Two more blows against ID
Evolution caught in action
New Scientist: A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.
And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.
Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.
The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens
How it all likely started
Life’s Raw Materials May Have Come From The Stars, Scientists Confirm
ScienceDaily (Jun. 13, 2008) — Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.
The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research provides evidence that life’s raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.
The materials they have found include the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.
The team discovered the molecules in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969.
Technorati Tags: evolution, caught in the act, Escherichia coli, genetic material, found in meteorite fragments, extraterrestrial, uracil, xanthine, DNA, RNA, nucleobases, science, ID, Intelligent Design
