Radical New Theory of Evolution --"Could Turn Current Thinking on Its Head"

 

                     

 

A new groundbreaking hypothesis counters popular evolutionary thinking that living organisms evolve by adding genes rather than discarding them. The new theory --"Black Queen Hypothesis" --suggests some species are surviving by discarding genes and depending on other species "to play their hand.

According to the hypothesis, evolution pushes microorganisms to lose essential functions when there is another species around to perform them. This idea counters popular evolutionary thinking that living organisms evolve by adding genes rather than discarding them.

"A common assumption about evolution is that it is directed toward increasing complexity," said Erik Zinser, associate professor of microbiology at the University of Tennessee . "But we know from analysis of microbial genomes that some lineages trend toward decreasing complexity, exhibiting a net loss of genes relative to their ancestor."

Zinser and colleagues formed their theory after studying photosynthetic bacteria called Prochlorococcus.

"This marine microorganism continued to mystify us because it is the most common photosynthetic organism on Earth, but it is extremely difficult to grow in pure culture," Zinser said. "A major reason for this difficulty is that Prochlorococcus is very sensitive to reactive oxygen species such as hydrogen peroxide and relies on other bacteria to protect them by breaking down these toxic substances for them."

Prochlorococcus had once performed this function itself, but natural selection decided it was too costly, like carrying the Queen of Spades, and discarded this ability. Instead Prochlorococcus benefits from the hard work of others within its community allowing it to concentrate its energies elsewhere—such as multiplying.

The hypothesis offers a new way of looking at complicated, interdependent communities of microorganisms.

"We know that certain microbial activities, such as hydrogen peroxide scavenging, are 'leaky,' meaning their impacts extend beyond the cell and into the environment," Zinser said. "What the hypothesis suggests is that this leakiness can drive a community toward greater interdependence, even if some members are unwitting participants in this process."

This interdependence could lend itself to vulnerabilities. The scientists say the work highlights the importance of biological diversity, because if rare members are lost, "the consequences for the community could be disastrous." This would be analogous to attempting to play Hearts without the Queen of Spades.

Currently, the hypothesis is limited to microorganisms, but Zinser thinks the hypothesis could be extended to larger free-living organisms. All that is needed is a card which no player wants yet is crucial for the game to be played.

Zinser's opinion piece is published in mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. Jeffrey Morris and Richard Lenski of Michigan State University are co-authors. 

The image at the top of page is a a surface-rendered model of Prochlorococcus, which was visualized by cryo-electron tomography in a near-native state. Its streamlined structure could be advantageous to microorganisms thriving in the low-nutrient conditions characteristic of large regions of the open oceans and thus have consequences for niche differentiation. 

The Daily Galaxy via mBio and physorg.com

Image credit: With thanks to the American Society for Microbiology 

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Comments

[Matt Rhodes]

I would say it isn't just other species to be exploited by another for evolutionary gain, it's also (and more importantly) environment and how a species survives off what it has on its planet. How it converts a planet's resources to its own evolutionary advantage without harming others.

This is why preservation of habitats and their species is so important, as the article states,

"...if rare members are lost, the consequences for the community could be disastrous."

[Thomas J. Theobald]

Turn existing theory on its head? Doubtful. Add important new perspectives to it? Far more likely. Editor's note: Thomas, We agree. This one's a hairball.

[DwarfGalaxy]

So laziness maybe programmed into the fabric of nature...If someone else does it for me, I don't have to lift a finger! I can devolve.

[Chim]

There is nothing radical or new about this. "...evolutionary thinking that living organisms evolve by adding genes rather than discarding them" is a Straw-man parody in the first place.

Organisms evolve towards better fitness. If circumstances make adding functionality beneficial, then useful added functions will propagate. If circumstances make loss of redundant functions beneficial, then reduction in function will propagate. We learned this in high school biology 30 years ago.

[Anand Nair]

This is merely one more "observation" of the way biological evolution proceeds, and certainly NOT a "new" theory that is "radically" different from the current theory of evolution. Existing theory fully explains this observation!

"Accumulation of complexity" has long been recognized by biologists only as one of the (common) consequences of Darwnian evolution. Whenever greater complexity helps an organism to survive longer (thus enhancing the chances for the genes that contributed to such complex behaviour to get to the next generations), then evolution proceeds in that direction. Obviously so!

On the other hand, what when an organism can get along fine with reduced complexity? Such as when the pigeons in some Indian Ocean islands could find sufficient food and mates without the ability to fly -- and with no increased danger from predators? They evolved into Dodos, losing the complex ability of flight. Biology is replete with such examples where a complex (thus costly) faculty (that is no longer of any advantage for survival or procreation) gets "phased out".

This is the existing theory of evolution -- and in particular, this conforms to the "gene-centric" view of evolution as expounded by Richard Dawkins.

Anand

[katesisco]

It makes sense in the most important way: the energy budget.
That is after all the most important consideration in an organism's competition for existence. Why spend energy of your own when there is a no-cost solution? Lynn Margullis would have loved this.

[American Muse]

Typical hype by Zinser and colleagues, the authors of this interesting but meaningless study.

As pointed out by others on this forum, that's just how biological evolution works: it strives to produce the most appropriate organism for the existing conditions without regard to "more" or "less" complexness.

[air max bw pas cher]

Por otro lado, lo que cuando un organismo se puede llevar bien con una menor complejidad? Como cuando las palomas en algunas islas del Océano Índico podría encontrar comida suficiente y los compañeros sin la capacidad de volar - y sin mayor peligro de los depredadores? Se convirtió en The Dodos, la pérdida de la capacidad compleja de vuelo. Biología está repleta de ejemplos de este tipo, donde se de un complejo (por tanto, costoso) profesores (que ya no es de ninguna ventaja para la supervivencia o la procreación) "eliminadas".

[Geza Zake]

BIG MISTAKE OF TRADITIONAL EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

The big mistake of evolutionary theory is that it is limited to the biological evolution of species. This mistake arose because the Darwin, and many biologists after him, studied the evolution of living beings with familiar settings that the changes occur due to adaptation to the environment and living conditions, due to the struggle for survival and due to internal and hereditary genetic changes. For many years it was thought that the progressive evolution of living things, that takes place from protozoas to more complex species until the advent of apes and humans. Today occur theorists who begin to talk about devolution, ie the disappearance of certain species. There are also those which say that biological evolution is stopped and started another called the sociological evolution.

Only in recent years there are people engineers and scientific provenance which also discuss the evolution of technology, the evolution of matter, stars, planets and the Universe in a universal way. The word and concept of " evolution " here means a change in the making, the building, as embryonic or fetal evolution of what the traditional theory does not speak. All in the existence of the universe and life changing, but not only more affected by Darwinian factors, but also the influence of action of energy, man, humanity and machines.

No doubt many people today is clear that the world is changing, that some phenomena occur that are completely unknown to the traditional Darwinian theory, that is, to a man, not only nature has become a cause of change - evolution of everything in nature, humanity and ourself. Virtually man and mankind has become a great transformer of nature (some say suppressant of nature), but allso became a creator of new and traditional for a man of unknown nature. The fact that it speaks in favor of it in abundance.

To mantioned just a few:

Physicists have possibility to manipulate atoms and create all-natural element of the Mendelev table from hydrogen to uranium. Man create atoms unknown in the nature which are trans Uranian elements that do not exist on Earth. As we know, man tries to create a "God particle", and we have atomic and nuclear bombs and a laser directed energy, and high-frequency energy with which it can manipulate the atmosphere of the Earth and other stuff.

Chemists have moved far away from natural molecules still create thousands of new molecules that in the world does not exist. There are plastic products, many bio-chemical molecules to the ability to manipulate molecules that make up the DNA molecule from wildlife to humans. For Darwin's theory had to be milion of years before appearance any changes (evolution) on the levels of DNA molecules, while the changes now taking place in an laboratory time . There is definitely chemistry and a stereo and polar chemistry that brings the possibility of creation of all the molecules in the living world. Pharmaceutical chemistry proves it.

Scientists, engineers, mechanical, electrical and electronic profession in the last two centuries have created new wonders orbiting the planet and the universe. At a billion cars, trucks, wagons and locomotives that transported goods and passengers from one to onother side on the earth. It also has hundreds of thousands of large and small aircraft, so that they have about 50.000 permanent in the air. Freight and passenger ships circling seas, lakes and rivers so that the earth surface looks like a very dynamic globe. The man and his machines working underground, in the oceans of the world and in space, specifically on Mars.

The human population of 7 billion and still growing, but perhaps most importantly to see is a growing number of machines and devices in the electronics and computer manufacturing world. At a billion TV sets, a variety of industrial monitors, cell phones, medical and chemical apparatus, which consists of different world than it was before 100 or 200 years.

All these facts indicate and warn us that something happens to the world as a great force to impose a new evolutionary phenomenon that is changing everything, including Darwin's biological species in the human life time. Everything that was needed for the millions of years of evolution according to Darwin today now it happens in a very short time .

As is well known in my book Philosophy of the Origin and in my other writings, especially in the New theory of evolution I have say about an being emerging as macro phenomenon which I gave the name Homoteras. Although I have repeatedly written that the Homoteras is evolutionary humanity which evolves towards its maximum, which is marked only by creating an new existence according to a biological model of creation. Homoteras is the macro-cell man creatures, which also evolves in four directions: toward Robo sapiens, Cyborg sapiens, Astro and Cyber sapiens. All are the facts which are still being ignored? It does not help that in many large and developed countries prepare colonize the universe, and even that does not help that on Mars work the laboratory and research robots. Running away from these facts is a big mistake because the world is left a space for physical and mental terror that appears in the world. Therefore every man, whoever he was an intellectual or not , but still had to know where and in what direction moving evolution of man and mankind, and not stay that blurs all kinds of wild speculation and subjective sociological, theological, political and scientific fantasies. More misconceptions we still to have because our backward linear perception of the world that come from past centuries when it was believed that the " flat earth surface" is our relity or erroneous knowledge of the mechanical world of physics that govern the laws of linear motion, hierarchical laws, or just the laws of evolution from lower to higher spaces . Precisely such a linear misperception still very burden of man and mankind, make him confused and in many ways lost the changes that could happening daily.

So far I've written not a small number of pages proving that the world is ruled by wave - quantum phenomena, Complementary polar quadrupole phenomena, that is a world of its aspects, particularly in logos and structure tetrahedronly formed which could be reads especially like universality in biology world. In addition, I tried to show that these laws are universal for micro and macro world, micro and macro life without division. It's all one and the same one, and the difference it makes a lot of once, which can be large or small, one way or another, but always structured as one or as many units in one, as in the world of biology, chemistry and physics. Of course it is an holographic perception of the world that tells us that one knows anything knows the numbers, and vice versa, the crowd knows what one knows in the crowd.

This and the next century will bring an evolutionary very large changes in the mentality of man, in creation and creativity that will cause great confusion, it seems to me a great suffering among the people caused by the reduction of energy resources, food and water to the extent of global hunger and thirst, if people soon no lanes in a new bionic structure inspired by the sociological structure of the cell's own body.

In the article "Evolution of embryo-fetus," I wrote about four functional structure of man, among them one heart and circulatory system. Picture of the cover is taken from the Internet, which clearly speaks of the symbolic structure of human blood whic I am toking bout and with which it carries oxygen to the capillary level to create and release the energy necessary for life.

The big mistake is that the traditional perception of the female and male seen in parallel as shown in pictures from kowledge point of view is not correctly becouse only opposite face to face, or resting back to back is correct and these are the only true image of man from which emerges a fantastic Philosophy of the Origins. Unfortunately people still do not accept and do not understand this philosophy, although this philosophy is in them.

Most important of all is the knowledge that comes from the evolution of modern man with his obvious intelligence to builds itself and mankind and mankind would be just such a man to build it up and not let external forces or random forces. This practically means that all life forms arise and build the intelligence of his cell and will be just such that it build its cells. This is that traditional evolutionary theory does not speak, and therefore relative to the totality of tghe being traditional theory of evolution is wrong.