Did a Genome Copying Mistake Lead To Human Intelligence? 381
A new study suggests that the sophistication of the human brain may be due to a mistake in cell division long ago. From the article: "A copyediting error appears to be responsible for critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin, new research finds.
When tested out in mice, researchers found this 'error' caused the rodents' brain cells to move into place faster and enabled more connections between brain cells."
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the discovery is the exact mechanism which prompts the rise of higher intelligence? Intelligent animals anyone?
Obvious to most (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you're with the intelligent designers, it is pretty that all advances made in evolution from the simplest prokaryote to Einstein were made by random errors in gene copying or recombining previous errors.
Re:Not at all; completely on point (Score:4, Interesting)
Your point is absolutely correct.
But the idea of the parent posting was different. It did not ask whether evolution has a point itself, but instead pointed out that evolution itself is simply the consequence of alterations to successive organisms -- mostly via their genome. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that successive alterations of our genome were responsible for the lion's share of our intelligence.
Re:Not at all; completely on point (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More proof that copying is BAD! (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if you had somesimple computer-generated music into which random mutations were introduced. These could be presented to listeners who would decide through an online vote the 'fitness' of the new segment over the original. Any mutations deemed favourable could be recombined into the 'genome' of the track. Would it be possible for a basic track to evolve gradually over time into a complex piece of music that sounds better at each stage?
Re:Not at all; completely on point (Score:4, Interesting)
Surely some vocalization would occur, though? Light can't pass through or around objects, so sound has an inherent evolutionary advantage. Of course, there is the whole rest of the electromagnetic spectrum, and I suppose it is possible for some species "out there" to be communicating with part of the spectrum that passes through solid objects.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing Darwin missed was a method of heredibility. That is a flaw, no doubt, but as Stephen R. Gould wrote, the overarching theory still works. The Modern Synthesis is just Darwinian selection married to genetics. In other words, both complement the other.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
The subtitle also has a stylistic difference from the article text--it has no comma or other punctuation. Every sentence of comparable length in the rest of the article (around 15 of them) has a comma, colon, dash, etc., with only one exception, supporting my "someone else wrote the title and subtitle" theory, perhaps someone more interested in page views than providing information.
This is why I love Slashdot - we'd rather spend ages analysing a secondary popular science article to death than talking about the interesting findings of the primary research! The author and/or editor deserve a break for trying to engage the attention of a general audience about a piece of significant work, and succeed in presenting the key points in relatively non-technical language. Both 'mistake' and 'error' are in any case used quite frequently by biologists when discussing mutations - a quick pubmed search will find many examples in the scientific literature (e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14616055 [nih.gov] - this does not imply that the DNA polymerase is intelligent!).
Speaking of 'mistakes', this research discovered an interesting error in the human genome reference sequence. It turns out that the duplication event was previously obscured by 'mis-assembly' of the closely related copied sequences (the SRGAP2 gene was copied so recently in evolutionary terms that the copies hadn't diverged enough to be easily distinguishable). The researchers did some of their own sequencing using DNA from a 'hydatidiform mole' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydatidiform_mole [wikipedia.org] ), a non-viable pregnancy that only contains genetic material from the father - the lack of confounding allelic variation makes it easier to get clear cut results.
Re:Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
not counting those of my "brothers" that actually are THAT STUPID most Christian Scientists believe that science is simply discovering the ORDER in the universe. You can actually find bible verses that 1 state that the earth is ROUND 2 is in orbit and if you look at things in context are actually scientifically sound (not counting the times when the various "players" pulled down the console and used "cheat codes" or were operating in a very literal GODMODE).
the real trick is the first 20 picoseconds of TIME can not be approached using Science but must be approached using Logic And Faith.
In The Beginning ?
everything else hinges on that question.
Re:Purpose of Life (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, notwithstanding the number 42, and ignoring the more popular question 'What is the meaning of life?' ( which by the way has been long settled with the answer to be found in any dictionary under the entry for 'life' ), it seems that it might be interesting to consider 'What is the purpose of life?' since evolution pertains mostly to life here on Earth.
I'll venture that the purpose of life seems to me to be responsible for creating the most entropy possible. The prevalent M.O. seems to be for life to extract the Gibbs Free Energy from the environs to produce offspring, and then to die. By dying, one creates disorder, which is the purpose of life. However, by first creating offspring, the life form is responsible not only for the entropy directly created by it's own demise but indirectly for the disorder created by any offspring and their offspring. Use Gibbs Free Energy to Copy then Die.
Is there another strategy for producing entropy that could be more successful than life?
It would seem not, though I don't know for sure. Evolution has produced many variations on the theme, suited to different niches, but life seems to stick to this general gameplan.