The Average Human Has 60 New Genetic Mutations 246
mcgrew pointed out a story about a new study that found the average person is born with 60 genetic mutations, very few of which involve weather manipulation or an amazing healing factor. This number was less than expected, leading the researchers to believe human evolution happens more slowly than previously thought. From the article: "Sixty mutations may sound like a lot, but according to the international team of geneticists behind the new research, it is actually fewer than expected. 'We had previously estimated that parents would contribute an average of 100 to 200 mistakes to their child,' Philip Awadalla, a geneticist at the University of Montreal who co-led the project, said in a press release. 'Our genetic study, the first of its kind, shows that actually much fewer mistakes, or mutations, are made.'
We should regulate mutations... (Score:5, Funny)
...before a little girl passes through a wall at the federal reserve!
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They just print paper there. Go to Ft Knox for the gold.
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We don't pay for things with gold.
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No, but the bricks stack better to make a pimp ass fort.
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The joke was likely referring to the comic book character Kitty Pride ("Shadowcat"), who not only can walk through walls, but can make things she's touching/holding phase through them as well. So she could take the gold through too.
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I'm talking about X-Men, not Terminator.
Geesh, these same convos happen during time travel articles, too!
Is there any gold there? (Score:2)
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Just because people are so *fussy* about the difference between gold and gold plated tungsten....
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Wouldn't surprise me. Any government agency that refuses and audit is suspect.
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O few loons wanting an audit is no reason to do an audit. IF Ron Paul want's to personally pony up the money, thej fine; otherwise lets not spend 15 million for a nonsensical audit.
He makes a crazy request,and the government giving a reasonable response is seen as some conspiracy by the same people who want the government to spend less.
source (Score:2)
hijacking first thread to link the source [nature.com] (subscription/university login req'd), since the posted article doesn't.
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But only if it's Kit from the first X-Men movie. Nothing against Ellen Page, but Sumela Kay is cuter.
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Meh - to each his own. There's just something about Ellen Page that I like. I'd rather that version :).
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I've always wondered about "mutations" in the X-Men comic books. There are people whose mutations lead to fantastic powers and there are normal people. I wonder about people in the middle. People who have mutations which lead to mundane powers or even powers which make everyday life difficult. For example, a mutation that makes ones hair grow at 50 times the usual rate. You would need to constantly shave every 6 hours lest you grow a beard not to mention the long tail of hair you would constantly drag
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The big speed bump I always run into is "where the heck is the power for these mutations coming from?" It takes energy to lift up metal with a magnetic field and fling it around the room, where's it come from?
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You laugh,
Yes. We laugh at you.
Simon. (Also a Dr. But I'm a real Dr. People like you give medicine a bad name).
Re:We should regulate mutations... (Score:5, Insightful)
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And you know what they call ~50% of medicine that doesn't work [cato-unbound.org]? Medicine.
Not defending alternative medicine, just disputing the characterization of mainstream med as some kind of paragon of rigorous empiricism.
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Not all mutations are harmful. We wouldn't have evolved big brains and intelligence without genetic mutation.
This is probably bad news for my daughter Patty, who was born with only one kidney, as she found out after a CAT scan. She tells people "I'm a mutant and my dad's a cyborg!" I guess she can still say that, even though everybody's a mutant and most geezers my age have some sort of implanted devices in them these days.
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A mutation is a change. The change can be harmful, beneficial, or neutral. Mutations are expected; it's called evolution. The rate of mutation is actually less than expected. The list of maladies you list are not exclusively dictated by mutations.
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Could I get some thetans to go with my subluxations?
Hogwash! (Score:2, Funny)
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Only three things are required. Love God, love people, and accept Christ as your savior. Now, there are a lot more steps in some other religions...
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Quick! You're needed two stories up on the climate change topic!
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Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/B004AYCWY4/ [amazon.com]
And which consensus are referring to exactly?
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I think most biblical theologians would say that the expulsion from paradise did not corrupt our physical form, just our nature.
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I haven't been to church in quite a few years (but I had to endure service every single Sunday until I left for college), but IIRC prior to leaving Eden Adam and Eve were immortal, and so the whole "whither and die" thing certainly would have been a notch down from the original status.
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Clearly in the bible is says we all look like God..well the men.
Can creationist often claim our for is perfect...otherwise we couldn't hold a banana!
Bad science below. (Score:3)
My intuition tells me they're missing something. I've always felt that mutation rates among stressed organisms would be a lot higher than among healthy sucessful organisms. Again, intuitively, not scientifically, from a "selfish gene" perspective, an organism that generated more mutations in its offspring when it wasn't doing well would be more likely to have ANY of its genes passed on to future generations, while an organism doing well would mutate less.
From a simpler perspective: more viruses, more bacteria, more cell damage all make mutations of some kind more likely as well. Mutations are copy-errors, and a cell under stress would be less able to error-correct its genes.
None of this has a hypothesis I'd be willing to put out, but I think studying first world humans misses some possible independent variables.
It's not bad science, it's just how evoluton works (Score:2)
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As for the stress factor - sounds plausible on the first glance, however, stress response l
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'None of this has a hypothesis I'd be willing to put out, but I think studying first world humans misses some possible independent variables.'
They actually looked at one caucasian and one West African (Yoruba) family. A lot more will need to be analysed to see if the number of new mutations in the children are typical. The authors also recognise that "the distribution of mutation rates in the population could contain a long tail of relatively rare individuals with considerably higher mutation rates (perhaps
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Quite the opposite (Score:2)
... the mistake is you!
In Soviet Russia (Score:3)
...mistakes make you! ...as, indeed, they do everywhere else...
Nature vs Nurture? (Score:5, Funny)
"Sixty mutations may sound like a lot, but according to the international team of geneticists behind the new research, it is actually fewer than expected. 'We had previously estimated that parents would contribute an average of 100 to 200 mistakes to their child"
Don't worry, most parents are going out of their way to make up the difference and then surpass it.
Junk DNA (Score:2)
Most of these mutations are in "junk", or non-coding DNA. Almost all novel mutations to functional DNA are detrimental.
At Skepticon 3, PZ Myers gave an excellent presentation [youtube.com] about genetic mutation and adaptation. It's about an hour long, but definitely worth a watch.
Rate of mutations? (Score:2)
I wonder if the rate of mutations is higher or lower than in the past, and what it's trending.
mistakes (Score:2)
Non-genetically speaking, I'm sure the number will be much higher over the kids lifetime, and I'm sure those mistakes will be far more problematic. Hopefully, mistake #1 wasn't forgetting the birth control...
Are miscariages acounted for? (Score:2)
TFA is, unfortunately, very brief and doesn't talk about this distinction but not all conceptions result in births. Embryos are often reabsorbed without the mother even being aware. I would expect the number of mutations at birth to be lower than the number at conception because those with more and more serious mutations are never born.
We are looking in the wrong areas (Score:2)
Sadly, these guys probably looked at fairly well to do ppl who are not just not exposed, but not around a whole lot of ppl or animals. Once they are closer to life, they will have more, faster, and bigger mutations (as in whole genes being transfered)
I had too many. :( (Score:2)
Nager's Syndrome. :(
"germ cell" mutations not somatic mutations (Score:2)
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You've posted in this discussion so your mod points are no good here.
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I know this is probably going to go down in flames, but exactly how do creationists deal with this sort of finding? Answers from actual creationists preferred...
It's the evolution of intelligent design: iterative design. The X-Men might actually exist had God opted for an Agile design process.
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Yes, but can you imagine the daily Scrums that would have taken place? And what if God plays by Australian Rules?
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It seems Creationists do believe that God opted for an Agile design process, whereas I believe He chose the waterfall method and had everything designed and planned out before the project was undertaken.
If the Creationists are correct, I cannot understand what purpose He would find by making a world in which every possible bit of empirical evidence points to a history of reality which is entirely false.
I guess that's why I could never see the point of faith without reason because creationism means His great
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The answer is simple. A recent study (did I see it here?) showed that bible literalists and athiests have smaller hippocampuses than agnostics, protestants, and Catholics. There's no point in arguing with someone who has a shrunken hippocampus.
Unless God has evidenced himself to you, the only logical choice is agnosticism, since there can be no proof one way or the other. Keep in mind that once you've seen an elephant you can't disbelieve elephants existance. "You're crazy, you just hallucinated that elepha
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Re:I will not attempt to explain (Score:2)
Fermat Likes this.
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Are they also saying that every child is an independent act of God, not derived from either of its parents?
If not, then they must accept that (some of) those variations--regardless of their origin--are propagated from parent to child.
In other words, that evolution (in the strictest sense of the word) occurs.
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It's not possible to be a strict Creationist AND believe in evolution unless you really believe that all this evolution happened in the last 6000 years.
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That is why Intelligent Design is popular. It allows for science to show its numbers add up without having to doubt your faith.
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Intelligent Design is a branded version of Creationism with certain things obfuscated (like who the creator was) in order to try and fool people into believing it is science. It is the lowest of the low, sleazy backhanded way of trying to trick people.
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Who in the world talks about Darwinism anymore? What century are you living in? Contrary to religion - science adapts and changes based on the latest and greatest information.
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You can't use scientific evidence that Creationists believe is false and made up to prove a point about Creationism. Either you accept science or you don't.
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Creationists avoid all straight answers by just calling it "God's Will" or "God's Plan". It's a very handy catch-all bullshit answer.
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Simple. They claim that mutations are always harmful to the organism and it's descendants.
When biologists show them examples of beneficial mutations happening in nature and in the lab, the creationists change their claim to that mutations are statistically speaking almost always harmful and that therefore the sum over time of mutation upon mutation will always be harmful to a population (and by doing so they prove that they don't understand the process of iterated natural selection).
When biologists show the
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You have a more open-minded approach but it doesn't jive with the Old Testament or current church teachings. You basically are just questioning the big bang vs some third party saying "go" and then walking away.
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1) We don't know everything about the physical universe. 2) We don't understand everything in the Bible. 3) We don't really know what happens when something is created from nothing,
1) So? not nowing everythign does not mean anything is possible. Every tst for God has come up negative.
2) Yes actually, we pretty much do. Well, those of us who have studied it's history. There are a few minor interpetation points based on culture, but like I said, they are inor differences regardless.
3) That's impossible. No o
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They will probably go with flaws in the testing... Or part of Gods Intelligent Design. The Scientist are just flat out lying. Some would say this is a new phenomena due to environmental effects. That these changes are too small to be passed from generation to generations and our non-mutated cells will be dominate.
Never underestimate the ingenuity of backpedaling an argument.
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Well, I'm a "creationist" in that I believe God created the universe (as Aquinas' "Uncaused First Cause"), but I also happen to have no problem with the idea that He did it 14 billion years ago, may have done it or is doing it more than once, and in doing so created the means to allow evolution to happen.
I also acknowledge that given the nature of the God it only makes sense that it is entirely possible He could have formed everything out of whole cloth 6000 years ago (on a Saturday evening in October accor
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I'm not a creationist but when I debated this point with one, he started to divide things into "micro-evolution" (a few minor changes) and "macro-evolution" (the collective effect of many mutations that would lead to changes as significant as a species change), and said that "micro-evolution" had been observed while "macro-evolution" hadn't (please ignore all fossil records, every single minor change in every species hasn't been documented after all!), and therefore GAAWWD could have intervened in cases of
Re:Creationists? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the human brain really likes to put things into categories. That is an hamster, but that over there is not. Just because that is the way the human brain likes to work doesn't mean that it's a universal truth. Species do not exist as a phenomenon outside of the human brain. Trying to decide where one species starts and another species ends is like picking two points of the visual spectrum at random as new colors and then arguing over where one starts and the other stops. Sure, if you look at one color and then the other, you can tell that they're different, but if how do you decide where the cutoff point is? Any point you choose is going to be arbitrary because your starting points were arbitrary. The same is true for organisms.
There are organisms which are genetically similar enough to allow for viable offspring, and organisms that are not. But even that can't magically create an immutable category, everything inside of which is a hamster and everything outside of which isn't.
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Re:Creationists? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that empirically does not work on this subject. That is how scientists around the country tried to deal with the problem for 50 years and at the end of that half century there were more people against the teaching of evolution than there were at the beginning of it. The problem is that for every troll, there is an actual creationist out there who believes what they are saying (which, IMO, makes them uneducated, but not a troll). Leaving these people to their own devices just sets them up in an echo chamber of their own misunderstandings until we end up in a situation where decision makers believe this nonsense. Then you have school boards, text book publishers, even presidential nominees who will state proudly that they don't believe in evolution. At the very least, I will voice my disagreement to make it clear that there are those who disagree, those that will hear the proud statement of a candidate's ignorance and irrevocably put them on the 'will not vote for' list.
So please, if you see someone politely, non-aggressively stating their misunderstandings, correct them politely and non-aggressively. If it's a troll, you won't have given them the satisfaction of making you angry because you will have been polite. If it's someone who actually believes what they are saying maybe, just maybe, you'll convince them to take another look at what they believe. Even if they don't believe what they are saying, someone reading it probably does, and if you can convince just a single person to rethink the subject it is, IMO, worth the 2 minutes it took to write out a reasoned, polite response.
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The creationist tenet that there is no speciation has recently been demonstrated false in fruitflies. Genetic mutations occurred that rendered two different strains unable to interbreed and produce viable offspring. On this basis, they are now two species. Since they cannot share DNA, they are bound to continue diverge significantly after enough generations have passed.
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Good to know! I'll have to find a scientific paper on this and show it to a creationist to see what they come up with next.
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Have creationists ever denied the existence of mutations?
Actually the most common pop rebuttal of observed evolution does deny mutations. It goes like this: When a population of bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic and most die off and the remaining population reproduces which leads to a population of antibiotic bacteria it is not because of a mutation but because of already existing genetic variation.
[sigh]Yes yes I know that argument is so flawed it isn't funny, I'm not making that argument. I'm just saying that yes some creationists do deny the exist
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And God creating something has been scientifically observed? Did I miss that on the news? You are asking to scientifically observe something that takes thousands/millions of years to happen.
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"Also, for you developers out there...can you imagine what would happen to your code if someone started randomly flipping bits in your machine's memory? Would it produce new, useful features? Of course not!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_(genetic_algorithm) [wikipedia.org]
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But you're assuming that mistakes are detrimental. Mutations are, by definition, a mistake in the genetic copying process.
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Serendipity is the art of making useful mistakes. Nature is 100% serendipitous.
Re:Not Mistakes (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, nature doesn't make mistakes. It just does stuff. Some of the stuff works, some of it doesn't. The stuff that works we consider "evolved." The stuff that doesn't we consider "politicians".
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Mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
In terms of a DNA sequence making an exact copy of itself, yes they are mistakes (that is the very definition of a mutation). Whether that mistake turns out to be beneficial to the organism or not is a separate issue.
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No, they are mistakes, errors in copying. Just occasionally, they're useful mistakes.
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But those mutations and adaptions (unless unseen) will probably not be 'allowed' by doctors. Say 6 fingers is where we're 'supposed' to be headed. Except at birth the extra digits are usually removed, giving a person with that trait no more advantage than anyone else.
On the other side of the coin: Not all mutations are good for the group as a whole with the technology we have available today. Sickle cell anemia carriers are effectively immune to malaria. Even people with sickle cell anemia don't die off un
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Natural selection is just a part of the process of evolution. It's a lot more complicated than that.
What they're saying here is that since there are fewer mutations in each new human, there are fewer opportunities for new traits to develop, since most mutations don't lead to new traits.
Re:makes sense to be (Score:5, Informative)
No!
The main difference between you and your brother aren't mutations, but which part of your DNA you get from your mother and which part from your father.
(I'm not a biologist/geneticist.)
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There is a whole lot of variation you could get from the same two parents. Each parent contributes 23 chromosomes, and which chromosome gets contributed is random. The chances of any two children all getting the same set from each parent is extremely low (outside of twins and whatnot, but that's a different mechanism).
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Cool. Learn something new every day, I guess.
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but if parent's dna were copied exactly the same, then you wouldn't be much different from your brothers and sisters.
This is actually because of chromosomal crossover. You receive half your DNA from each parent. Without crossover, there'd be only 4 possible children per parent pair. However, during meiosis, sections of chromosomes swap positions, dramatically increasing the number of different possible offspring.
Still, mutation is the source of brand-new genotypes. It's critical to evolution (which is natural selection pressure applied to a population that reproduces with mutations), but it's still mutation.
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of course, i'm not educated in the field, but if parent's dna were copied exactly the same, then you wouldn't be much different from your brothers and sisters.
Yikes. You don't have to be a geneticist to understand the very most basic things about genetics - things that affect your daily life, things like "Do I share all the same genes as my brothers and sisters?"
I remember learning about Mendel and the principles of segregation and independent assortment in 7th grade science class.
Are you 12, or did you just sleep through that class, or has the public education system really gotten that much worse?
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http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_2.htm [palomar.edu]
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That's a very groovy mutation.
Only superpowers and eye colors are groovy mutations. Some mutations are terrible.
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Define "terrible". For something that is the way it its because their genes ended in something that was and advantage or at least, not an impediment to survive/mate, odds are pretty high that a random change will be damaging. That it look well or bad, thats a social/cultural thing, but what defines if its good or bad is if it survives and spreads for long enough.
Regarding superpowers, if they require not just changing one gene, but a lot to be able to work, probably should be designed instead of happening
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The 1000 Genome Project has mapped just over 1000 whole genomes now. To get them to map that many entire families - well, it's going to cost a bit. You are right that N is way too low to do much with, though.