Genetic Changes In Mice 'Question Evolution Speed'

Ananova ^ | 5-21-2003

[blam]

Genetic changes in mice 'question evolution speed'

A species of mouse has evolved dramatically in just 150 years, showing genetic change can occur much faster than was thought possible.

The discovery was made by accident by two American biologists studying the genetic make-up of a common wild mouse in Chicago.

Dr Dennis Nyberg and Dr Oliver Pergams, both from the University of Illinois at Chicago, analysed DNA samples from 56 museum specimens of the white-footed mouse dating back to 1855, and 52 wild mice captured from local forests and parks.

They found startling genetic differences between the 19th century and modern mice.

Only one of the present-day mice had DNA that matched that of mice collected before 1950.

While fast evolutionary change has been seen in fruit flies, such rapid evolution in a mammal has not been reported before.

The scientists, whose findings appear in the journal Nature, believe humans may have been partly responsible for the "new" mice.

"Settlers may have brought in mice with the favourable gene that were able to out-compete mice with the native variant," said Dr Pergams.

Story filed: 18:18 Wednesday 21st May 2003

[Dimensio]

Get over it. It's just words on a screen.

[ALS]

I would feel better if you could get someone to scan that first.

I'm sure there must be 3 or 4 pages of context in there somewhere...

I actually watched one evo-clown attempt to claim that if a quote didn't have a hyperlink, it wasn't credible.
With that logic, all books should burned to disk, uploaded to the web and immediately dispatched to the recycle bin of history...

[ALS]

you might just as well have said:

"Unlike those of hundreds of other muslims, including many engaged in peaceful transcendendtationalismsmsmsmsms."

[Dataman]

wish it all away to the corn field eh...

LOL!

Sorry. This stuff is too funny. I bust a gut laughing when certain dignified gentlemen toss uppity barbs at their intellectual inferiors and blow juvenile fuses when it comes back. Not all of them, mind you, but that select group with tails, ruffles, top hats and tennis shoes that insists on being treated like the kind of gentleman they imagine themselves to be.

It's also genuinely entertaining to watch the attempts to classify you. If you won't tell, they get tired of playing 20 questions and assign characteristics to you.

They couldn't figure out you gender so they made you a woman.

[Dataman]

Get over it. It's just words on a screen.

I understand. It happens. But your reaction was funny.

[ALS]

I think Ballrot666 was almost ready to ask me on a date..

poor kids

they still don't understand do they

perhaps if we sent them all a copy of The Tortoise and the Hare...

See Spot Run just doesn't do the trick anymore

[Dataman]

I think Ballrot666 was almost ready to ask me on a date..

Naah. Wouldn't work.

[ALS]

besides, I don't bleach

instant turnoff for an eloon ya know

[ALS]

"It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidently introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation . . Good ones are so rare that we can consider them all bad."—*H.J. Muller, "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution," in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 11 (1955), p. 331.

[ALS]

"The mass of evidence shows that all, or almost all, known mutations are unmistakably pathological and the few remaining ones are highly suspect . . All mutations seem to be of the nature of injuries that, to some extent, impair the fertility and viability of the affected organism."—C.P. Martin, in American Scientist, 41 (1953), p. 103.

[Dimensio]

Actually, the entire purpose for much of my string of insults was specifically to bait a creationist into calling me on them , so that I could respond as I did. I was hoping that ALS would take the bait, but he seems totally incapable of actually addressing what a person says. You, however, work just as nicely since you've pretty much been defending ALS.

[js1138]

I think this is my dog:

If I were to take any two or three bits of text from unrelated parts of the Bible, starting in midsentence if I so choose, starting with a capital letter even though the quote starts in mid sentence, piecing the whole thing together, declaring it to be a single quote from a single verse, would you accept this as the word of God?

ALS hounded this thread all day with a fabricated quote for Darwin that followed these exact rules. If you think these rules are cute or productive then you can join him in the Dissemblers for Jesus Club. But it is customary among people who attempt to follow the Ten Commandments to quote people so that the quotation still means what the author intended.

When you stat a quote in midsentence without indicating you are doing so, when you lie about the source of the quotation, claiming that bits and pieces from separate sources are a single source, and most of all, when you remove the context that would reveal the author's intention --you are dissembling. A fancy word for lying, but a useful word. It means you craft words that are truthful at face value, but which mislead. I suspect God knows what is in your heart.

[js1138]

Your mini-biography of Asa Gray seems ok to me. What is there to debunk?

[ALS]

"Actually, the entire purpose for much of my string of insults was specifically to bait a creationist into calling me on them , so that I could respond as I did. I was hoping that ALS would take the bait, but he seems totally incapable of actually addressing what a person says. You, however, work just as nicely since you've pretty much been defending ALS."

In otherwords, he's right. You can't figure out how to win.

[ALS]

"Your mini-biography of Asa Gray seems ok to me. What is there to debunk?"

absolutely nothing!

thanks

However, Turkey Lurkey Libertarian was on this debunking kick and I was just feeding him more straw.

he couldn't debunk it either

[js1138]

he couldn't debunk it either

What about it calls for debunking?

[ALS]

Speaking of Dissemblers Club for Jesus...

I find it quite odd/revealing that you've no problem applying your religious beliefs to those who oppose evolunacy, but not one wit of bone is tossed to those who adhere to elunacy.

Is there a reason, other than the obvious, for this prejudice in discourse?

If you were an honest man, as seems your sudden obsession, you would be pointing some of this religiosity towards them.

yet, not a wit.

[ALS]

"What about it calls for debunking?"

ask yer boy libby

he's record needle is stuck on debunk

[ALS]

*his

[js1138]

"It is probably fair to estimate the frequency of a majority of mutations, in higher organisms, between one in ten thousand and one in a million per gene per generation."—*Francisco J. Ayala, "Teleological Explanations in Evolutionary Biology," in Philosophy of Science, March 1970, p. 3.

One in ten thousand would mean that each and evey human being would typically carry three mutated genes.

Your sources are a bit dated, however (1966, 1970). The human genome has only recently been mapped and the number of genes counted. The statistics would not be radically different for other species, however, because the gene count is not directly correlated to brain size.