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CONFOUNDING PROBLEM. "Comparative genomics reinforced the complex relationships between the different levels of complexity in the most convincing manner by demonstrating the lack of a simple link between genomic and organismal complexities." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

BEYOND THE ONION. "Importantly, the comparison is not restricted to onions versus humans. It could as easily be between pufferfish and lungfish, which differ by ∼350-fold, or members of the genus Allium, which have more than a 4-fold range in genome size that is not the result of polyploidy." http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004351 View in LinkedIn

THE ONION QUESTION. "Why does an onion require five times more of it (the genome) than a human? " https://lnkd.in/eT5V5Xc View in LinkedIn

NOT A SIMPLE CORRELATION. "The relationship between genomic complexity and the complexity at various levels of the phenotype, from molecular to organismal, is far from being straightforward as it has become clear already in the pre-genomic era." Some relatively simple creatures have much greater genomic complexity than more complex creatures. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

VAST RANGE. "Although mutations provide the ultimate material upon which natural selection depends, most mutations are deleterious, and in certain settings can lead to a substantial fitness load. We are attempting to understand the nearly 1000-fold range of variation in the mutation rate that exists across the Tree of Life, through the study of a diversity of invertebrates and unicellular eukaryotes and prokaryotes." http://www.bio.indiana.edu/faculty/directory/profile.php?person=milynch View in LinkedIn

DUBIOUS EQUIVALENT. "The utility of equating complexity with entropy is dubious at best as becomes particularly clear when one attempts to define genomic complexity. Indeed, using sequence entropy (Shannon information) as a measure of genomic complexity is obviously disingenuous given that under this approach the most complex sequence is a truly random one that, almost by definition is devoid of any biological information." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

UNWOUND THEORY. "It seems logical that organisms should acquire mechanisms that push the age of onset of ill effects from numerous minor defects associated with genetic load toward later ages. However, our analysis suggests that such mechanisms, if carried to extremes, have bad evolutionary repercussions." http://www.pnas.org/content/110/25/10141.full View in LinkedIn

EXEMPLARS OF STREAMLINING. "The mitochondria, the ubiquitous energy-transforming organelles of eukaryotes, and the chloroplasts, the organelles responsible for the eukaryotic photosynthesis, are the ultimate realizations of bacterial reductive evolution." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn

DRIVEN TO EXTINCTION. "At a snapshot in time, hazards lie low for a stretch of ages, climb at ages where remaining net fertility is dropping off, and link up with the old-age segment. As time goes by, the climbing phase shifts down to younger and younger ages, until the hazard rate at every adult age comes to be marching toward infinity. Unbounded accumulation of mutations across the whole reproductive span drives any population to extinction." http://www.pnas.org/content/110/25/10141.full View in LinkedIn

“GENETIC OUTSOURCING is not to be confused with simplification in parasite downsizing. In many cases, access to the host genome, or simply parking of its own genetic burden can be seen as a type of genetic expansion strategy. Streamlining with greater efficiency and greater plasticitymay be a better term than simplification.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201300037/full View in LinkedIn