Evolution....

[Blake]

" 41 years ago, a team of archaeologists working in Ethiopia discovered the remnants of an ancient skeleton that became a vital missing piece in the puzzle of how humans came to be.

Nicknamed*"Lucy", the skeleton was dated at 3.2 million years old - the oldest known example of a bipedal primate and a crucial stepping stone between apes and homo sapiens...."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/12013826/Who-is-Lucy-the-Australopithecus.html

[Blake]

" Based on the skeleton's pelvic structure, they deduced that it was female, and gave it the name "Lucy", after Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, the Beatles song that was playing back at their camp.

Although Lucy had many of the characteristics of chimpanzees, such as long arms and a protruding belly, the skeleton showed that she primarily walked upright, the earliest example of such a primate. Bipedalism is seen as one of the key distinctions between the Homo genus and Pan, the family of chimpanzee species.

Before her discovery, scientists had speculated that bipedalism came alongside the development of larger brains, but Lucy's was barely larger than those of chimpanzees."

[Avante]

Imagine your life is so fucked up ya come here to chase Avante around, ha~~~~~ How sad is that?

Wow~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok ya want a cool music mix, here it is.

On the Radio...Marc Cohn
Kit Carson...Bruce Cockburn
Out in the Wasteland...James McMurtry
5:15..Chris Isaak
Ole 55....Tom Waits
Volcano...Damien Rice
Wildwood...Paul Weller
Trouble...Ray Lamontagne
Paper Sack...Mark Lemhouse
Purgatory Road...Ray Wylie Hubbard
Ashes to Ashes...Steve Earle
Suzanne...Leonard Cohen

[Blake]

Imagine your life is so fucked up ya come here to chase Avante around, ha~~~~~ How sad is that?

Wow~~~~~~

nobody forced you to follow me into my thread, fatty.

Sad old fat obsessed and pathetic.

[Avante]

Is this sad to watch or what? I don't even talk to this freak and here he is CONSTANTLY, just how long and hard does this freak suck anyway?

Imagine having to follow posters around from thread to thread who ignore you, wow~~~~~ I'm never going to talk with this idiot, and have told him that, but.....here he is...AGAIN~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Easy to see why this freak wife dumped his freaky ass.

Here he comes again, I GUARANTEE IT~~~~~

[pgardn]

Is this sad to watch or what? I don't even talk to this freak and here he is CONSTANTLY, just how long and hard does this freak suck anyway?

Imagine having to follow posters around from thread to thread who ignore you, wow~~~~~ I'm never going to talk with this idiot, and have told him that, but.....here he is...AGAIN~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Easy to see why this freak wife dumped his freaky ass.

Here he comes again, I GUARANTEE IT~~~~~

No.

It is I.

Wishing to know how you would set up lane assignments for the fastest amphibians on Earth.

Lane 1: The Axolotl- This cat is huge, ugly, and was timed at 4 cm/s on a moss ridden surface.

Take over..

[Avante]

No.

It is I.

Wishing to know how you would set up lane assignments for the fastest amphibians on Earth.

Lane 1: The Axolotl- This cat is huge, ugly, and was timed at 4 cm/s on a moss ridden surface.

Take over..

Hmmmm?

1.The Horned Frog...Ray Stewart Jamaica
2.The Rattler....Bullet Bob Hayes
3.The Tiger...Stanley Floyd
4.The Cougar...Carl Lewis
5.The Wolverine...Butch Woolfolk
6.The Buffalo...Cliff Branch
7.The Bulldog..Mel Lattany
8.The Wildcat...Jim Golliday

[Blake]

Imagine having to follow posters around from thread to thread who ignore you, wow~~~~~ I'm never going to talk with this idiot, and have told him that, but.....here he is...AGAIN~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I start a thread and here you are claiming you're ignoring me. Again.

And you'll do it again. I guarantee.

You're a shit stain that's ruining a perfectly good news story thread. It's what you are and what you do.

[Avante]

Here it is AGAIN, just like I GUARANTEED.....I own this little bitch, he belongs to me.

[Avante]

You don't take another posters thread title, that is a no no.

[Blake]

You don't take another posters thread title, that is a no no.

Lol you think you're the first person to start an evolution thread? Easy money you'd post again.

And now I command you to post yet again.

I'll give you a choice: you can cry about me some more, post a stupid YouTube, a lame list or do a translation.

Go.

[RandomGuy]

Evidence of evolution: Ring species


In biology, a ring species is a connected series of neighbouring populations, each of which can interbreed with closely sited related populations, but for which there exist at least two "end" populations in the series, which are too distantly related to interbreed, though there is a potential gene flow between each "linked" population. Such non-breeding, though genetically connected, "end" populations may co-exist in the same region thus closing a "ring". The German term Rassenkreis, meaning a ring of populations, is also used.

Ring species provide important evidence of evolution in that they illustrate what happens over time as populations genetically diverge, and are special because they represent in living populations what normally happens over time between long deceased ancestor populations and living populations, in which the intermediates have become extinct. Richard Dawkins observes that ring species "are only showing us in the spatial dimension something that must always happen in the time dimension."[1]

Formally, the issue is that interfertility (ability to interbreed) is not a transitive relation – if A can breed with B, and B can breed with C, it does not follow that A can breed with C – and thus does not define an equivalence relation. A ring species is a species that exhibits a counterexample to transitivity.[2]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Ring_species_diagram.svg/300px-Ring_species_diagram.svg.png

One would expect to see such patterns of speciation were evolution true, which is what we find.

[pgardn]

Hmmmm?

1.The Horned Frog...Ray Stewart Jamaica
2.The Rattler....Bullet Bob Hayes
3.The Tiger...Stanley Floyd
4.The Cougar...Carl Lewis
5.The Wolverine...Butch Woolfolk
6.The Buffalo...Cliff Branch
7.The Bulldog..Mel Lattany
8.The Wildcat...Jim Golliday

I said amphibians. You listed not one amphibian.

[MultiTroll]

http://www.strangekidsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/great-pumpkin-4.png

[Avante]

I said amphibians. You listed not one amphibian.

I do what...I...want, fuck what you want.

How about the All Time Texas Longhorns 100m?

lane

1.Dean Smith....Olympian
2.Tony Jones...NFL
3.Herkie Walls...NFL
4.Johnny Jones...Olympian/NFL
5.Amar Johnson
6.Jamaal Charles...NFL
7.Jason Leach
8.Brenden Christian

Would ya believe that doesn't compare to Texas Southern, UTEP, TCU, Houston or Texas A&M?

[Blake]

I do what...I...want, fuck what you want.

How about the All Time Texas Longhorns 100m?

lane

1.Dean Smith....Olympian
2.Tony Jones...NFL
3.Herkie Walls...NFL
4.Johnny Jones...Olympian/NFL
5.Amar Johnson
6.Jamaal Charles...NFL
7.Jason Leach
8.Brenden Christian

Would ya believe that doesn't compare to Texas Southern, UTEP, TCU, Houston or Texas A&M?

Good boy. Now do another and then roll over and play dead.

[Blake]

http://www.strangekidsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/great-pumpkin-4.png

Is that supposed to be you?

[pgardn]

I do what...I...want, fuck what you want.

How about the All Time Texas Longhorns 100m?

lane

1.Dean Smith....Olympian
2.Tony Jones...NFL
3.Herkie Walls...NFL
4.Johnny Jones...Olympian/NFL
5.Amar Johnson
6.Jamaal Charles...NFL
7.Jason Leach
8.Brenden Christian

Would ya believe that doesn't compare to Texas Southern, UTEP, TCU, Houston or Texas A&M?


No you don't, you will play my music.

Name an American Sprinter who Passed on the Olympics in the 1940s?

[Avante]

How about a All Time Texas 4x1 relay? Something only I can do.

lane

1.Texas Southern...Henry Neal...Robert Taylor...Augustine Olobia...Jimmy Hines
2.Texas A&M...Andre Cason...Curtis Dickey...Floyd Heard...Rod Richardson
3.Baylor...Jacob Norman...Everett Walker...Michael Johnson...Trayvon Bromell
4.Houston...Stanley Floyd...Leroy Burrell...Joe DeLoach...Carl Lewis
5.TCU...Jon Drummond...Kim Collins...Darvis Patton...Ray Stewart
6.UTEP...Jerome Deal...Olapade Adeniken...Oba Thompson...Churandy Martina
7.ACU...Micky Grimes...Mark Witherspoon....Bobby Morrow...Bill Woodhouse
8.Texas...Tony Jones...Dean Smith...Sanjay Givans..Johnny Jones

[Avante]

No you don't, you will play my music.

Name an American Sprinter who Passed on the Olympics in the 1940s?

I sorta doubt that amigio. How about the All Time Defensive Backs 100m?

lane

1.Lawrence Johnson...Wisconsin/Browns
2.James Trapp...Clemson/Raiders
3.Deion Sanders...FSU/pick one
4.Darrell Green...Tex A&I/Redskins
5.Leonard Lyles...Louisville.Colts
6.Terrence Newman...Kansas St/Cowboys
7.Clarence Childs...FAMU/Giants
8.Stanford Routt...Houston/Raiders

And, there is no sprinter who turned down a shot to run in an Olympics, so why lie?

[pgardn]

I sorta doubt that amigio. How about the All Time defensive Backs 100m?

lane

1.Lawrence Johnson...Wisconsin
2.James Trapp...Clemson
3.Deion Sanders...FSU
4.Darrell Green...Tex A&I
5.Leonard Lyles...Louisville
6.Terrence Newman...Kansas St
7.Clarence Childs...FAMU
8.Stanford Routt...Houston

And, there is no sprinter who turned down a shot to run in an Olympics, so why lie?


You can't do it.
The sprinting Savant and child rapist can't do the right thing.

[Avante]

You can't do it.
The sprinting Savant and child rapist can't do the right thing.

You find a child rapist you blow that sick mutherfucker totally away, ok? What about that don't you get? I was a sailor in a bar, ok stupid? Nobody was raping children, ok ya dumb fuck?

And, there is no sprinter who turned down a shot at the Olympics, so why continue to lie about it?

[Avante]

Here's something only I can do (one of many) you give me a college or NFL team and I will give you there all time 4x1 team if they have one. I do need....9.5/10.45...talent level.

This is amazing.

Oakland Raiders

lane

1.Jacoby Ford...Tim Dwight...Stanford Routt...James Trapp
2.Cliff Branch...Alexander Wright...James Jett...Michael Bennett
3.Bo Jackson...Justin Fargas...Ron Brown...Bo Roberson
4.Willie Gault...Rod Barksdale...Sam Graddy...Napolean Kaufman

[Blake]

Here's something only I can do (one of many) you give me a college or NFL team and I will give you there all time 4x1 team if they have one. I do need....9.5/10.45...talent level.

This is amazing.

Oakland Raiders

lane

1.Jacoby Ford...Tim Dwight...Stanford Routt...James Trapp
2.Cliff Branch...Alexander Wright...James Jett...Michael Bennett
3.Bo Jackson...Justin Fargas...Ron Brown...Bo Roberson
4.Willie Gault...Rod Barksdale...Sam Graddy...Napolean Kaufman

Dance monkey.

Dance like I'm giving you a banana for a reward.

[Avante]

translation

Wow! How do you do that? Ok, so how about the All Time TCU 100m?


No problem little shit.

All Time TCU 100m

lane

1.Charles Silmon
2.Kim Collins St Kitts
3.Darvis Patton
4.Ray Stewart Jamaica
5.Jon Drummond
6.Michael Frater Jamaica
7.Percival Spencer Jamaica
8.Phil Epps

All but Epps are sub10.00 sprinters, while no Big10 school in history has even one. TCU also holds the NCAA 4x1 record.

[SpursforSix]

I do what...I...want, fuck what you want.

How about the All Time Texas Longhorns 100m?

lane

1.Dean Smith....Olympian
2.Tony Jones...NFL
3.Herkie Walls...NFL
4.Johnny Jones...Olympian/NFL
5.Amar Johnson
6.Jamaal Charles...NFL
7.Jason Leach
8.Brenden Christian

Would ya believe that doesn't compare to Texas Southern, UTEP, TCU, Houston or Texas A&M?

I would be shocked if Eric Metcalf doesn't make that list.

[Avante]

I would be shocked if Eric Metcalf doesn't make that list.

Eric Metcalf was a long jumper not a sprinter, just like his dad Terry who was actually a better running back. Obviously Eric had good speed but his game was more about quicks and agility. No he doesn't belong in that race, his 10.3ish way too slow.

Check out his dad Terry.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMddevnDyb0

He was out of Long Beach State.

Eric 's 27-8 the longest jump (NCAA) ever by an NFL player. Terry was a 25-11 jumper.

I do get a kick out of the internet. How at first everyone tries to...."you Googled that"...ha~ Then finally they finally figure it out, yep, the real deal here, that legit know it all. Which people just can't stand, hahaha!!!!!!! Yep, human nature.

[MultiTroll]

Is that supposed to be you?
It's you.
I believe in creation, remember?

Only if you see yourself in me. ?

[HI-FI]

translation

Wow! How do you do that? Ok, so how about the All Time TCU 100m?


No problem little shit.

All Time TCU 100m

lane

1.Charles Silmon
2.Kim Collins St Kitts
3.Darvis Patton
4.Ray Stewart Jamaica
5.Jon Drummond
6.Michael Frater Jamaica
7.Percival Spencer Jamaica
8.Phil Epps

All but Epps are sub10.00 sprinters, while no Big10 school in history has even one. TCU also holds the NCAA 4x1 record.
where do you rank Mick Taylor against blues guitarists from the 70s?

[Avante]

where do you rank Mick Taylor against blues guitarists from the 70s?

Anyone who can play with John Mayall the father of British blues and the Stones belongs in a special place. Mick Taylor is right there with Eric Clapton and Peter Green in my book. Both of them also played with Mayall.

Ya start with Lonnie Johnson in 1925 as far as blues guitarists go, with Tampa Red, Scrapper Blackwell, Robert Johnson standing out prior to the 40's, then here came T-Bone Walker and the electric guitar. Buddy Guy taking it further. Then here came the white rockers and well....ya know the rest of the story.

[Blake]

It's you.
I believe in creation, remember?

Only if you see yourself in me. ?

Right, I don't believe in a great pumpkin creator until I see it. But you do. You're Linus.

[Blake]

Eric Metcalf was a long jumper not a sprinter, just like his dad Terry who was actually a better running back. Obviously Eric had good speed but his game was more about quicks and agility. No he doesn't belong in that race, his 10.3ish way too slow.

Check out his dad Terry.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMddevnDyb0

He was out of Long Beach State.

Eric 's 27-8 the longest jump (NCAA) ever by an NFL player. Terry was a 25-11 jumper.

I do get a kick out of the internet. How at first everyone tries to...."you Googled that"...ha~ Then finally they finally figure it out, yep, the real deal here, that legit know it all. Which people just can't stand, hahaha!!!!!!! Yep, human nature.

Fat ol troll doing what I tell him to do

[Avante]

Poor little shit, not a brain in his fucking head.

Surprised the dumb fuck hasn't told me how many yards Derrick Henry is averaging per carry, hahahahahaha!!!!! Stupid fuck~ The idiot actually thought ..one..game, meant something, hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, while here...

Look for Seahawks RB Thomas Rawls to..WOW!...us, the cat has some serious jets. Now smart people will give that a few weeks, idiots like this Blake freak will...see see he didn't have such a great game vs Pitt....ha~~~~~~~~~~ Too dumb to give things some time.

[RandomGuy]

The definition
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.

The explanation
Biological evolution is not simply a matter of change over time. Lots of things change over time: trees lose their leaves, mountain ranges rise and erode, but they aren't examples of biological evolution because they don't involve descent through genetic inheritance.

The central idea of biological evolution is that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor, just as you and your cousins share a common grandmother.

Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02

[Blake]

Recent fossil discoveries from the Carboniferous and Permian periods — around 300 million years ago — show that some other amphibian groups may have regenerated legs and tails in a way similar to salamanders, suggesting that all land mammals once carried within them the ability to regenerate limbs.

That ability was lost through time.

"The fossil record shows that the form of limb development of modern salamanders and the high regenerative capacities are not something salamander-specific, but instead were much more widespread and may even represent the primitive condition for all four-legged vertebrates” lead author Nadia Fröbisch*said in a release.

“The high regenerative capacities were lost in the evolutionary history of the different tetrapod lineages, at least once, but likely multiple times independently, among them also the lineage leading to mammals.”....



http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/mammals-could-once-regrow-limbs-151027.htm

[RandomGuy]

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/mammals-could-once-regrow-limbs-151027.htm

Interesting. If one could identify the genes, that would have some fascinating implications as we start editing our genome on a routine basis.

[RandomGuy]

Long Before Trees Overtook the Land, Earth Was Covered by Giant Mushrooms


From around 420 to 350 million years ago, when land plants were still the relatively new kids on the evolutionary block and “the tallest trees stood just a few feet high,” giant spires of life poked from the Earth. “The ancient organism boasted trunks up to 24 feet (8 meters) high and as wide as three feet (one meter),” said National Geographic in 2007. With the help of a fossil dug up in Saudi Arabia scientists finally figured out what the giant creature was: a fungus. (We think.)

The towering fungus spires would have stood out against a landscape scarce of such giants, said New Scientist in 2007.

“A 6-metre fungus would be odd enough in the modern world, but at least we are used to trees quite a bit bigger,” says Boyce. “Plants at that time were a few feet tall, invertebrate animals were small, and there were no terrestrial vertebrates. This fossil would have been all the more striking in such a diminutive landscape.”


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/long-before-trees-overtook-the-land-earth-was-covered-by-giant-mushrooms-13709647/#1fTPmK23FSCIpBdH.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: smithsonianMag on Twitter

http://public.media.smithsonianmag.com/legacy_blog/07_17_2013_prototaxites.jpg

Pardon the size, but it seemed like a good illustration of the organism (collective?) mentioned.

[RandomGuy]

Read an interesting bit today about a russian family that lived in Siberia alone for 40 years:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/

when Dmitry reached manhood, that they first trapped animals for their meat and skins. Lacking guns and even bows, they could hunt only by digging traps or pursuing prey across the mountains until the animals collapsed from exhaustion. Dmitry built up astonishing endurance, and could hunt barefoot in winter, sometimes returning to the hut after several days, having slept in the open in 40 degrees of frost, a young elk across his shoulders.

Made me rather mindful of some of the things that some evolutionary biologists have speculated about our sweat glands, and the kinds of things that a cooling system would allow for. Seems that left to our instincts that endurance running does what we evolved to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis


Endurance running and persistence hunting[edit]
Persistence hunting is "a form of pursuit hunting in which humans use endurance running during the midday heat to drive animals into hyperthermia and exhaustion so they can easily be killed".[2] Many question persistence hunting's plausibility when bow and arrow and other technology were so much more efficient. However, in the Early Stone Age (ESA), spears were only sharpened wood, and hominins had not begun using tools. The lack of spearheads or bows meant they could only hunt from very close range—between 6 and 10 meters.[6] Hominins thus must have developed a way to stab prey from close range without causing serious bodily harm to themselves. Persistence hunting makes killing an animal easier by first bringing it to exhaustion, so that it can no longer retaliate violently.

Persistence hunters work by hunting in the middle of the day, when it is hottest. Hunters choose a single target prey and chase it at a speed between its trot and gallop, which is extremely inefficient for the animal. The hunter then continues pursuing over a period of hours, during which he may lose sight of the animal. In this case, the hunter must use tracks and an understanding of the animal to continue the chase. The prey eventually overheats and becomes unable to continue fleeing. Homo, which does not overheat as quickly because of its superior thermoregulation capabilities, is then able to stab the prey while it is incapacitated and cannot attack.


Fascinating bit that.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/11/polls_americans_believe_in_evolution_less_in_creat ionism.html

Evolution Is Finally Winning Out Over Creationism
A majority of young people endorse the scientific explanation of how humans evolved.

[Blake]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/11/polls_americans_believe_in_evolution_less_in_creat ionism.html

Evolution Is Finally Winning Out Over Creationism
A majority of young people endorse the scientific explanation of how humans evolved.

I think we can least in part thank the internet.

I'm thinking fifty years from now, creationism will be completely wiped out in the public school arena.

[RandomGuy]

I think we can least in part thank the internet.

I'm thinking fifty years from now, creationism will be completely wiped out in the public school arena.

I think you underestimate the power of human stupidity. Avante may have children to pass on his unique form of lazy/stupid in that regard.

[pgardn]

I think you underestimate the power of human stupidity. Avante may have children to pass on his unique form of lazy/stupid in that regard.

[Blake]

I think you underestimate the power of human stupidity. Avante may have children to pass on his unique form of lazy/stupid in that regard.

You could be right.

I think though with the speed at which we receive information worldwide and the developments in evolutionary science, there'll be a breaking point where even creationists will have to resign the fact that the world just isn't flat.

And I'm not saying they won't then say God ordained evolution, I'm just saying they'll finally give up on irreducible complexity

[RandomGuy]

You could be right.

I think though with the speed at which we receive information worldwide and the developments in evolutionary science, there'll be a breaking point where even creationists will have to resign the fact that the world just isn't flat.

And I'm not saying they won't then say God ordained evolution, I'm just saying they'll finally give up on irreducible complexity

Faith tends to be highly evidence resistant.

Took hundreds of years before the earth went around the sun, and even today there are certain idgits who think that science is lying about that.

[SpursforSix]

Pardon the size,

If I had a penny every time I had to say that...

[RandomGuy]

If I had a penny every time I had to say that...

(rimshot)

[RandomGuy]

Dinosauromorph research sheds light on dinosaur evolution


Dinosauromorphs roamed the Earth almost 10 million years earlier than previous estimates: study
By Torah Kachur, CBC News Posted: Dec 11, 2015 11:36 AM ET Last Updated: Dec 11, 2015 12:00 PM ET

What are dinosauromorphs?

They are a large class of creatures that were dinosaurs' ancestors.

Even though they may be new to most of us, they have been known for a long time. Some of the more important fossils and even footprints have been discovered in places like Argentina, Poland and Texas. You can consider them primitive dinosaurs.

What did these creatures look like?

Like dinosaurs, but in a way, more lizard-like.

But with some important distinguishing characteristics. They moved with more of a swayed gait, like the way a crocodile moves, because they didn't have ball and socket hip joints that are found in dinosaurs.

Some of them were bipedal, walking on two legs, while others were quadrapedal.

They tended to be smaller than the giants that dinosaurs were and also were weaker. They just didn't have the bulk that we associate with dinosaurs. So basically they were wimpy dinosaurs.

What are the main findings of this new research?

A new study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences where researchers went to Argentina to look at the timeline of the dinosauromorphs.

There is an area in Argentina called the Chaneres formation where a treasure trove of fossils have been found. One layer of the rock there has given rise to dinosaur bones, while a deeper layer has revealed dinosauromorph fossils as well.

What are the implications of this research?

There are two big shifts in thought that this paper has created.

First, this means that dinosaurs evolved a lot faster than previously thought. The transition from dinosauromorph-dominated landscape to a dinosaur world was thought to have taken over 15 million years. That was simply the difference in the age of the most recent dinosauromorph ever dated and the earliest true dinosaur dated.

But now, the idea that it was only five million years is significant this means that dinosaurs really did hit the ground running. They obviously made a rapid rise to dominate the Earth as much, and for as long as they did.

The biggest change that palaeontologists think allowed dinosaurs to catapult to the top of the food chain was the evolution of much more powerful hind limbs. This made them scary, fast and powerful. So all of sudden they were better hunters than anything else on the planet at the time. And, voila, the dinosaur age.

It also changes what and how palaeontologists think about the origins of the dinosauromorphs.

See, for as long as dinosauromorphs were dated, it was thought that they rose to prominence after the great Permian extinction event. The biggest die-off in Earth's history happened 252 million years ago. Ninety per cent of sea life and 70 per cent of terrestrial life was wiped out. This created a vacuum that it was assumed that dinosauromorphs and their ancestors were primed to fill.
...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dinosauromorphs-study-dinosaur-evolution-1.3359762

[RandomGuy]

Small fish species evolved rapidly following 1964 Alaska earthquake

EUGENE, Ore. -- Dec. 14, 2015 -- Evolution is usually thought of as occurring over long time periods, but it also can happen quickly. Consider a tiny fish whose transformation after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was uncovered by University of Oregon scientists and their University of Alaska collaborators.

The fish, seawater-native threespine stickleback, in just decades experienced changes in both their genes and visible external traits such as eyes, shape, color, bone size and body armor when they adapted to survive in fresh water. The earthquake -- 9.2 on the Richter scale and second highest ever recorded -- caused geological uplift that captured marine fish in newly formed freshwater ponds on islands in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska south of Anchorage.

The findings -- detailed in a paper available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- are important for understanding the impacts of sudden environmental change on organisms in nature, says UO biologist William Cresko, whose lab led the National Science Foundation-funded research.

"We've now moved the timescale of the evolution of stickleback fish to decades, and it may even be sooner than that," said Cresko, who also is the UO's associate vice president for research and a member of the UO Institute of Ecology and Evolution. "In some of the populations that we studied we found evidence of changes in fewer than even 10 years. For the field, it indicates that evolutionary change can happen quickly, and this likely has been happening with other organisms as well."

Survival in a new environment is not new for stickleback, a small silver-colored fish found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. A Cresko-led team, using a rapid genome-sequencing technology (RAD-seq) created at the UO with collaborator Eric Johnson, showed in 2010 how stickleback had evolved genetically to survive in fresh water after glaciers receded 13,000 years ago. For the new study, researchers asked how rapidly such adaptation could happen.

The newly published research involved stickleback collected by University of Alaska researchers from freshwater ponds on hard-to-reach marine islands that were seismically thrust up several meters in the 1964 quake.

RAD-seq technology again was used to study the new samples. Genetic changes were similar to those found in the earlier study, but they had occurred in less than 50 years in multiple, separate stickleback populations. Stickleback, the researchers concluded, have evolved as a species over the long haul with regions of their genomes alternatively honed for either freshwater or marine life.

"This research perhaps opens a window on how climate change could affect all kinds of species," said Susan L. Bassham, a Cresko lab senior research associate who also was co-author of the 2010 paper. "What we've shown here is that organisms -- even vertebrates, with long generation times -- can respond very fast to environmental change.

"And this is not just a plastic change, like becoming tan in the sun; the genome itself is being rapidly reshaped," she said. "Stickleback fish can adapt on this time scale because the species as a whole has evolved, over millions of years, a genetic bag of tricks for invading and surviving in new freshwater habitats. This hidden genetic diversity is always waiting for its chance, in the sea."

Co-authors with Bassham and Cresko on the PNAS paper were Emily A. Lescak of UA-Anchorage and Fairbanks; Julian Catchen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Ofer Gelmond, Frank A. von Hippel and Mary L. Sherbick of UA-Anchorage.

NSF grants DEB0949053 and IOS102728 to Cresko and DEB 0919234 to von Hippel provided the primary funding for the project. National Institutes of Health grant 1R24GM079486-01A1 and the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust also supported Cresko.

The 2010 study appeared in the PLOS Genetics. Earlier this year the journal named the paper as among its Top 10 articles published in its first decade. The study also was detailed in a UO news release.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/small_fish_species_evolved_rapidly_following_1964_ alaska_earthquake-171800

[pgardn]

Small fish species evolved rapidly following 1964 Alaska earthquake

EUGENE, Ore. -- Dec. 14, 2015 -- Evolution is usually thought of as occurring over long time periods, but it also can happen quickly. Consider a tiny fish whose transformation after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was uncovered by University of Oregon scientists and their University of Alaska collaborators.

The fish, seawater-native threespine stickleback, in just decades experienced changes in both their genes and visible external traits such as eyes, shape, color, bone size and body armor when they adapted to survive in fresh water. The earthquake -- 9.2 on the Richter scale and second highest ever recorded -- caused geological uplift that captured marine fish in newly formed freshwater ponds on islands in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska south of Anchorage.

The findings -- detailed in a paper available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences -- are important for understanding the impacts of sudden environmental change on organisms in nature, says UO biologist William Cresko, whose lab led the National Science Foundation-funded research.

"We've now moved the timescale of the evolution of stickleback fish to decades, and it may even be sooner than that," said Cresko, who also is the UO's associate vice president for research and a member of the UO Institute of Ecology and Evolution. "In some of the populations that we studied we found evidence of changes in fewer than even 10 years. For the field, it indicates that evolutionary change can happen quickly, and this likely has been happening with other organisms as well."

Survival in a new environment is not new for stickleback, a small silver-colored fish found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. A Cresko-led team, using a rapid genome-sequencing technology (RAD-seq) created at the UO with collaborator Eric Johnson, showed in 2010 how stickleback had evolved genetically to survive in fresh water after glaciers receded 13,000 years ago. For the new study, researchers asked how rapidly such adaptation could happen.

The newly published research involved stickleback collected by University of Alaska researchers from freshwater ponds on hard-to-reach marine islands that were seismically thrust up several meters in the 1964 quake.

RAD-seq technology again was used to study the new samples. Genetic changes were similar to those found in the earlier study, but they had occurred in less than 50 years in multiple, separate stickleback populations. Stickleback, the researchers concluded, have evolved as a species over the long haul with regions of their genomes alternatively honed for either freshwater or marine life.

"This research perhaps opens a window on how climate change could affect all kinds of species," said Susan L. Bassham, a Cresko lab senior research associate who also was co-author of the 2010 paper. "What we've shown here is that organisms -- even vertebrates, with long generation times -- can respond very fast to environmental change.

"And this is not just a plastic change, like becoming tan in the sun; the genome itself is being rapidly reshaped," she said. "Stickleback fish can adapt on this time scale because the species as a whole has evolved, over millions of years, a genetic bag of tricks for invading and surviving in new freshwater habitats. This hidden genetic diversity is always waiting for its chance, in the sea."

Co-authors with Bassham and Cresko on the PNAS paper were Emily A. Lescak of UA-Anchorage and Fairbanks; Julian Catchen of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Ofer Gelmond, Frank A. von Hippel and Mary L. Sherbick of UA-Anchorage.

NSF grants DEB0949053 and IOS102728 to Cresko and DEB 0919234 to von Hippel provided the primary funding for the project. National Institutes of Health grant 1R24GM079486-01A1 and the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust also supported Cresko.

The 2010 study appeared in the PLOS Genetics. Earlier this year the journal named the paper as among its Top 10 articles published in its first decade. The study also was detailed in a UO news release.

http://www.sciencecodex.com/small_fish_species_evolved_rapidly_following_1964_ alaska_earthquake-171800

Desert Pupfish also a fascinating study as well.
Good stuff.

[RandomGuy]

How bacterial predators evolved to kill other bacteria without harming themselves

A joint study by the labs of Dr Andrew Lovering and Prof Liz Sockett, at the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham, has shown how predatory bacteria protect themselves from the weapons they use in their bacterial killing pathway.

The research, published in Nature Communications, offers insights into early steps in the evolution of bacterial predators and will help to inform new ways of combatting antimicrobial resistance.

A useful predatory bacterium called Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus eats other bacteria (including important pathogens of humans, animals and crops).

It attacks them from inside out using enzymes (called DD-endopeptidases) that first loosen the cell walls of prey bacteria and then cause them to round up like a pufferfish, providing space as a temporary home for the predator.

However, Bdellovibrio also have similar cell walls so why don't they fall victim of their own attack?

The project, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), found that the bacterium uses an ankyrin-type protein called Bd3460 as a shield. It binds to the tip of the enzyme weapons, nullifying their action until they are safely secreted out of the Bdellovibrio and into the prey bacteria.

Dr. Andrew Lovering and Ian Cadby at the University of Birmingham determined the structure of the ankyrin protein using X-ray crystallography and found that that it attaches to two DD-endopeptidase weapons to temporarily deactivate them.

"When I first showed this to Liz, she hit the nail on the head by describing it as a decorative "quiff" on top of the endopeptidase" said Dr Lovering. "This covers up the active site of the enzymes that are used to cut cell walls and offers protection to the Bdellovibrio until these weapons are excreted into the prey."

Carey Lambert, Rob Till and Prof Liz Sockett at The University of Nottingham confirmed the antidote protein's use when the gene responsible for its production was deleted.

Prof Liz Sockett said: "When the Bd3460 gene responsible for antidote production was deleted, the Bdellovibrio had no way of protecting itself from its own weapons. When it attacked harmful bacteria with its cell-wall-damaging enzymes it also felt the effects.

"The Bdellovibrio bacteria lacking the Bd3460 gene tried to invade the bacteria but suddenly rounded up like pufferfish and couldn't complete the invasion -- the fatter predator cell could not enter the prey cell."

This is the first paper to discover a 'self-protection' protein in predatory bacteria.

Prof Liz Sockett added, "Most bacteria are not predatory and so understanding these mechanisms gives us a glimpse of how predation evolved. In this case it seems that the Bd3460 gene was transferred into ancestors of Bdellovibrio, probably when they were beginning to develop as predators."

Commenting on the potential impact of the study, Dr Andrew Lovering added: "If we are to use Bdellovibrio as a therapeutic in the future, we need to understand the mechanisms underpinning prey killing and be sure that any self-protective genes couldn't be acquired by pathogens, causing resistance. Brilliantly, Liz and Carey have demonstrated this did not happen with the bd3460 antidote protein, and Ian and I showed how the mechanism works on predator enzymes only - this is a great inter-university collaboration."

http://www.sciencecodex.com/how_bacterial_predators_evolved_to_kill_other_bact eria_without_harming_themselves-170901

[RandomGuy]

Key Link in Turtle Evolution discovered


An international team of researchers from the United States and Germany have discovered a key missing link in the evolutionary history of turtles. The new extinct species of reptile, Pappochelys, was unearthed in an area that was an ancient lake in southern Germany about 240 million years ago during the Middle Triassic. Its physical traits make it a clear intermediate between two of the earliest known turtles, Eunotosaurus and Odontochelys. Features in the skull of Pappochelys also provide critical evidence that turtles are most closely related to other modern reptiles, such as lizards and snakes. Previously, scientists believed that turtles may have descended from the earliest known reptiles. Additional information is available in the June 24 issue of Nature.

Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Rainer Schoch, curator of fossil amphibians and reptiles at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, studied more than a dozen specimens from Germany that were collected beginning in 2006. Their research focused on the morphological features that set Pappochelys apart from its closest turtle relatives.

“The mystery of how the turtle got its shell has been a long-standing question in evolutionary biology,” said Sues. “In the case of Pappochelys, we see that its belly was protected by an array of rod-like bones, some of which are already fused to each other. Such a stage in the evolution of the turtle shell had long been predicted by embryological research on present-day turtles but had never been observed in fossils—until now.”

The discovery of Pappochelys confirms that the belly portion of the turtle shell, called the plastron, formed through the fusion of rib-like structures and parts of the shoulder girdle.

The new turtle is also noteworthy for the presence of two openings behind the eye socket on each side of the skull and shows that turtles did not evolve from early stem-reptiles, as traditionally thought, but are most closely related to lizards among present-day reptiles. Present-day turtles have lost these openings, but lizards and crocodilians have them.

Pappochelys could fit in the palm of a human hand and grow up to 8 inches in length. It lived in a tropical environment along the shores of a lake in what is now southern Germany. Pappochelys used its tiny, peg-like teeth to feed on small insects and worms and had a long tail, possibly to help with swimming.

The origin and relationships of turtle species have historically been some of the most contentious issues in the study of vertebrate evolution. Modern turtles are strikingly different than their prehistoric precursors, and, for decades, researchers had few representatives of the early phases of turtle evolution from the fossil record. The new discovery and DNA sequencing for the major groups of present-day reptiles now establish where turtles fit on the reptile tree of life.



http://smithsonianscience.si.edu/2015/06/key-link-in-turtle-evolution-discovered/

Yet another intermediate form discovered.

[pgardn]

The stickleback...

Seem to remember reading a fantastic article about speciation in S. American mountain streams at differing pool elevations, fascinating stuff.

Its so cool when nature is so much more creative than anything human beings can make up.

[m33p0]

The stickleback...

Seem to remember reading a fantastic article about speciation in S. American mountain streams at differing pool elevations, fascinating stuff.

Its so cool when nature is so much more creative than anything human beings can make up.

the varied species found in the congo river is a fascinating study.

[RandomGuy]

https://media.vocativ.com/photos/2015/12/2015_12_18_evolution_anti-evolution-01.png


An evolutionary biologist published a scholarly act of trolling against creationists that was a decade in the making—a phylogenetic diagram showing the evolution of anti-evolution policy. Nick Matzke finished the study just in time for the 10-year anniversary of Kitzmiller v. Dover, one of the most important legal blows against the teaching of creationism in public schools.

To build the evolutionary chart, Matzke used BEAST (Bayesian Evolutionary Analysis Sampling Trees), a program that searches through millions of possible phylogenetic tree diagrams to determine the tree with the most overlap for a particular set of data. Phylogenetic trees, also called evolutionary trees, depict the evolutionary relationship between entities, often based on genetic or physical similarities. The software is used to study the evolution of everything from HIV to dinosaurs, but he may be the first to use it for legislation. Instead of using the program to study DNA similarities, Matzke used it to find similarities in the text of 67 anti-evolution bills introduced over the last 10 years. When the tree was complete, the results reminded Matzke of something.

“You could make a pretty good analogy between the evolution of anti-evolution policy and the evolution of variants of diseases,” Matzke told Vocativ. “Diseases often evolve to become less aggressive, because if they’re too aggressive they end up provoking an immune reaction or they kill the host. A disease that can go under the radar and hide from the immune system can spread to other people quicker.”

This parallels the way anti-evolution policy language became more subtle after aggressive bills were voted down. The study shows that legislators often reused the exact same language from past bills, only slightly modified. Matzke says early bills would have statements like: “Teachers should be allowed to teach the controversy on evolution, the origin of life and climate change.” Over time that message was softened to simply “teach the controversy.”

http://www.vocativ.com/news/262022/evolutionary-of-anti-evolution-laws/

[RandomGuy]

Matzke, who is postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, calls this current wave of anti-evolutionism “stealth creationism” and he asserts that is part of the reason we don’t read about creationism in the news as much. But while anti-evolution policy might be developing camouflage, Matzke doesn’t think it’s evolving intelligence. “There aren’t random mutations to these bills. It’s humans making decisions when you change something,” Matzke said. “But I think the intelligence involved is debatable. ‘Teach the controversy’—what does that even mean?”

Meanwhile, these bills only encourage teachers to misstate scientific facts or discourage students from learning “controversial science”, according to Matzke, who hopes his study will help proponents of fact-based science education to find hidden creationist agenda within bills. :lol

[RandomGuy]

This is just the latest chapter in a battle between the Discovery Institute and Matzke, a battle that goes back ten years to the 2005 federal court case Kitzmiller v. Dover, aka The Dover Panda Trial. The case revolved around a textbook, Of Pandas and People, a pseudoscience biology textbook with an intelligent design message, which the administrators at Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania wanted to use in classes. Matzke was the public information project director of the National Center for Science Education, which was providing consultation for the plaintiff, Tammy Kitzmiller and ten other parents who didn’t wanted their ninth-grade children to learn that Intelligent Design was an alternative to Darwinism.

One of the key debates at the center of the case was whether the textbook was presenting Intelligent Design—the notion that there is some complex, master intelligence guiding biology—as a possible theory, or whether it was a work of Biblically-rooted creationism. Matzke believed the latter.

“I found evidence that indicated there were creationist drafts of Of Pandas and People.” Matzke said. “The lawyer [for Kitzmiller] issued a subpoena and they got the unpublished drafts of this book. And it turned out, yep, creationist terms had been turned into intelligent-design terms [in] about a hundred [instances] before that book was published.”

Thanks largely to these drafts, the judge determined that Of Pandas and People “contains outdated concepts and flawed science,” and its use in the district’s school system was prohibited. As it turns out, the book was just another example of stealth evolution. SOSDD

[RandomGuy]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shaenamontanari/2015/12/28/the-10-most-incredible-fossils-finds-of-2015/

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/shaenamontanari/files/2015/12/Yi_qi_restoration.jpg

[RandomGuy]

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/shaenamontanari/files/2015/07/Zhenyuanlong-by-Zhao-Chuang-Low-Res-1940x1250.jpg

[RandomGuy]

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/shaenamontanari/files/2015/09/main-sea-scorpion.jpg

It wasn’t all about vertebrates this year. A 1.7 meter long 460 million year old sea scorpion was discovered in the remains of an ancient ocean in Iowa. Lead author James Lamsdell describes Pentecopterus as “incredibly bizarre”, with a strangely shaped head and paddle-like appendages. The discovery of Pentecopterus decorahensis pushes back the origin of eurypterids by 9 million years, as it is the oldest sea scorpion ever discovered.

[RandomGuy]

Study: Shifting climate dictated evolution of modern birds

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- New physiological and genetic analysis suggests all modern birds are descended from a single species in South America.

The research also shows diversification was largely dictated by climatic changes, particularly widespread cooling trends beginning 91 million years ago.

Previously, researchers thought the disappearance of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was the chief driver of diversification -- the branching off of new bird species. But the latest findings, published last week in the journal Scientific Advances, contradict this theory.

"Our results show that rapid diversification began before the mass extinction event and coinciding with a long-term cooling trend at the end of the Cretaceous," Santiago Claramunt, an ornithologist with the American Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News.

Though birds surely benefited from ecological niches left empty by the dino's downfall, the evidence suggests branches from the family tree of modern birds began radiating prior to the extinction event.

As cooling fragmented tropical environs, newly evolved bird species set out to colonize new territory, utilizing land bridges to move from South America onto other continents.

Researchers analyzed genetic data from 130 fossils representing all major bird families in order to build an evolutionary time tree, allowing scientists to pinpoint when and where modern bird lineages first emerged.

Though the evidence points to a single founding father in South America -- a species that lived alongside the dinosaurs 95 million years ago -- scientists haven't been able to determine the identity of the mystery bird.

"It's a difficult problem to solve because we have very large gaps in the fossil record," explained Joel Cracraft, curator of the museum's ornithology department. "This is the first quantitative analysis estimating where birds might have arisen, based on the best phylogenetic hypothesis that we have today."

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2015/12/14/Study-Shifting-climate-dictated-evolution-of-modern-birds/8231450109101/

[RandomGuy]

Plants crawled onto land earlier than we give them credit, genetic evidence suggests

Plant biologists agree that it all began with green algae. At some point in our planet's history, the common ancestor of trees and flowers developed an alternating life cycle -- allowing their offspring to conquer Earth. But now scientists argue that some green algae had been hanging out on land hundreds of millions of years before this adaptation and that land plants actually evolved from terrestrial, not aquatic, algae.


Plant biologists agree that it all began with green algae. At some point in our planet's history, the common ancestor of trees, ferns, and flowers developed an alternating life cycle--presumably allowing their offspring to float inland and conquer Earth. But on December 16 in Trends in Plant Science, Danish scientists argue that some green algae had been hanging out on land hundreds of millions of years before this adaptation and that land plants actually evolved from terrestrial, not aquatic, algae.

Botanists have suspected this possibility since 1980, but supporters have lacked proof. Now, Carlsberg Laboratory's Jesper Harholt and University of Copenhagen's Øjvind Moestrup and Peter Ulvskov present genetic and morphological evidence that corroborates the theory. Notably, traits that land plants use to survive on land today are well conserved in some species of green algae.

...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216134406.htm

[RandomGuy]

Study... after study... after study...

Meanwhile Avante has abandoned his own evolution thread, preferring to talk about just about anything else.

[boutons_deux]

Creationism evangelist: God put contradictions in the Bible to ‘weed out’ the atheists



http://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/hovind_contradictions_151231a-Edit-2-800x430.jpg

Young Earth creationism evangelist Kent Hovind asserted this week that that God had purposefully put contradictions in the Bible to “weed out” non-believers.In a YouTube video posted on Monday, the Christian fundamentalist responds to a follower who is troubled by a contradiction in the book of Acts.

“If I was God,” Hovind explains, “I would write the book in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.'”

“And then they could go on with their own life because they don’t want to believe Godanyways,” he continues. “I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/creationism-evangelist-god-put-contradictions-in-the-bible-to-weed-out-the-atheists/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

:lol new earthers, creationists, Bible literalists are so fucking stupid.

[boutons_deux]

New genes born by accident lead to evolutionary innovation

Novel genes are continuously emerging during evolution, but what drives this process? A new study, published in PLOS Genetics, has found that the fortuitous appearance of certain combinations of elements in the genome can lead to the generation of new genes. This work was led by Jorge Ruiz-Orera and Mar Albà from Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute in Barcelona (IMIM-ICREA).

In every genome, there are sets of genes, which are unique to that particular species. In this study, the scientists first identified thousands of genes that were specific to human or chimpanzee. Then, they searched the macaque genome and discovered that this species had significantly less element motifs in the corresponding genomic sequences. These motifs are recognized by proteins that activate gene expression, a necessary step in the formation of a new gene.

The formation of genes de novo from previously non-active parts of the genome was, until recently, considered highly improbable.

This study has shown that the mutations that occur normally in our genetic material may be sufficient to explain how this happens. Once expressed, the genes can act as a substrate for the evolution of new molecular functions. This study identified several candidate human proteins that bear no resemblance to any other known protein. What they do is an enigma still to be resolved.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/p-ngb123015.php

[RandomGuy]

Team identifies ancient mutation that contributed to evolution of multicellular animals
Molecular time travel experiments reveal a simple genetic basis for the evolution of a protein necessary for multicellularity, one billion years ago

A single chance mutation about a billion years ago caused an ancient protein to evolve a new function essential for multicellularity in animals, according to new research co-led by a University of Chicago scientist. By conducting experiments on 'resurrected' ancestral proteins, the researchers shed light on the origin of a molecular process that allows animals to form and maintain organized tissues.

The study, published in the journal eLife on Jan. 7, 2016, is the first to experimentally describe a molecular mechanism involved in the evolution of multicellularity, and it establishes a paradigm for research in evolutionary cell biology and the origins of complex life.

"Our experiments show how biological complexity can evolve though simple, high-probability genetic paths," said the study's co-senior author Joe Thornton, PhD, professor of human genetics and ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. "Before the last common ancestor of all animals, when only single-celled organisms existed on Earth, just one tiny change in DNA sequence caused a protein to switch from its primordial role as an enzyme to a new function that became essential to organize multicellular structures."

Few events in the history of life on Earth are as significant as the evolution of multicellular animals from single-celled ancestors. Multicellularity depends on a suite of cellular interactions and molecular functions, but almost nothing is known about how those functions evolved.

Thornton and his colleagues focused on a process called mitotic spindle orientation. To form and maintain organized tissues, cells must orient the direction in which they divide relative to their neighbors. In the flat tissues that line organs, for example, cells divide within the plane of the tissue; otherwise, malformations and cancer can result. Cells accomplish this through a structure called the mitotic spindle -- a network of protein filaments that pulls freshly duplicated chromosomes to opposite ends of the cell before it splits into two.

In cells from a broad range of animal species, the spindle is rotated relative to surrounding cells by a protein scaffold known as the guanylate kinase protein interaction domain (GK-PID). It acts as a kind of molecular carabiner by binding to two different partner molecules: an 'anchor' protein on the inside of the cell membrane that indicates the position of adjacent cells and a motor protein that pulls on mitotic spindle filaments. Once hooked together by GK-PID, the motors pull the chromosomes toward the anchors, orienting new daughter cells in line with neighboring cells.

Molecular time travel

To study how GK-PID evolved its function as a spindle-orienting carabiner, Thornton and his colleagues used ancestral protein reconstruction -- a technique Thornton's group pioneered -- to experimentally retrace the evolution of genes and proteins by working backwards through the tree of life.

Graduate students Doug Anderson and Victor Hanson-Smith first used computational methods to reconstruct the evolutionary histories of GK-PID and a related enzyme known as guanylate kinase (gk). The two proteins share similarities in sequence and structure but have different functions and histories -- GK-PID is found in only animals and their closest unicellular relatives, while gk plays a fundamental role in making the components of DNA and is universal to life.

Their analysis revealed that GK-PID evolved when the gene for the gk enzyme duplicated and then began to diverge. This event occurred before animals and their closest unicellular relatives split from other single-celled organisms, roughly a billion years ago. One copy retained its original function, but the other evolved the capacity to serve as a molecular carabiner in spindle orientation.

The team reconstructed the ancient forms of gk and GK-PID to study how this transition occurred. Working backwards from hundreds of present-day species, they used sophisticated computational methods to infer ancestral genetic sequences from the time that the GK-PID first appeared. With study co-leader Ken Prehoda at the University of Oregon, the researchers chemically synthesized the ancestral genes and inserted them into bacterial and insect cells, which produced the proteins as they existed in the distant past.

The most ancient progenitor protein, which existed just before the duplication that produced GK-PID, functioned as an enzyme. But the researchers found that they could recapitulate evolution by introducing a single mutation, which switched the protein's function, abolishing its enzyme activity and conferring the ability to act as a carabiner that could bind the anchor protein.

Remarkably, when this slightly altered version of a one billion-year-old protein was inserted into cultured insect cells -- which had their present-day GK-PID proteins disabled and therefore could not carry out spindle orientation -- the cells became able to properly rotate their spindles relative to their neighbors.

"Our experiments show that the GK-PID evolved its carabiner function early, before multicellularity itself appeared," Thornton said. "That one ancient mutation yielded a wholly new molecular function, which helped set the stage for multicellular animals to eventually evolve."

What's old is new again

The team also investigated the evolution of the anchor proteins to which GK-PID attaches. Surprisingly, these proteins first appeared in the lineage leading to animals, suggesting that GK-PID gained its ability to bind to the anchor long before the anchor itself evolved.

Why would a protein evolve the ability to bind to something that wouldn't appear for millions of years? A deeper analysis of the proteins' structural biology suggested that the answer lies in a process that Thornton calls molecular exploitation, in which a new molecule (in this case the anchor) fortuitously binds an old protein (GK-PID) because it just happens to be structurally similar to the protein's original molecular partner.

The researchers found that the ancestral GK-PID bound the anchor protein in a very similar way to how the ancestral gk enzyme bound its substrate. This region could bind both partners because the key portion of the anchor protein happened to have a similar shape and pattern of electrical charges as the ancient enzyme substrate did. The crucial mutation in the ancestral gk protein exposed the binding surface without changing it, giving the anchor protein easier access.

"It's just coincidence that the two molecules look so similar," Thornton said. "But that lucky resemblance is why a simple genetic event could cause the evolution of a molecular partnership that is now essential to the biology of complex animals."

The group's findings provide the first detailed molecular explanation for the evolution of functions involved in multicellularity and complex life. Thornton points out that many key steps in the evolution of spindle orientation remain to be reconstructed, and still more questions are unanswered concerning the evolution of other functions that made multicellularity possible. The study of GK-PID now shows one way that the emerging scientific field of evolutionary cell biology might answer those questions.

"We hope that the approach we used -- reconstructing in detail the ancient history of protein functions -- can be applied to the evolution of other key cellular processes, revealing the whole picture of multicellular life evolving from single-celled ancestors," Thornton said.

###

The study, "Evolution of an ancient protein function involved in organized multicellularity in animals," was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01GM104397, R01GM087457, R01GM089977) and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist Award to Thornton. Additional authors include Arielle Woznicka and Nicole King from the University of California, Berkeley, William Campodonico-Burnett from the University of Oregon, and Dustin Whitney and Brian Volkman from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

[RandomGuy]

A large phylogenomics study reveals that the symbiotic event that led to the emergence of organelles known as mitochondria may have occurred later in the evolution of complex cells than was thought.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature16876.html

Team sheds light on a crucial moment in the evolution of life: when cells acquired mitochondria

Just as physicists comprehend the origin of the universe by observing the stars and archeologists reconstruct ancient civilizations with the artifacts found today, evolutionary biologists study the diversity of modern-day species to understand the origin of life and evolution.

In a study published in the prestigious magazine Nature, Centre for Genomic Regulation researchers Toni Gabaldón and Alexandros Pitis are shedding light on one of the most crucial milestones in the evolution of life: cells' acquisition of mitochondria.

The first living beings were single-cell organisms, predecessors of the bacteria that inhabit the world today. Those cells were quite simple but, at some point over the course of evolution, they gave way to a more complex cellular lineage: the eukaryotes, or cells with a nucleus. Eukaryotic cells have given rise to the most complex life forms existing on earth, including multicellular organisms such as animals, plants or fungi. One of the keys of this complexity can be found in mitochondria, a cellular organelle considered to be the generator of cell energy, although that is not their only role. It is believed that by acquiring mitochondria, cells were able to use more energy, facilitating qualitative leaps in their structure and organization. That is why the addition of mitochondria is considered a crucial milestone in the evolution of life.

Up until now, a number of theories have sought to explain how cells came to acquire mitochondria. Although there is consensus as to the "how" ?the first mitochondria must have been a bacterium that entered another, and remained there, becoming part of the cell? the "when" has so far been unclear. Some scientists advocated an early incorporation of mitochondria, and considered that step as the first necessary to begin advancing toward eukaryotic cells as they are known today. Other theories proposed a later inclusion of mitochondria, as a more complex host cell could favor the entry of another cell and that cell's permanence within its interior. Now, predoctoral scientist Alexandros Pitis and ICREA research professor and group leader at CRG Toni Gabaldón have clarified the matter, proposing a theory that would define the time frame for the acquisition.

"Like archeologists, we are trying to reconstruct something that existed in the past based on the evidence we have today. Specifically, we've tracked down proteins common to all complex organisms, and reconstructed their evolution. We found that the proteins related with mitochondria acquisition arrived later than those related with other parts of the cell," states the study's principal investigator, Toni Gabaldón. The scientists used a diverse set of measurements to date the incorporation of several proteins into the eukaryotic lineage.

They found that the arrival of proteins had come in a number of "waves", and that those related with ancestral mitochondria matched those of the latest wave. "Our work demonstrates that the acquisition of mitochondria occurred late in cell evolution, and that the host cell already had a certain degree of complexity," states Alexandros Pitis, lead author of the study. "Our study makes it possible to break down the steps of what is considered the greatest evolutionary leap after the origin of life. Understanding how complexity originated and evolved is important to better understand the mechanisms that govern cells, and by extension, the functioning of all living organisms," concludes Gabaldón.

Explore further: How did complex life evolve? The answer could be inside out
More information: Late acquisition of mitochondria by a host with chimaeric prokaryotic ancestry, DOI: 10.1038/nature16941


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-team-crucial-moment-evolution-life.html#jCp