This is so cool! With the speed and relative ease that this took, imagine what it means in terms of evolution on other planets or even the drastic turns our evolution could have taken. If the environment had been even slightly different than the one our ancestors evolved in, we would be very different creatures.
Sadly, we biologists can add more and more evidence supporting evolution but we are going to keep getting the same responses... "If you are so sure, why is it just a theory?" Bah... A lot of times I just want to give up. The one thing we can't seem to make them understand is that if we are shown significant evidence disproving evolution, we would all start questioning it. Hell, I'd be one of the first ones to say we were wrong. Oh well.
Sorry for the rant. As far as the article goes... I will definitely have to track down that publication. Applying artificial selection has been something I've been very interested in. In fact, I've had ideas as a plant biologist that involve taking plants that produce novel drugs and studying how they evolved to produce them (some produce them to deter predators while some are meant to attract pollinators) and perhaps apply artificial pressure and get them to artificially evolve the drug to do something that we want. In a way, marijuana growers already do this to get a desired effect from their strain.
We are obviously a long way off from being able to do this with a great deal of control, but it's something to think about. I'm glad to see it in action.
__________________
Confusion will be my epitaph...
|