Bacteria Encrypts Sperm, Encourages Speciation 129
Loiosh writes "EurekaAlert has an interesting short report concerning sperm.
Scientists have found the most convincing evidence yet that a parasite can contribute to splitting a species in two, thanks to a phenomenon where a wasp's damaged sperm can be "rescued" or fixed only by mating with particular females. A bacterium called Wolbachia prevents the successful development of embryos in matings between two very closely related wasp species that could otherwise produce viable offspring. Instead of merely helping its host compete against non-infected hosts as many parasites do, Wolbachia actively seeks to eliminate non-infected hosts by stopping them from reproducing. To do this, the parasite alters the sperm of its male host, rendering it infertile when paired with an uninfected female. If, however, the male mates with an infected female, the damaged reproductive cells are "rescued" by the female's parasite. It's as if the bacterium encodes the sperm cell, rendering it useless unless it encounters the de-coding bacterium from another infected wasp. The result is that infected males can only impregnate other infected females, not uninfected ones, and makes it difficult for uninfected females to find a compatible mate."
Sometimes... (Score:1)
wow (Score:1)
An explanation at last! (Score:1)
Bacterial encryption? (Score:2)
Paranoid thoughts (Score:3)
Wow, this sounds like something that those wonderful people who develop biological weapons would love to get their hands on. Especially those with racial issues. Then they could ensure that the gene pool of their culture remains "pure" from adulteration by "lesser" beings...
Seriously though, this sounds like it has all kinds of ethical implications in the wrong hands. If someone thinks that a certain group shouldn't be allowed to spread their genes throughout a population, then a variation on this which lives in human hosts could ensure that if said group is infected then they can never breed outside of that group again. I can think of several groups that would probably love to get their hands on this kind of capability.
It just goes to show that Nature is still millions of years ahead of our best weapons developers when it comes to nasty techniques...
that two timing dirt-bag (Score:4)
I figure which ever way you look at it, Bob's going to be a pretty lucky guy.
But if I were Alice I wouldn't stand for this kind of philandering.
New PGP (Score:1)
Please insert sperm sample to play recording (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How cool. (Score:3)
It is kinda weird to think about what implications this might have though. If this sort of thing would really cause an offshoot of a species, maybe we as humanity were caused by some diseased apes.
This is sort of an encryption thing I guess. I mean the bacteria could itself wait until a properly infected host mates and then deposit its own bacteria into the fertilized embryo that would carry the bacteria to future generations there by causing a mutated species to occur. But if this species is succesful and surpass the original species would it be considered evolution? or maybe just one of those freak occurences that just happens?
It is good to hear about these sort of weird happenings and other cool things at Slashdot. Keep it up people I would hate to actually have to put a TV card in my computer to watch tv. Cant do both, tv is behind computer, although I could set up 2 mirrors to display the tv output on the wall above the computer monitor thereby not having to put a card in the computer. huh?? ok its too late and I need sleep. Later All
Lord Arathres
I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:1)
Therefore, if a species is split into the ones suffering from parasites, and the ones not, one would expect the ones not suffering from parasites to prevail. As the two segments of the species would be identical otherwise, speciation having only just started, this means that the parasitical section is less fit, and will die out.
Regarding humans, I wonder if it is possible that this process is happening to us, if true? Africans and Asians suffer greatly from parasites, much more than we in the west do, & it may be possible that this is causing them to speciate very gradually. Something to think about, anyway.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
British Government Are Actively Developing This (Score:2)
If these trials are successful, the government plan to infect the rest of the UK population with different strains of the bacteria. They intend to prevent the demise of the well established class system by only allowing subjects to mate within their own social group. It is hoped that by recreating the strict class system that existed in the times of The Empire, the UK may once again become a major world power.
--
So much for penicilin... (Score:2)
Babelfish translation: (Score:1)
You just have to go back and forth a few times, but it comes out intelligible in the end.
Re:Ah! (Score:1)
Re:An explanation at last! (Score:1)
Oh great (Score:3)
Gives a whole new meaning to "playing with your weapon"...
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:1)
Reminds me of an old MSDOS virus (Score:2)
Do you remember what this virus was called? Perhaps there were many that used this strategy.
That's it (Score:2)
Re:British Government Are Actively Developing This (Score:1)
Disclaimer: I am British, so I can say whatever the hell I like about the royals
I can see it now... (Score:1)
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:1)
The only standard that decides whether the parasite's host is likely to prevail over a competitor without the parasite is whether the parasite is helpful or harmful. Does it help the organism survive and reproduce, or not?
And, the generally better medical care and generally better living conditions in the Western world is a very recent phenomena - only in the last millenium or two. That's only an instant in evolutionary time.
This story sounds like... (Score:2)
now it all makes sense... (Score:2)
Wolbachia actively seeks to eliminate non-infected hosts by stopping them from reproducing.
Substitute "Microsoft" for "Wolbachia" and "Windows" for "infected" and suddenly the PC market begins to make sense...
heh.
-the wunderhorn
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
A bacteria has been found that prevents mating between infected and non-infected wasps. As yet we don't know how this works, and the analogy with encoding is contentious at the very best (did they just want to get on /.).
Until its precise workings are discovered and understood there should be little worry. Especially as it is quite possible that it relies upon the specifics of the wasps' reproduction methods.
As to certain groups wanting to use such technology, it would probably be difficult for them to get to a position in todays' society where it could be deployed on a large scale. I could imagine individuals being injected against their will with such a bacteria but the same is already possible with HIV infected blood with equally -if not more so- terrible affects.
Re:Babelfish translation: (Score:2)
This is the single funniest line I have see on Slashdot in the past six months.
--
That's similar to geeks mating (Score:1)
In order to find a partner one geek specimen has to find a female infected with the same "IRC channel" germ.
Re:Oh great (Score:3)
Hold it right there, is that a weapon of mass destruction in your pants? You're going to need a license to carry that across the border bud!
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
distributed.net anybody? (Score:2)
How does the wasp become infected? (Score:2)
I wonder what the vector for the bacterial infection is in the first place. It certainly isn't sex - otherwise the mating of an infected individual with an uninfected would infect the latter.
In a sense, it is sort of fitting, seeing as there are a number of wasp species that reproduce by laying their eggs in other animals (spiders, larvae, etc... depending on the species of wasp). Now there is a species of wasp that is itself a host to a parasite that modifies its reproductive behavior.
In related news... (Score:1)
Also, the FSF is sponsoring the new GSG - (GNU Sperm Guard) software. It's a full replacement for the proprietary virus...
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
As if life wasn't complicated already (Score:1)
Monkey-A virus (Score:1)
His laptop was of course infected, and I didn't know about boot sector viruses then (I had just started out as a temp that summer) so I fdisk'd /MBR his drive. Boy was he pissed. :)
Hey with a bacterium like this, we could wipe out royal families all over the world!
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:2)
Here's a relevant quote:
Instead of merely helping its host compete against non-infected hosts as many parasites do, Wolbachia actively seeks to eliminate non-infected hosts by stopping them from reproducing.
This suggests that it is relatively common for parasites to _help_ their hosts in some way, thereby securing the parasite's survival.
So how do you make the leap of logic that the wasps without the parasite will prevail?
Either too narrow or too general (Score:2)
First, nobody is out there "judging" creatures to see if they pass some kind of evolutive finals.
There are probably uncountable instances of parasitic relations where the existence or absence of the parasite has absolutely no influence in the creature survival capacity.
In this particular case, the bacteria probably installed itself by sexual transmission and probably gave some benefits to the host. Some hosts would not be afected. From there on the host population would be forever separated, even before any other speciation occurrred.
I will refrain from commenting on your last paragraph. But be careful with this line of reasoning. You are on the very edge of racism there.
Now there is a pretty picture... (Score:2)
"Oh! Oh! Oh Mr. Guaaaaaard sir!! My sperm is enryyyypted! If you'll give me a cavety search I'll give you a saaaaaaample!"
But when you think about it, this sort of thing would make sense. If you based your encryption on some random individual's or animals or even plants DNA sequence, wouldn't that be much more complex than even the most hard core encoding we can use now? Of course, I have a hard time with anything more complex than pig Latin.
Oh crap (Score:1)
I see another interesting possibility (Score:2)
Only problem is it only works for one generation, assuming the infection is passed from mother to child. But if it isn't, or if a woman can be "cured", then it could be really cool....
Wolbachia (Score:5)
"Splitting a species in two is probably just a side effect of the bacteria's reproductive method, of their way of eliminating non-infected hosts."
Note that infected females can still breed with uninfected males, so the bacterium's "strategy" is to eliminate uninfected offspring. If speciation per se was beneficial to its strategy you'd expect infected females to be unable to breed with uninfected males.
This really is old news. As the article states, the effect was first discovered by entomologists in the 1950s and finally attributed to Wolbachia in the 1970s despite the fact that it was isolated in mosquitoes in the 1920s. Mosquito research is not the most aggressively funded field despite that the mosquito kills more people than any other animal on earth. Most animals we think of as "dangerous" (like sharks and grizzly bears) don't even come within five orders of magnitude of the Anopheles mosquitoes.
Wolbachia infects the reproductive organs of a wide variety of arthopods where it pulls a number interesting reengineering stunts, such as enabling virgin births.
Wolbachia has some interesting public health implications. Somebody did a paper last year that showed that some worms in the genus that causes river blindness have evolved to become dependent upon Wolbachia for survival -- and Wolbachia can be killed by tetracycline. Eighteen million people in Subsaharan Africa are infected with Onchocerca, which to date has had no effective treatment. This has tremendous economic impact in an underdeveloped region.
Big Deal! (Score:1)
Re:Now there is a pretty picture... (Score:1)
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:2)
If the species were split statically, this might be so. However, it is obviously possible for non-infected hosts to become infected hosts.
One would first have to have a group of hosts immune to the parasites to have two independent groups. Then one might imagine the immune group being successful.
But (and this is a big but) a resistant mutation would have a big hill to climb to establish a viable population. It's a neat trick: a sort of genetic embrace, extend, extingush.
Actually, that gives a good analogy: one might expect PCs with free (as in beer) operating systems to be more competitive than non-free ones. However, life ain't that simple.
D'oh! (Score:1)
#ncludeiway
oidvay ntiway ainmay()
{
rintfpay("elloHay orldWay!/nay");
eturnray();
}
And any errors in the code have nothing to do with the fact that I've not coded in C in over a year. It's uh...part of the encryption
Re:Sadistic advisor from hell... (Score:1)
This is great for contraception (Score:5)
Talk about ethics (Score:1)
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:1)
The wording of the article is aweful. One can dig out some other consequences from this mechanism too -
If bacterium B stops infected host H1 from mating with uninfected H2, then it's stopped _H1_ from reproducing, yup - the infected host. H2 _can_ reproduce with other uninfected wasps.
Our new twisted conclusion - the bacterium makes infected hosts less likely to propogate.
Of course it's not as simple as all that, but I'm just trying to warn against believing every part of everything you read.
FatPhil
-- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Re:Ah! (Score:4)
(At least I didn't say petrified. oops.)
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
Re:I can see one problem with this idea. (Score:1)
This is, to be blunt, a silly notion. Who exactly are these "Africans" and "Asians" you speak of, anyway? By Asian, for instance, do you mean Austronesians, Han Chinese, the Hmong of Vietnam, India's Dravidian speakers, or the non-Ainu Japanese? Or some other group altogether? Last I looked, there was precious little anyone could say about common living conditions even amongst the handful of peoples I mentioned.
You seem to suppose that the Asian and African continents constitute one large, amorphous mass of starving, benighted, indigent illiterates, which is very far from true. Asia is an extremely large place, with a tremendous variety of cultures and standards of living; even making generalizations about Indian living standards is hard to do. And if Asia is a confusingly diverse place, it seems utterly homogenous in comparison with Africa, where you can easily find near-Western standards of living abutting scenes that look straight out of hell.
To illustrate, the sort of famine with with most Westerners associate "Africa" occurs only in the horn of Africa, where Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia are situated. Mass famine is unknown in West Africa, where the largest number of Africans actually live, and it would probably not occur in Ethiopia and its neighbors, were it not for the strife that has marked that region for the last 60 years.
Turning now to your suggestion, one reason why it is unlikely ever to occur is that, even in the very poorest African countries, not everyone will be living at a subsistence level. There are always local elites, many of whom will enjoy a standard of living and health care that even middle-class Americans can only dream about - including access to top-flight, private, medical treatment in Europe and the United States. If any new parasite-initiated speciation event were to occur in our species, it would not occur along "racial" lines, but along economic lines instead (I use the term "racial" in quotes because it isn't really clear what that term means, anyway; in the eyes of many an African, Colin Powell seems much closer to "white" than "black," and Powell isn't uncommon in this respect.)
A much more interesting take on this announcement would be to ponder what role it might have played in the split that occurred between human and chimpanzee ancestors some 5 million years ago ...
Call it the "Microsoft Bug" (Score:1)
Chastity Belt (Score:2)
In this case the thing is reversed - it's the male that's locked (no reproduction) and the female has to have the key (be infected).
Maybe nature can invent the thief (or the locksmith).
Re:Bacterial encryption? (Score:2)
The bacterium has spawned lawyers which are suing the EPA. They claim that the EPA's action threatens the Wolbachia, which entitles it to protection as an endangered species. Senator Clinton has requested that Central Park be declared Wolbachia National Park and bacterium feeding programs be started immediately.
Every sperm is sacred (Score:4)
rr
*shiver* (Score:1)
Only one thought in my mind:
. o O ( the descolada virus? )
Re:Reminds me of an old MSDOS virus (Score:2)
Re:I see another interesting possibility (Score:2)
However, Wolbachia does different things in different critters. Women could end up making babies without the help of males. I've known some lesbian separatists who would really like this.
Re:Please insert sperm sample to play recording (Score:2)
Re:Wolbachia (Score:5)
Do the offspring of these virgin births form religions, thereby causing 'holy' wars against un-infected insects?
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
I agree with you about needing to understand how it works before we can think about its applicability to humanity. But I think it would be fairly trivial to deploy something like this on a large scale. For example, Saturn's Race is a sci-fi book by Niven & Barnes that has a "charitable" corporation donating food and medicines to the third-world. Think about it. Saturn's Race [fatbrain.com] can be found at fatbrian.com [fatbrian.com].
If a first-world country is your target then think about vaccinnations or "life improvement" pills (e.g., Viagra, Prozac, weight-loss, etc.). For example, in the USA, most kids are required to have certain vaccinnations before they may enter public school.
Re:British Government Are Actively Developing This (Score:1)
Engineering social division and control with more and more mechanical means: just think about very basic stuff like vaccine, contraception or basic hygienic facilities that poorer countries do not have access to...
Just is just an terrible extension of the big guys desire to stay in control.
--
TELL YOUR SISTERS (Score:1)
Re:Wolbachia (Score:2)
That is interesting. Presumably there would be no point in giving tetracycline to someone already infected with river blindness, right? The trick would be figuring out how to administer it to the worms before they infect people. Of course I don't know what I'm talking about, just a guess.
Re:British Government Are Actively Developing This (Score:1)
Woohoo! A NEW way to die! (Score:1)
If you can't fight your opponent, breed him out of existance.
Wow, there are so many exciting ways to die on this planet.
-
Re:Reminds me of an old MSDOS virus (Score:1)
---
uhm. (Score:2)
Where is the frontpage mention of the instant orgasmatron [eurekalert.org] that is being researched for women that can't have an orgasm??
...
BZZZZZTT!
Rami
--
Re:An explanation at last! (Score:2)
Infected by which STD?
Re:This is great for contraception (Score:1)
WARNING: The Wolbachia does not guard against HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. Wolbachia has a low occurence of side effects such as headaches, diahrea, nausea, and severe liver and brain damage. Women using Wolbachia should note that it will do absolutely nothing for them, so only men can go galavanting. For more information about Walbachia, consult your physician.
Re:Wolbachia (Score:3)
No, giving it to people who are in the early stages of infection might be effective.
The blindness is caused by an inflammatory response produced when dead larvae accumulate in the cornea, causing lesions and catarcts. It is damage is progressive. There are early signs of infection, so if there were an effective treatment that could be given when these signs appear the disease would be halted before it progressed to blindness.
Blindness is also one of several effects caused by the infection, including progressive destruction of elastic tissue and resulting severe disfigurement (elephantiasis). Even after blindness has set in it would be valuable to have a treatment.
Imagine somebody in your family had this. You wouldn't want them to be blind, but to be blind and grotesquely disfigured would be too much to bear.
Hollywood parasites (Score:1)
More pipe dreams of the spurious-speciation crowd (Score:1)
Ask Paul Erlich, who said in his book Extinction: "We have yet to see a single instance of speciation in the animal kingdom".
It just doesn't happen in animals these days. Happens in plants, sure, but they have a different DNA structure than us. Come on, give up on the pipe dream of spontaneous speciation as an explanation for the diversity of species. It's beginning to sound as dated as spontaneous generation, which Pasteur and others blew away 150 years ago.
QH
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
different races != different species. Hence this wouldn't work, and hence humans can mate and produce viable humans no matter what the ethnic background.
There was an old theory that since blacks and whites were different 'species', their children, if any happened, would be sterile. Of course, this isn't true, because, again, different races != different species.
besides, wasp chemistry and human chemistry is vastly different. Getting these bacteria into humans would be nontrivial.
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
As we know inbreeding causes problems and diversity helps develope new traits that might be useful say if something worst then ebola comes around.
Re:Either too narrow or too general (Score:2)
| paragraph. But be careful with this line of
| reasoning. You are on the very edge of racism
| there.
That's one of the things I hate about modern science - it uses social critera to judge hypothesis. Things should be judged true or not based on whether the evidence supports it, not whether they're support the social goals of the day.
Re:This is great for contraception (Score:1)
Ever forget where you put your private key, had an expired key, or forgotten (even briefly) your passphrase?
The problems with this form of contraception are quite extensive, and fairly hard to work around (IMHO). For starters, when the origional "key" is created, the time from there and to when your spouse is given the key as well offers much time for the key to have parts mutated -- keep in mind, everything mutates (just to what degree), and since these are in different enviornments, they will have different mutinagens (they more than likely wouldn't mutate down the same path anyway). That is a very significant problem... what if your private key mutated one way, and the public key mutated a completely different way? It doesn't work too well.
Secondly, what if the key used to patch this genetic modification (the one to be put into the spouse upon desire of contraception) gets lost or destroyed? Nothing is perfectly safe.
Because I am too lazy to type much more, what about when the couple in question gets a divorce? While it is not anyone's immediate desire to get a divorce right after they get married (well... aside from Dennis Rodman), the thought should still cross the average couple's mind when considering something like this before they get "patched."
In conclusion, it is probably too difficult to implament this as a contraceptive due to mutation, human error, and the lawsuit facter. While this works fine for less extensive creatures w/ limited Gene structures, this will more than likely not work well w/ humans who live much longer, and will be prone to many more things which could effect the genetic modification. Public keys don't usually mutate, walk off, or sue your bitch ass for sole rights to the anti-encrypto_sperm. It's a really nice thought though
Macx
RFC (Score:5)
To be Numbered
A Standard for the Transmission of Encrypted IP Datagrams on WASP
Status of this Memo
This memo describes an experimental method for the encapsulation of IP datagrams on WASP (Wide-Area Sperm Protocol). This specification is primarily useful wooded areas. This is an experimental, not recommended standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Overview and Rational
WASP transmissions offer encryption with the complexity of DNA encoding with the convenience of naturally-occuring encoding methods via reproductive methods. The connection topology is limited to any vessel which may carry the encrypted datagrams; however, encryption and decryption of the data must be done within the confines of the reproductive genitalia of a WASP carrier. Thusly, the throughput of data is limited to the ability of the WASP to make the necessary connections with other WASPs during the transmission interval. Note that high-bandwidth transmissions are not recommended, as the carrier may die from repeated use and packets will be lost.
Frame Format
The IP datagram is submitted in the form of a complex protein strand which the WASP ingests. This is then translated into a DNA fragment in the SM (Sperm Module) and encrypted by the bacterial cultures within the host carrier. Transmission may then commence. During transmission, various system messages may be transmitted via broadcast datagrams. Some of these possible messages are:
- "0100: SYSTEM: HONEY HAVE YOU COME YET?"
- "0233: SYSTEM: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE POKING THAT THING!"
- "0355:
/dev/penile0: Device not responding"
- "0556: module 'p0rn' not found: Unable to continue"
Upon transmission to the receiving host, the datagram is decrypted using similar methods and produces the requested result.Discussion
Transmission quality of service (QoS) is dependent upon the level of low-lighting and available singular-typed WASP carriers. High transmission rates are most often found in alleys behind popular adult establishments and in dorm rooms of universities.
Security Considerations
Security is guaranteed by the complex encoding system; however, precautions should be made to keep such transmissions away from RAID devices, as this could cause premature data loss. Other outside influences, such as TROJAN viruses, may keep the data from reaching its intended recipient.
Still DNA differences (Score:1)
There are still differences in the DNA, otherwise we'd all have the same range of colouration, right? Even people in places which have very little outside contact show marked differences in their DNA over time, due to having a smaller gene pool.
So there are differences despite their not being different species.
And yes, wasp chemistry and human chemistry are different. But that doesn't mean it's not possible, and now that there's a working example it gives researchers something to work from and towards...
Re:Bacterial encryption? (Score:1)
I'd like to hear exactly how it changes it, if anyone has that.
Speculatively, I'd suggest it's likely to be through modifying some surface antigen which makes the sperm "unrecognisable" at the other end. Of course, there would have to be some sort of complementary receptor or other sequence at the other end to catch it.
THere's really no way right now to predict the ways in which a protein will be folded based on the constituent amino acids, making these surface receptors and antigens very hard to synthesise with just the genetic sequence. If these could be generated on the fly, you might indeed find this a secure transmission facilitator.
Re:Bacterial encryption? (Score:1)
Reminds me of a computer virus (Score:1)
--
How is this encryption? (Score:2)
-Shieldwolf
Re:Wolbachia..new but not so new (Score:1)
W. spp. have been found in an amazing number of Arthropods...and has, as mentioned great implications for evolutionary studies. You can check out this [fsnet.co.uk], this [springer.de] or this [fcla.edu] for a couple of interesting articles on the subject.
Its really not old news either, the extent of Wolbachia infections is not known (if 10% of species are described you can hardly know if the other %90 are infected). Note that there are many "species" of Wolbachia as well, perhaps not even related (in the same genus) and that hosts may be infected by multiple "species" each combination of which may have different effects! What this comes down to is that you basically need to overlap two phylogenies (family trees/networks etc.) now to get a picture of what's going with regards to the evolution of your target organism. Really cool.Re:Either too narrow or too general (Score:2)
"Regarding humans, I wonder if it is possible that this process is happening to us, if true? Africans and Asians suffer greatly from parasites, much more than we in the west do, & it may be possible that this is causing them to speciate very gradually. Something to think about, anyway."
What I said:
"I will refrain from commenting on your last paragraph. But be careful with this line of reasoning. You are on the very edge of racism there."
I deny I am using social criteria to judge the hypothesis above. Quite the contrary. I am accusing the very hypothesis of being impregnated with social and cultural prejudice. And it is not very sound also.
First, unless we equate "west" with "USA, Canada and parts of the Western Europe", the inference is false. We also have to exclude large portions of Asia and Africa, where sannitation and health care is equal or almost equal to what you have in "western countries" (think Japan. last time I checked, continent drifting notwithstanding, it was still in Asia)
Second, one case of bacterial caused speciation doesn't make a very solid ground for a theory.
Third, the bacteria here is clearly NOT acting as a parasite. It shows a behavior much more akin to symbiont relations. I fail to see what kind of benefit a human host would attain in such a relation.
Fourth, the global transportation facilities existing in human society today simply deny us the separation necessary for speciation. Also, modern medicine would quickly detect and destroy such a bacteria in humans.
Hmmm (Score:1)
wasp personal ad (Score:2)
SWM seeks infected female for fun,
companionship, procreation.
Must have own Wolbachia. Hornets need not apply.
DNA copy protection... (Score:2)
Just wait, 2600.com will get sued for posting a copy of DeWolbachia on their web site.
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:1)
Re:This is great for contraception (Score:2)
Re:Oh great (Score:2)
The government has required these to be registered for as long as I can remember...If you don't believe me, check your Birth Certificate... :-)
---
"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Re:More pipe dreams of the spurious-speciation cro (Score:2)
Well, even assuming that was correct when he wrote that, that was twenty years ago. Maybe science has spent that time discovering new things? The way science works, a twenty year old book never has any sort of veto authority over new facts and new discoveries.
And, in any case, nothing in this wasp/bacteria tale deals with 'spontaneous' speciation, it deals with an identifiable factor which is providing the barrier to breeding that can facilitate a process of speciation. A process, not a miraculous, spontaneous event.
Oh. Care to explain what features of the DNA structure of the animal kingdom it is that prevents new species from being created?
Because, from everything I've read, species creation has been a constant process over the last 3 or 4 billion years or so. Existing species die out, leaving ecological niches where a new species can get a toehold, and the process of mutation and selection gives rise to species that can take advantage of the opportunity.
Nature hates a vacuum, as they say.
Re:creationists: eat this (Score:2)
Something like this came to evolve in the same way that everything else did. Nature runs *trillions* of experiments at a time, ruthlessly ditching the results of the ones which don't measure up, which is the vast majority of those trillions. A very small minority of those trillions get to reproduce, and their offspring get to participate in the nex round of the game.
Nature has been running this game for billions of years. Some of those experiments, especially for bacteria, can take as little as 20 minutes to run. That's 26,280 generations a year, times 3 billion year or so. *Lots* of time.
Mankind hasn't invested one quadrillionth of the effort or resources in developing living things that nature has, and I can't imagine we ever will.
Actually, I understate the case (Score:2)
After all, there are 6 billion humans alone, and every one of those humans harbors on average 10^14 bacteria, or ten times the number of actual human cells. For human-hosted bacteria alone, that makes 6*10^23 bacteria, or 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 600 billion trillion bacteria living on humans alone. If we count all organisms living on the planet, that figure will probably go up by at least another factor of billion, or more.
So nature is running perhaps a million trillion trillion experiments at once, or more. There is no mystery at all that with that much going on at any given time, and with each of those experiments building on the successful results of some of the million billion trillion trillion experiments that went before, that nature should figure out how to let a bacteria fuck with a wasp's reproduction system.
Oops, again too little (Score:2)
After all, that bit about a million billion trillion trillion experiments that went on before is assuming that each experiment takes a year to run. Some will take longer, most will take far less. Let's say that every thing living today benefits from a lineal subset of the million trillion trillion trillion experiments that went before.
Random chance throws some variation into those experiments, but I don't call the fact that a million trillion trillion trillion experiments has led to some good results chance, I call that inevitability.
Re:This is great for contraception (Score:2)
Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
Re:Paranoid thoughts (Score:3)
And that article was crap. Since there is no Jewish gene(*see note below), there would be no way to determine if someone is Jewish or non-Jewish. Basically, there is no genetic difference between Jews from Arab countries (who make up a very large percentage of the population of Israel) and Arabs from Arab countries. Pretty stupid weapon, eh?
(* note) There was a recent study which showed that Kohanim may in fact share a common ancestor. Kohanim are (in theory) all descendants of Moses' brother Aaron, the first High Priest. Being a Kohanim is passed down father to son; if your father is a Kohanim and you're a boy, you are a Kohan as well. It's a male-only thing.
By testing many Jews around the world who claimed to be Kohanim, checking for a gene on their Y chromosome (which would only be passed down, father-to-son) and plugging in some numbers for rates of mutation, some British researchers concluded that the vast majority of the modern-day Kohanim share a common male ancestor from about 3500 years ago, which would date nicely with the whole Exodus from Egypt/founding of the Kohanim line. As a nice reinforcement, this gene was virtually impossible to find in people who weren't Kohanim. Kinda neat.
However, Kohanim are relatively small portion of Jews in the world, and only includes males anyway. Once again, a stupid idea for a bio-weapon.
-jon
Re:This is great for contraception (Score:2)
That must be enough clarification.
Re:More pipe dreams of the spurious-speciation cro (Score:2)
Huh?
That doesn't in any way contradict the notion that separation of breeding pools facilitates speciation. The Cambrian explosion is fascinating and there is obviously a lot to be studied there, but who ever said that evolution was allowed only one trick?
It's manifestly obvious that the process of evolution is susceptible to contingency. It happens all the time.. a virus mutates in a way that allows it access to an entirely new population of carriers, or it is merely brought into close enough contact with a new and vulnerable population, and you have plague. That plague may wipe out 75% or more of a population, giving tremendous evolutionary advantage to those whose genetics happens to afford some resistance or resiliance to the infection.
It is clear that discrete events can occur that force the ecological system out of a state of stability and into a chaotic period where living organisms have to adapt to the new reality, or perish (rabbits in Australia, anyone?). That is not inconsistent with the idea that separation of breeding pools can facilitate speciation. Biology is one of the most complex of subjects, and the number of processes and mechanisms that swirl around in the ecology are legion. Every mutation has an opportunity to change the playing field to a greater or lesser extent.
Perhaps I misspoke. I meant 'spontaneous' to mean 'without cause' and some shading of 'instantaneous'. The notion of 'outside intervention' is so unnecessary to my understanding of the world that it never occurred to me that one would read 'spontaneous' as meaning 'without outside intervention'. I believe speciation is always for cause, and that if we are fortunate enough to have intimate knowledge of a particular population as it goes through a speciation event that the reasons for the speciation can generally be observed.
In addition, two points about speciation events. First, speciation events may be slow (or fast) on a human timescale, but they are bound to be very fast on the geological time scale that most paleontology deals with. Second, if you stretch your point of view out long enough, you'll see the continual process of the ebb and flow of species I have been speaking of. Not a constant ebb and flow, in the sense of an unvarying rate of change, but continual and continuous in the sense that the process of species being born and destroyed has never yet ceased on Earth.
Well, something is wrong with the simplified model we are talking about here, yes. I'd recommend Darwin's Dangerous Idea [amazon.com] by Daniel C. Dennett if you want a really good description of the structural nature of species and the process by which a genetic population drifts and clumps. It intelligently deals with some very important questions, like, 'what is a species?', that are really essential background for this kind of discussion.
It is a rather unworthy argument to simply fall back on calling your opponents cowards and liars. If there is a good argument to be made against some particular facet of evolutionary theory, it would be better to spend your energy finding the evidence to demonstrate your point of view, rather than disparaging others. It's hard work, because there is a mountain of evidence on the side of the modern evolutionary synthesis, but if you find something that others have missed you will surely make a great contribution to the world of science. If it turns out that you learn enough to doubt your current position, then that would also be valuable. Sacred cows certainly are troublesome, no matter whose side they are on.