Prions, Darwin's Friend

blamanj writes "Prions, the recently discovered bits of protein thought to be responsible for mad cow disease are turning up all over. It has been shown that prions change the behavior of yeasts, and may therefore offer a speedy way for yeast to evolve."

Comments

Re:Mad Yeast Disease?

[tibike77]

The parent is nothing more than a troll (meant that in the good way, as in "fishing for silly answer"). And you gave him that silly answer :P

Some prions are *linked* to (causes of) diseases, but they're not necessarily always "bad things". It's like saying "oh no, I won't eat cow meat anymore, because some cows have the MadCowDisease", or even more obvious, "I'll never eat anything organic again, because it has genes, and some genes cause genetic disorders, so I'm afraid".

Yup... lack of logic can be damaging to your .

Re:Now if they could only get humans to evolve aga

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The problem with the SFnal vision of the "hated race of supermen" (which goes at least back to Slan) is that no one is going to breed a race of posthumans who are superior to their makers in every way, nor is one going to emerge by mutation. Instead, if it does turn out that substantial improvements to the human germline are possible, what will happen is that we'll tinker around the edges, improving things here and there. The improvements that will make up the change from human to superhuman will happen one at a time, and be perceivable as a Big Change only from a historical perspective. No one at the time said, "we're in the middle of the Renaissance," or, "Here comes the Industrial Revolution."

You're missing the point.

[guybarr]

It's one thing to assert evolution through unknown mechanisms (as Darwin did), and another to identify and model these mechanisms.

If this is true, and if this is widespread (at least in prokaryotes), than this may be a significant addition to the understanding of epigenetics's role in evolution. Very much NOT 19th century.

( Disclaimer: IANAB )