements). https://mobilednajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13100-015-0052-6 View in LinkedIn