They tracked mutations in the microbes which rendered them more successful at the higher temperatures.
They then started with a brand new unmutated batch of critters and did it again. Same mutations cropped up.
Furball, do you know the link?
Also, try Googling for the term "nylon bug."
Not good enough to display the whole panoply of macroevolution in vivo, but certainly good enough for a "proof of concept"...
Cheers!
Grey_Whiskers, I never can tell which side of the argument you are on. Doesn't really matter, all of your posts whether on the bible or on science are always interesting.
GW - I remember the thread. The culture was grown in a continuous culture - turbidostat, IIRC and you got the general gist. I couldn't find a post of mine in such a thread, but I may have been just lurking. This was not speciation, though, but a great example of the rapidity of adaptation by microbes that could very well be a first step in speciation.
The Nylon Bug thing is quite different. It is actually a misnomer since the bug doesn't really eat nylon, but small "nylon-mers". It was from a group of Japanese researchers and the enzyme was probably recruited from another function, because IIRC it had a very high Km, showing very poor affinity for the nylon oligomers. But this showed how a new function can be derived from a protein that has quite a different function. For more on recruitment see the old papers of E.C.C. Lin on enzyme recruitment - classics in the development of new capabilities from old genetic information.