Bugsteak

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab - life - 09 June 2008 - New Scientist

For those who don't want to read the whole article:

One cell of E. Coli was allowed to reproduce through over 40,000 generations in a laboratory, and around the 31,000th generation one of the families adapted a new trait the others hadn't. They adapted a trait that would allow them to use a substance in their environment that they couldn't use before.

They evolved right in front of a scientist's eyes.

Killerchron

Great find and read. Darwin was right all along, but most where to blinded by their beliefs to accept the fact that we were not molded from clay by the hands of GOD.

my $0.02

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Buzzby

We did a similar experiment when I was a freshman in college forty years ago. It's the same mechanism through which pathogens become antibiotic resistant. You introduce a small amount of antibiotic into a culture dish. Most of the culture dies off. You culture the survivors and repeat the experiment with a larger dose of antibiotic. You keep repeating until you get a culture that laughs off any amount of the antibiotic.

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SpiralArchitect

Yeah, this isn't exactly proof and it certainly has been done before. Regardless, interesting read. Thanks for sharing Bugsteak.

In my opinion it doesn't prove much. Evolution, logically, makes the most sense to me in terms of life adapting but it doesn't negate the possibility of a higher power, or explain the creation of life.

"Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination."
Bertrand Russell

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lMarijuana lMan

Can somebody confirm if the following is true, I've heard it from a few sources.

Hand sanitizer kills a high percentage of bacteria, something like 99.9% or something, but this means that some bacteria lives on and becomes better adapted to the environment (survival of the fittest) which means that hand sanitizer is pretty much self-defeating in the long run.

Thanks

Buzzby

IMHO, the recent craze to have everything you touch sterilized is the end product of a scare campaign from the good folks who make and sell all of those products. These are products that serve almost no purpose. Man didn't evolve in a sterile environment and we don't need a sterile environment in order to be healthy. In fact, our immune systems suffer when they don't get challenged - if you don't use it, you lose it.

Our bodies are quite able to deal with almost every pathogen in our environment, unless our immune systems are weakened by something. It makes sense to keep food prep areas extremely clean because bacteria transferred to food can multiply and cause food poisoning. It makes sense to clean your hands thoroughly after going to the bathroom because the bacteria associated with the lower bowel are very likely to cause food poisoning if they get into food.

I work with dogs all of the time. Only God knows where their mouths and paws have been. They lick me, sometimes on the mouth, and I'm constantly touching them around the mouth and playing with their feet (to desensitize them for claw clipping). I've been sick once in the last three years and that was a direct result of visiting my sister who had a bad cold.

Bugsteak

Oh, so this kind of experiment has been done? I didn't know, and this kind of blew my mind open when I read it.

To this, I respond with: Darwin Goes to Church

SpiralArchitect

Nice, thanks for that article Bugsteak

Precisely!

Now, the question is

Did God(s) evolve?

Ive always toyed with the notion that what if god(s) simply evolved and reproduced, creating humans.

lMarijuana lMan

I have a feeling this is going to get philosophical.

Thunderhead

I think I talk to much about religion on this board and i'm really here to learn about weed so i'll keep my mouth shut. You wanna piss people off? Mess their religion, political stance and of course money. I'm here as a student.