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DISCRIMINATION LACKING. "One ultimate goal of genomics is to read the code—to be able to predict variation in gene expression levels based on the nucleotide sequence—and this goal remains challenging. The main difficulty is that many changes in TF binding do not seem to result in measurable changes in gene expression levels, and we do not yet know how to distinguish between binding events that affect gene expression and those that do not." (TF = transcription factor). https://lnkd.in/dFv6Tsi View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this contemplation of the immensely successful strategy of viruses, the remains of these creatures which litter our genomes and drive evolutionary novelty. Viruses are everywhere. In every habitat, no matter how hostile. In every creature. And in virtually every genome in some form or another. It is preposterous that we have been so slow to recognize that they are very much alive. They simply are an extreme case of outsourcing. View in LinkedIn

RAPID MICROBE EVOLUTION. "In a decade bacteria can produce 200,000 generations — about the number of generations of humans there have been since our lineage split from that of chimpanzees. So it’s hardly surprising that in less than a human lifespan we’ve seen the evolution of new diseases such as HIV and numerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria." https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13640-evolution-myths-evolution-produces-perfectly-adapted-creatures/ View in LinkedIn

ANTIGENIC EVOLUTION. "Swine influenza A/H3N2 is known to evolve antigenically at a rate that is six times slower than that of the same virus circulating in humans, although these viruses' rates of genetic evolution are similar." https://lnkd.in/dDjCWve View in LinkedIn

HITCHHIKING. "Reassortment between segments occurs slowly enough, relative to the actions of positive selection, that genetic hitchhiking causes beneficial mutations in HA and NA to reduce diversity in linked neutral variation in other segments of the genome." https://lnkd.in/dDjCWve View in LinkedIn

BRANCH NONEPITOPE SELECTION. "Conversely, putative nonepitope sites of the HA protein evolve approximately twice as fast on side branches than on the trunk of the H3 phylogeny, indicating that mutations to these sites are selected against and viruses possessing such mutations are less likely to take over the influenza population." https://lnkd.in/dDjCWve View in LinkedIn

MONOGENIC INHERITANCE. "Mendelian inheritance patterns are well-established, and readily recognizable as ‘textbook’ examples, for many single gene diseases, and a few digenic cases." https://lnkd.in/d7vkJAx View in LinkedIn

GREGOR MENDEL. "There is no greater legend in the history of science than that of the experiments of Gregor Mendel. Three moments in this legend are extraordinary: first, how in the 1860s, Mendel discovered the laws governing the inheritance of individual characters; second, how the scientific world failed to recognise the monumental importance of these findings during his life-time; and third, the remarkable ‘rediscovery’ in 1900 of what later came to be called Mendelism." https://lnkd.in/dKsN9QF View in LinkedIn

SEVEN CHARACTERISTICS. "Mendel started his experiments by carefully selecting seven qualitative characters in peas (Pisum sativum L.) in 1856, and his results were published in 1866." Astonishingly this is the basis of our knowledge of predictable Mendelian inheritance. https://lnkd.in/d42Fwde View in LinkedIn

GREGOR MENDEL's work on heredity has endured 156 years, despite his Christian views and disbelief in Darwin. He was also a gentleman scientist, like many of the day, working outside traditional science funding institutions. Despite the fact that nothing was known at the time about DNA, chromosomes, genes or meiosis, his rigorous observations have largely stood the test of time. Inconsistencies of his laws have been identified and explained by modern research. View in LinkedIn