All Humans Are Mutants, Say Scientists 309
Hugh Pickens writes "In 1935, JBS Haldane, one of the founders of modern genetics, studied a group of men with the blood disease hemophilia and speculated that there would be about 150 new mutations in each human being. Now BBC reports that scientists have used next generation sequencing technology to produce a far more direct and reliable estimate of the number of mutations by looking at thousands of genes belonging to two Chinese men who are distantly related, having shared a common ancestor who was born in 1805. To establish the rate of mutation, the team examined an area of the Y chromosome which is unique because, apart from rare mutations, the Y chromosome is passed unchanged from father to son so mutations accumulate slowly over the generations. Despite many generations of separation, researchers found only 12 differences among all the DNA letters examined. The two Y chromosomes were still identical at 10,149,073 of the 10,149,085 letters examined."
Comes as no surprise.. (Score:3, Funny)
May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:4, Funny)
looks uncomfortable.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:5, Funny)
I for one, welcome us all! :)
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, I was wearing yellow & spandex this morning, you insensitive clod!
(I bike to work.)
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows you can't ride a bike in your regular clothes. You have to look like a total moron.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's part of being in the club. Like the idiots that buy a harley, harley jacket, harley t-shirt, harley socks, harley boots, harley gloves, harley jeans, harley underwear, harley toothbrush, etc...
It makes them feel like they are a real biker instead of a poser. bicycle enthusiasts wear the spandex to try and feel like they are a real bike racer. Problem is they need to cut out a testicle to be like a REAL bicycle racer.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone knows you can't ride a bike in your regular clothes. You have to look like a total moron.
For what it's worth, I get whistled at when I'm wearing lycra shorts and riding my bike. I never get whistled at when I'm wearing cargo pants. (Or, for that matter, if I'm wearing lycra and *not* riding a bike.)
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:5, Funny)
That sound isn't whistling. What you are hearing is actually laughter distorted by the Doppler effect.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can do whatever you want. I like being dry and comfortable on my bike and not having my work clothes get sweaty. When I first started out, I just wore whatever and thought the bike clothes were stupid. One ride in the right shorts and I was sold. (I wear shorts with a shell.)
It might also be that when I first started biking, I weighed ~250 pounds and was terribly out of shape.
Of course, one would point out that since I buy my work clothes on clearance, my bike clothes are the most expensive kit I own. (
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's actually more cost effective for me to wear a tux on my bike than the bike shorts.
Another point to make is visibility. If I look like a guy on a bike, then maybe someone in a car will look up from their bagel / cell phone and say, "whoa, that is one UGLY outfit."
Unless you're the only cyclist they've ever seen, they're probably going to notice you less when you wear your cycling gear. If you want visibility, be unexpected. I'd go with that tux you mentioned. Or the robes of a Spanish Inquisitor. Fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency will keep you alive more than a butt bubble.
Re:May I opt out on the yellow spandex? (Score:5, Funny)
It is ... now fishnets on the other hand are quite comfy....
Time to shock the family by dressing as Doctor Frank N furter again.....
Nothing like making the parents of children run screaming from the house during Halloween night.
What about non-humans? (Score:3, Interesting)
Article title seems stupid to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Given what we know about biology, every living thing, including viruses, are mutants (or at least descendants of mutants).
The article title has to be one of the more braindead ones I've seen here on Slashdot, and I've been around for a while. (And somehow I don't understand how it's connected with the information in the summary.)
OTOH, I'm real tired....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I actually enjoy being a mutant. Beats the hell out of being some single-cell swamp dweller. Hell, even if you're in the 6000 year-old earth crowd, I like the fact that we've got a few more choices then would be available from pairing Adam and Eve's very limited set of chromosomes.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
sorry? but my cats and dog have it made. Sleep all day, have food handed to you, all you need to do is lay there and lick yourself.
I'd give my thumbs for that life any day. Hell the "pretty" ones are put out to stag....
Re:Article title seems stupid to me (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I was thinking the same. The very idea of evolution is based on mutation, and Evolution requires it as well.
Unless you live in Kansas......
Re:Article title seems stupid to me (Score:5, Informative)
Probably just didn't survive a collision with the pop-science filter very well...
Re: (Score:2)
So they're patentable?
"Quantification of mutation rates, examination of which regions mutate quickly and which are highly conserved, and the like are all legitimate and nonobvious."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What is top posting? What are quote tags? Why so angry?
"2) Do not, ever--I fucking repeat--EVER top post."
Re:Article title seems stupid to me (Score:4, Informative)
> No, what?
>> Do you know what is the worst thing in internet?
Re:Article title seems stupid to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, the "all humans are mutants" angle doesn't have much to it. Of course we're mutants insofar as we're the product of evolution, and evolution requires mutation. Without mutation, you wouldn't get new genetic differences to be weeded out or passed on. So yes, life is a mutation and we're all mutants.
It will be interesting now that we could be able to sequence your DNA and your parents' DNA, figure out exactly what mutations you have (if any) from the previous generation, and possibly know what those mutations do. Maybe in the future we'll be able to map all of our genetic family trees in detail, figure out when traits were introduced, and see what patterns emerge. Maybe those random mutations aren't so random.
Re:Article title seems stupid to me (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe those random mutations aren't so random.
This is complicated and not really worth going into in depth here, but a major technique of mapping species divergence and establishing when they diverged is through mapping the number of mutations that have shown up in non-expressed DNA. The mutation rate of DNA is fairly well known (it's largely a function of the precision of the enzymes that duplicate DNA, the DNA polymerases and their error-correction fidelity, which varies between different DNA polymerases.) There are some wrinkles in that many mutations don't survive -- they're lethal -- and that's why some parts of DNA are referred to as 'conserved', because those sections can't tolerate changes. There are genes involved in vision, for instance, that have something like a 0.3% difference between insects and humans. But sections that aren't critical, or aren't used at all, chunks of old viruses that got spliced in and don't do anything, accumulate errors. Taking a quantitative diff of two DNA strants gives you a number that is proportional to how long ago the species diverged.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It will be interesting now that we could be able to sequence your DNA and your parents' DNA, figure out exactly what mutations you have (if any) from the previous generation, and possibly know what those mutations do.
It would be very unlikely for you to have no (germ cell) mutations from the previous generation. It's fairly easy to arrive at an order of magnitude estimate of the number of mutations that are uniquely yours. I'll save you the math, but that number is about 10. Only about one in 25,000 people has no mutations of their own.
Of those 10 mutations, many are in non-coding areas of DNA and tend not to cause a problem. Some will inactivate a gene, which is why we have multiple copies of every important gene
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
nobody would waste...perfectly good grad students ...
Welcome to grad school, you must be new here.
Ever-appropriate captcha: "celled"
Article IS stupid: N = 1?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Both links, including the story on the Sanger institute's own page, suggest that this team studied only one set of relatives. I realize this is a lot of work and there aren't many people who would make good test subjects, that you knew were distant relatives. But I can't get over the idea of testing exactly one pair and making sound conclusions from it. Seems like they're assuming those 12 mutations were gradually accrued. Maybe the actual rate of mutation is much lower, except for Grandpa Li who wore a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yea and so is the summary... The very next line says that of those 12 mutations, 8 of them occurred in the lab. Only 4 occurred naturally (which btw confirms JBS Haldane's conjecture).
What I'd like to know is WHEN those 4 occurred. Roughly 200 years since these fellows last shared an ancestor, say 10 generations. Yea.. it happens gradually but it DOES happen so... somewhere in the sequence granddad-dad-son at least one mutation occurred for someone. What was that mutation like? Did the kid not look like the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like they simply confirmed with real data what before wa
Re: (Score:2)
In short, this article doesn't apply to the normal /. reader...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yep. "Normal" is an illusory artifact of statistics and has nothing to do with empirical reality.
From the article (Score:2)
"...was more difficult than finding an ant's egg in an emperor's rice store."
I have got to work that into an ordinary conversation someday: priceless!
Um... statistically significant? (Score:2)
Forgive me if I'm wrong. I'm fairly sure I have at least a basic grasp of the idea of statistical sampling, as used to infer the traits of a large population using a smaller representative sample from that population. But don't you still need a sample size bigger than two to make inferences about all of humanity?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. You don't. The certainty of the inference is just low. This is a fine start, and new data will be added as genetic sequencing becomes cheaper.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Forgive me if I'm wrong. I'm fairly sure I have at least a basic grasp of the idea of statistical sampling, as used to infer the traits of a large population using a smaller representative sample from that population. But don't you still need a sample size bigger than two to make inferences about all of humanity?
The statistics are in the number of base pairs and the amount of time since common ancestor, not the number of people. So we know that in that lineage, mutations occur at a given rate which I'm too lazy to calculate.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But it's restricted to two people, or not even that, it could be just one different ancestor. Maybe one's grandfather was exposed to radiation, or mutagenic chemicals.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is why you only have a basic grasp of statistical sampling as it is practised in the modern world.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Every sample has the same ontological status as the last one. Data sets are bigger and richer than each other, not "more accurate" (assuming it was collected "correctly").
A single sample can be enough to discredit a scientific theory. A single sample is the start of a scientific theory, which can be added to, and modified as data is added to its underlying base. The processes by which this are done is called "statistics" and "science".
It's funny. Laugh. (Score:2)
Y chromosomes don't recombinate.
No Y-combinators? So how do you do recursion?
Re: (Score:2)
here you go [youtube.com].
Aha! Evidence.... (Score:5, Funny)
And here we have scientific evidence that human mutation is working as Designed.
Weird, I'm suddenly craving a bowl of spaghetti.
Re:Aha! Evidence.... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget, His Noodly Appendages must be served slightly al dente (unless you're an infidel who likes squishy appendages), and the proper attire is, of course, pirate.
Re:Aha! Evidence.... (Score:4, Informative)
The Fourth Council of Ristorante determined that there is no such thing as "slightly" al dente. It is al dente or not al dente; there is no in-between. The path to damnation is lined with compromise, and we'll have none of that here!
Glory to his name, Ramen.
Re:Aha! Evidence.... (Score:5, Funny)
Just throw it at the wall and see if it sticks - that's how all important decisions are made in politics, marketing (but I repeat myself), religion, the workplace ... if you used your noodle, you'd realize that!
Re:Aha! Evidence.... (Score:4, Funny)
Sacrilege!
Not as sacreligious as the evil Spagettios, the FSM's mortal enemy.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a pretty strict Pastafarian, but you gnocchi is better.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
X-Men 2 was wrong then? (Score:2)
Re:X-Men 2 was wrong then? (Score:5, Funny)
I seem to remember them saying that the mutations come from the father, how women are mutants I don't know.
I have shocking news for you, you may want to have a seat: women have fathers, just like men. Disturbing, I know.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I have shocking news for you. You may want to have a seat. You've been lied to about this.
Yay! Mutant Super Powers! (Score:5, Funny)
My mutant super power is my ability to get depressed and lose focus. Oh man, I wish I'd gotten that cool one that gives you resistance to malaria and painfully inflamed fingers and toes. Mine seems kinda useless by comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yay! Mutant Super Powers! (Score:4, Informative)
I think they're a common side-effect of sickle-cell anaemia, a mutation which also provides resistance to malaria.
Crap (Score:2)
Quality reporting (Score:4, Informative)
SMBC [smbc-comics.com] is completely accurate on this count.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
SMBC [smbc-comics.com] is completely accurate on this count.
Yep, it's obvious that we're all mutants, how else does evolution happen? The bbc seems to have missed the point, which to me is that they've now got a decent (they claim) estimate of the rate of mutation. This is, however infinitely less interesting than the bbc title.
Re:Quality reporting (Score:4, Funny)
On behalf of everyone who has never seen SMBC before, allow me to say:
Thank you.
P.S.: I hate you.
P.P.S.: If I lose my job over this, can I crash at your place?
I get 450 mutations per generation (Score:5, Interesting)
3600 mutations total
8 generations in 200 years
450 per generation
5 in protein coding section of genome
Re: (Score:2)
Y = 1/300th total chromosome 3600 mutations total 8 generations in 200 years 450 per generation 5 in protein coding section of genome
And no superpowers yet... :(
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Total bases: 3,079,843,747
Y Chromosome: 57,741,652
3,079,843,747 / 57,741,652 = 53.338...
so about one 53rd
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH taking from the summary the figure of 10.149.073 bases examined we get 1/303.5 of the bases covered, so either peter303 was just a bit sloppy doing the write-up or managed by fluke to get almost exactly the correct figure. I'm inclined to be charitable and go with the former.
That cant be right (Score:4, Funny)
That cant be generally true otherwise all Chinese people would look identical. oh wait...
"All humans are mutants" (Score:2)
Weird Headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Rather than making me think that all humans are mutants, this made me think: Wow, over a runtime of 204 years, the DNA copying process has an accuracy of 99.99988%, or an error rate of only 0.00012%.
I think we'll be hard-pressed to replicate that level of awesomeness in computers anytime soon.
Re:Weird Headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, we do all the time.
The diploid human genome is 8 gigabases. Each base encodes 2 bits of data. That is 4GB of data per genome. Let's say that a gamete is produced after 1000 generations of cells from the fertilized egg (no idea what the right number is, but I suspect that the true figure is lower). That means that 4TB of data is being copied, with an error rate of 450 bits.
If I want I can set up two 4TB raids on my server at home (assuming I had more disk space), and issue the command dd if=/dev/mdx of=/dev/mdy bs=1M count=4000000. Then I could do a diff on the two volumes. I'd be shocked if they had any errors at all.
These kinds of error rates are actually not all that uncommon with computers.
Now, the 204 year bit sounds impressive, but it isn't like a piece of DNA lasted 204 years without any decay. Instead it was copied repeatedly over that time. If I copied that 4TB hard drive once every 25 years (generation time) onto a brand new drive (assuming that you could keep making them compatible) I don't think that getting the data across 200 years without any bit-flips is really that tall of an order. Sure, technology will change, but that really is a different matter, and I doubt that any commodity computer technology used in the next 200 years will do any worse than what we have today.
Error rates (Score:3, Funny)
If you turn off the error correction and the sparing of unusable sectors, you would indeed be shocked. Here's an idea, buy some of those video disk drives that Seagate makes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That might be relevant if there wasn't error correction in DNA copying as well. The DNA success is with error correction.
The flaw in his idea is that hard drives don't make it 25yrs. He data would never make it to the copy process. But then, our DNA is copied far more often than every 25 years as well, it copied thousands of times a day. So maybe the real comparison would be copying the data from his raid back and forth thousands of times a day for 25 years.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Now, the 204 year bit sounds impressive, but it isn't like a piece of DNA lasted 204 years without any decay. Instead it was copied repeatedly over that time. If I copied that 4TB hard drive once every 25 years (generation time) onto a brand new drive (assuming that you could keep making them compatible) I don't think that getting the data across 200 years without any bit-flips is really that tall of an order.
Yeah, but can you get the drives to make their own replacement drives every 25 years?
Re:Weird Headline (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the 204 year bit sounds impressive, but it isn't like a piece of DNA lasted 204 years without any decay. Instead it was copied repeatedly over that time. If I copied that 4TB hard drive once every 25 years (generation time) onto a brand new drive (assuming that you could keep making them compatible) I don't think that getting the data across 200 years without any bit-flips is really that tall of an order. Sure, technology will change, but that really is a different matter, and I doubt that any commodity computer technology used in the next 200 years will do any worse than what we have today.
Actually, it's more than copying the drive once every 25 years, it's making a copy of data on the drive many times each day -- some where around the 100,000th copy of the drive randomly choose a copy to keep and start the process over again. With that kind of usage on a drive, the failure rate (let alone error rate) will be _much_ higher.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> 4TB hard drive once every 25 years (generation time) onto a brand new drive
Nope. Literally, its copying Y Chromosome data over and over trillions of times in sperm cells, one of which is then chosen at random for propagation to the next generation, where this process repeats.
Try that with your 4 TB RAID setup. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We already do - that's why optical media typically incorporates ECC of some kind. We can't write data at those densities without some loss, which we need to correct for (and we do so in a way that is definitely more efficient than is used for DNA).
The only advantage DNA really has is storage density. We definitely don't get to the level of 2 bits per 600 hydrogen atoms worth of mass.
Re: (Score:2)
So the successful rate is high for this highly conserved region of successful copies, but what about the non-successful mutations? E.g., All the stocks that my grandfather invested in 1900 and that are still around today, have made me a lot of money. He had a great accuracy investing rate.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, over a runtime of 204 years, the DNA copying process has an accuracy of 99.99988%, or an error rate of only 0.00012%.
While I agree that the level of change is reasonably slow, I think you've taken the conclusion a bit too far in inferring the observed rate of change matches transcription accuracy.
The reason I would be cautious about extending observed mutation rate to infer transcription accuracy is that there is likely to be significant selection bias, similar to how "old furniture" always appears to be great quality (because anything that isn't great quality is in a landfill). Any fatal mutations would never progres
Re: (Score:2)
Rather than making me think that all humans are mutants, this made me think: Wow, over a runtime of 204 years, the DNA copying process has an accuracy of 99.99988%, or an error rate of only 0.00012%.
I think we'll be hard-pressed to replicate that level of awesomeness in computers anytime soon.
Yeah. That is like reading an study entitled "99.99988% of bears are toilet trained" and coming up with the headline "New study show that bears crap in the woods!"
Re: (Score:2)
Did you include all the defective copies that resulted in no ancestors? Otherwise, I can easily claim 100% fidelity in nth-generation copies of some data by eliminating the defective copies.
A more interesting variation should be done (Score:4, Interesting)
Cause of mutations? Speculation is not proof. (Score:2)
That would be an interesting direction of investigation.
Quote from the press release: [sanger.ac.uk] "Fortunately, most of these [mutations] are harmless and have no apparent effect on our health or appearance." They don't know that. That is ENTIRELY speculation.
WOW (Score:4, Informative)
Try Alabama (Score:5, Funny)
Try this in Alabama, where they can use the terms wife,mother,and daughter interchangeably.
so ... (Score:2)
That's off to the sewers to all of you, mutants !
so females evolve faster? (Score:3, Funny)
if the y chromosome remains relatively unchanged, and the X is subject to cross splicing with other x chromosomes (from either parent) that must mean that females at least as far as the sex-linked traits are concerned) evolves much faster than males, since there's rarely any opportunity for diversity in the Y chromosome?
So next time a woman calls you "barbaric" etc you can say Got that right!
Re:so females evolve faster? (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, the X evolves faster than the Y, and as men only get one X, anything on a single X becomes FAR more important to the men then it is to the women. It is only things that are on BOTH X chromosomes that are important to women.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, but as a previous poster said- the Y chromosome is only 1/300 of the total gene pool I posses. So .333% is slower to evolve, not everything that I am.
Are we not men? (Score:2, Funny)
Too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
We've already taken control of our own evolution, for better or worse:
Does anyone else see the conflict of interest inherent in that statement? This is what we humans do: we change the system before we even understand it. We try to "cure" autism before we even grasp its genetic or evolutionary significance.
We won't ever be able to get an accurate answer to this question: we've already been busy contaminating the evidence. We worry about seeding Mars or other planets with terrestrial microbes before we get a chance to conclusively rule out independent signs of life, but we think nothing of poisoning our own genetic well before we even understand what's down there and why.
"Despite many generations of separation" (Score:4, Insightful)
7-10 generations isn't that many...
Y chromosome is special (Score:4, Interesting)
The Y chromosome [wikipedia.org] doesn't get to recombine [wikipedia.org], so measuring the mutation rate of the Y chromosome only gives us a limited understanding of mutations in general.
Lack of recombination means you don't get to measure mutations that consist of genes being brought together for the first time in an individual. It also eliminates entire classes of accidental mutations. On the other hand, it removes the opportunity for some types of in-cell DNA repair [wikipedia.org].
Furthermore, the Y chromosome is less interesting than most. It contains very few working genes, precisely because it is not subject to the most important [wikipedia.org] DNA repair mechanism of all: sexual reproduction.
nonsense "science" (Score:2)
Using a tiny, well-conserved region of DNA to extrapolate genome-wide mutation activity is almost meaningless.
Are there more, fewer, or the same proportion of "jumping genes" on that chromosome as the larger genome?
What are the relative proportions of the DNA bases? Some base substitutions are more common than others in SNPs, so if the selected region of the genome is more, or less, rich than the overall genome it will be more, or less, likely to experience mutation.
Re: (Score:2)
Any rate would be slow enough for them to use as propoganda. The thing is not to go "zomg, they have propoganda" but instead to just ignore them and get on with applying the scientific method. Remember, the key to science is to never ever ever say "I know exactly how it works" instead to say "hey, I have decent evidence that this is how it works", and to be prepared to scratch/adapt your theory at any moment when some contradictory evidence comes along.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if it's slow enough -- the ID crowd will either cite it as "evidence" that "evolution !exists" or they will say something like "God^H^H^H The Designer is clearly controlling [bullshit][bullshit][bullshit]". Those people have no shame and no logic.
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if it was ammo, would you really listen to someone who believed that humans were formed from dust or a clot of blood and continue to believe the parlor tricks of old mystical texts?
Say anything you want to support the ID crowd, but the only argument they have is faith. Faith is meaningless for science.
When it comes down to it, the most faithful do not go to see their priest if their baby is sick. They take it to a doctor, because science and medicine work, and no matter how much they want to deny it,
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Depends on who you ask... Some of the "most faithful" let their baby die a slow painful death while they pray, dance with a rattlesnake and babble incoherently.
Re: (Score:2)
Say anything you want to support the ID crowd, but the only argument they have is faith. Faith is meaningless for science.
When it comes down to it, the most faithful do not go to see their priest if their baby is sick. They take it to a doctor, because science and medicine work, and no matter how much they want to deny it, faith does not.
If only this were true. Children unfortunately die every year because parents rely on faith healing instead of actual medicine- and in some states in the US, are protected by law when they do so.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if it was ammo, would you really listen to someone who believed that humans were formed from dust or a clot of blood and continue to believe the parlor tricks of old mystical texts?
I wouldn't, but some of my friends, relatives do (In addition to several of our lawmakers). I also do not avoid being an evangelist for what I consider rational thought. Therefore, I do care what BS is flowing through the collective minds of the religious crowd. It is akin to me knowing a lot more about homoeopathy than several of my acquaintances who actually believe in its efficacy. These people actually feed their babies sugar pills (I do not see how placebo effect can help babies even if that is the on
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They take it to a doctor, because science and medicine work
This is still having faith in the ability of the doctor. We need to use more discriminatory words than "faith", I think.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As this experiment shows, you might have accumulated a few hundred single nucleotide polymorphisms- differences at one base pair- in the lineage from
Re: (Score:2)
Evaluating whether this supports evolution is a personal experience,you insensitive clod!
On a more serious note, this is not my only response. In fact, the first part of my post queries if these 'mutaitons' are the same ones that contribute to evolution. And no, I sincerely do not know the answer from the information given in the article.
Also, the reason for worrying about this being ammo for ID proponents is because high on their agenda is to sound legitimate by using scientific data to mask the hand wavin
Re: (Score:2)
Bah, pessimist!
In Soviet Russia, mutants fork YOU!
In Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia mutates YOU!
In Soviet Russia, Chernobyl mutates YOU!
In Soviet Russia, is no mutation. Is 5-year plan, which just happens to take a generation in reality.
In Soviet Russia, comrade [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with amplifying the material in this ma