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FACT NOT THEORY. "Much like evolution itself, extensive HGT in the microbial world is a fact and not a ‘theory’. However, understanding the routes, causes, and consequences of horizontal gene flow as well as constructing the actual, quantitative theoretical framework of this pervasive process will keep many biologists busy for decades to come." (HGT = horizontal gene transfer). https://lnkd.in/dSemZpD View in LinkedIn

TRADITIONAL METHODS. "Bacterial and archaeal conjugation (prokaryotic sex) is a mechanism of genetic material transfer between microbial cells that combines features of selfish genetic elements and devices for gene transfer." https://lnkd.in/dSemZpD View in LinkedIn

EVOLVABLE AND ADAPTABLE? "Both theoretical models and tantalizing experimental clues suggest that HGT is essential for microbial survival and could be an evolvable, adaptive capacity mediated by dedicated vehicles originating from domesticated selfish elements. Yet this concept runs afoul of the distrust of ‘evolution of evolvability’ that is deeply ingrained among biologists." (HGT = horizontal gene transfer). https://lnkd.in/dSemZpD View in LinkedIn

DOMINANT PROCESS. "There is no reasonable doubt anymore that HGT is a dominant process in microbial evolution that generally occurs at a high rate. Moreover, the relevance of ‘horizontal’ as applied to gene flow is validated by the strong evidence of the existence of a central vertical, tree-like trend in genome evolution." (HGT = horizontal gene transfer). https://lnkd.in/dSemZpD View in LinkedIn

LAST BURST. "Thus, the acquisition of numerous genes from the proto-mitochondrion comes across as the last major burst of HGT (other than the acquisition of chloroplast genes at the base of the Archaeplastida), although numerous lineage-specific acquisitions of relatively small but biologically consequential groups of bacterial genes as well as eukaryote-to-eukaryote transfers undoubtedly occurred at later stages." (HGT = horizontal gene transfer). https://lnkd.in/dSemZpD View in LinkedIn

"GRAFFITI is a computer program which makes conjectures in various subfields of mathematics. It was written by Siemion Fajtlowicz at the University of Houston. Research on conjectures produced by Graffiti has led to over 60 publications by other mathematicians." https://lnkd.in/dHW4gXQ) View in LinkedIn

EFFICIENT OPTIONS. "Now show that, with no prior knowledge and with liquid handling robotics and automated microscopy under its control, this learner accurately learned the effects of 48 chemical compounds on the subcellular localization of 48 proteins while performing only 29% of all possible experiments. The results represent the first practical demonstration of the utility of active learning-driven biological experimentation in which the set of possible phenotypes is unknown in advance." https://lnkd.in/dnE44d8 View in LinkedIn

SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN MANY POINTS. "For their study that used 96 drugs and 96 cells, for instance, there were 9,216 possible experiments. Imagine having to conjure up a hypothetical result for each and every one of those. In the end, the machine performed 2,697 out of the 9,216 possible experiments after 30 rounds. The team says the algorithm was "able to learn a 92 percent accurate model for how the 96 drugs affected the 96 proteins" by conducting only 29 percent of the almost 10,000 possible experiments." https://lnkd.in/dFE3SyN View in LinkedIn

BETTER PREDICTIONS. "For their test, the researchers chose previously untried combinations of reactants, and then tried to predict the combination of reactant conditions that would be best to make selenite materials. The algorithm was able to give combinations that resulted in a crystalline product in 89% of around 500 cases. By comparison, the researchers’ ten accumulated years of experience with the materials was successful only 78% of the time." https://lnkd.in/dymCyw7 View in LinkedIn

EXPERIMENTAL CHAMP. "Sometimes, they’re even better than humans are. US chemists have created a machine-learning algorithm that studies successful and failed experiments in order to beat humans at predicting ways to make crystals." https://lnkd.in/dymCyw7 View in LinkedIn