Development Puts An End To Evolution Of Endless Forms

Science Daily ^ | Oct. 25, 2008)

[Soliton]

Researchers have put forward a simple model of development and gene regulation that is capable of explaining patterns observed in the distribution of morphologies and body plans (or, more generally, phenotypes).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: Plants & Animals Evolutionary Biology Developmental Biology Biotechnology Computers & Math Computational Biology Mathematical Modeling Computer Modeling Reference Allele Trait (biology) Computational genomics Developmental biology The study, by Elhanan Borenstein of the Santa Fe Institute and Stanford University and David Krakauer of the Santa Fe Institute was published in this month's issue of PLoS Computational Biology.

Nature truly displays a bewildering variety of shapes and forms. Yet, with all its magnificence, this diversity still represents only a tiny fraction of the endless 'space' of possibilities, and observed phenotypes actually occupy only small, dense patches in the abstract phenotypic space. Borenstein and Krakauer demonstrate that the sparseness of variety in nature can be attributed to the interactions between multiple genes and genetic controls involved in the development of organisms – a much simpler explanation than previously suggested.

[Soliton]

Evolution evolves!

[Soliton]

I forgot to take the ad out of the post, but it is very interesting.

[Coyoteman]

This is not very surprising given the evidence from the world around us.

But it is nice that it is being documented scientifically.

[Soliton]

This is not very surprising given the evidence from the world around us.

For you guys with brains the size of basketballs :)

[grey_whiskers]

Bookmarked.