FSTDT Forums
Community => Science and Technology => Topic started by: gyeonghwa on January 18, 2012, 04:47:51 pm
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Science has done it again. They've gone and evolved a yeast in only two months:
The new study attempts to follow more the behavior of simple multicellular groups more closely. It uses baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), an organism that normally grows as single cells. The authors grew these in culture and, once a day, transferred them in a way that favored multicellular growth.
Their method was pretty simple. Normally, yeast are grown in a culture that's shaken, and the single cells will only slowly settle to the bottom when that's stopped. The authors only transferred the cells at the bottom of the culture to fresh food, so that they selected for those cells that settled to the bottom quickly. This favors large clusters of cells, instead of single ones.
With only 60 daily transfers, all of their experimental populations were dominated by yeast cells that grew as clusters, which the authors describe as "roughly spherical snowflake-like." These were formed because, instead of separating after they divided, cells would remain attached, expanding the cluster with each division. Although this comes at a cost compared to individual cellsâ€â€the authors calculate that individual cells in the cluster are 10 percent less fit than their single-celled relatives when they're not selecting for things on the bottom. But, with the selection in place, the clusters had a huge advantage.
It also help further our understanding of how multi-celled organism came to be. The study suggest that cells that cluster had an advantage. Multi-cell organism is one of those harder facet of evolution to study.
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So, in two years, we'll have primitive yeast monsters...WOOH!
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Cue creotards claiming that this is proof of intelligent "design"
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Ge of course Lexicon. Why wouldn't it be, intelligent design? {sarcasm}
Article wise. Excellent ;D Some good news to hear. Guess its more than "just a theory" now isn't it.
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I'm more amused by the fact a Pokemon reported this.
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yeah, but its still new yeast from yeast, not crocoducks from yeast [/fundie]
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What about missing links?
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What about missing links?
Here (http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/01/researchers-evolve-a-multicellular-yeast-in-the-lab-in-2-months.ars) you (http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article2811595.ece) go (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/01/18/evolving-bodies-a-storify-follow-up/).
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And here I thought he had misplaced his sausage.