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Resurrection Ecology Gives Life to Old Eggs
Ant writes "ABC News reports that scientists are bringing the past to life by hatching eggs once thought to be dead and producing colonies of animals as they existed decades ago. They are calling it 'resurrection ecology,' and it's a whole new field that quite literally allows scientists to observe evolution as it occurred, using animals that were quite different than their kinfolk today."
Resurrection Ecology Gives Life to Old Eggs
;-)
Maybe this will put an end to those viagra emails I keep getting too.
Can this possibly be used as an argument for evolution?
How does this demonstrate evolution? Don't they know the eggs were planted there just to fool them???
Just KNOWING that creatures an be a hatched after that long stalled period makes you wonder about what life really is.. Offtopic, but this seems to help imply that death and birth don't really have beginnings or ends. Kind of scary to me at least.
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
More SEA MONKEYS!
http://ut.water.usgs.gov/shrimp/ "The life cycle of Artemia begins from a dormant cyst that contains an embryo in a suspended state of metabolism (known as diapause). The cysts are very hardy and may remain viable for many years if kept dry."
As the article says (in the headline, at least), scientists made dormant eggs hatch by putting them under the right conditions. "They found that eggs that had been trapped beneath the sediment years ago had never hatched, but miraculously, were still alive."
It may be a landmark - I have no idea - but it's not resurrection.
You're using the popular definition of theory. Evolution will *never* be more than a /scientific/ theory. Gravity is "just" a theory, and will never become more than that.
This is freaking awesome. Jurassic park, except less Jurassic and more like last week, but I think anything that aids with understanding how evolution occurs is good for our possible survival as a species. We should make entire ecosystems of our own private galapagos, with different generations of creatures, to see if survival mutations end up being the same. I think it's an interesting idea, to really think of species as more as a temporal thing than just genetically different from others of their kind, they are different from others of their own family minus generations.
Human beings of eighty years ago would have been able to deal with this impending crisis much more efficiently, let's bring some of that natural genetic drift back, for example. Sort of gets away from another accidentally arbitrary classifications.
What more is there to be than "just" a theory?
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
I thought "de-volving" DNA was a 50's sci-fi movie myth. I understand that it is sometimes possible, at least in theory, to "turn on" suppressed DNA, and that one could mutate and selectively breed modern species into creatures with traits resembling extinct species, but without the full genome of the extinct species to "rewrite" your modern genome into a copy of, you would just end up with a vaguely dinosuar-like modified bird, which would exhibit any mistaken assumptions of the breeders.
Simply put, a bird would not "revert" into a real dinosaur, it would evolve into an immitation dinosaur. As far as frozen mammoth thread goes, I think it should be possible to reconstruct the mammoth genome from frozen DNA, as I understand that DNA is much more stable than most other organic structures. Once you had your genome to work from, if you had the time and money to devote vast biotech rescources I suppose a mammoth zygote could be synthesized, but it would be immpossible to guess the cost or time involved anywhere within several orders of magnitude. I have no proffesional training in any of this, I'm just an informed interested person throwing in my $0.02 worth in. However, if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on the mammoth resurrection group over the bird devolution group without a second thought!
Iran captures three CIA agents
This is a Unix system. I know this.
Most eggcellent!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
Life when considered in the form of a spore is structure, which when energy (food) is added, becomes life. Life is structure and energy.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Let's hear it for the Dodo Bird!!!
Those things must have been tasty if they went so extinct.
Maybe I'll get to taste one in my lifetime...
The startling point is that we're talking about only 100 years. Given the number of generations the Daphnia can manage in that time, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.
But think: if you can get that much useful change in such a short amount of time, how much more can occur over hundreds of thousands of years?
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
Already, scientists have made huge strides in their research using this technique. Thanks to new technology and innovation, more and more creatures are able to be 'reanimated' in this way.
Hatching long dormant eggs is interesting, I wish the article had more about that in it. I have always been fascinated by the fact that wheat from Pharoh's tombs in Egypt has been sprouted.
However, this article merely takes that interesting subject and attempts yet again to twist it into another prove of the theory of evolution. The mass media does that with any major story in the life sciences area.
This should probably be phrased as: "Can this possibly be used to show that evolution is more than just a theory?"
What more is there to be than "just" a theory?
Evolution is "just" a theory because, although a theory is a statement of what we think something to be like, that includes in itself an inherent understanding that we can't know more than that, that we could always possibly be wrong . . . so evolution has trouble standing up to things like Creationism and it's masquerade/reinvention as "Intelligent Design", which offer eternal and proclaimed truths at their core. They have the gift of certainty; and unreal concreteness is often more persuasive than truthful equivocation.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Regenerate, brought to you by the Umbrella Corporation.
Why, was he trying to hatch them himself?
Slashdot poster brings back memes thought to be dead and produces jokes as they existed decades ago. He calls it "resurrection karma".
Unfortunately, no good can come of it, as those memes are the same ones we have today.
Just wait till researchers bring back a disease that that has been laying dormant for millions of years that wipes the entire human race out.. lol, but i do think what they are doing is cool. I'm sure alot will be learned.
If you guys had taken the time to read the article prior to posting a response, you would have realized the article talks about evolution throughout its entire contents. It then goes on to explain that "sunlight and warmth" (page 3, website) were given to the eggs, and they hatched. This, is NOTHING like Jurassic Park. This is basically just preservation of eggs from long ago which were able to be warmed and hatched many years later. It then talks about how they could see evolution take place within these new life forms. Hopefully, in the future, you guys can appreciate the fact that a submission was made and accepted because it was a genuinely interesting article/topic, rather than another attempt for someone to be the 'first post'. You guys are not trolls, nor do you have to be. That isn't how you get on in life. Being a troll will get you nowhere. If you can troll, then you probably have enough skill to get a job making $10/hour at minimum. Go out there and get that job. If you are a troll making more than that, however, then I look at you in disgust.
I mean, bringing back extinct critters, what could possibly go wrong??? Then again, I wonder what a t-rex steak tastes like. Better living (and eating) through science I always say.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Because there are many facets to what can be defined as the fittest, and these are under constant flux.
A few thousand years ago it was brawn, then it was a combination of both brain and brawn, today it is mostly brain -- but still, good looking folks do find it easier to find mates, due to reasons that go back in the evolutionary chain.
That was my original point.
We do not know what will constitute the "fittest" of tomorrow as we advance as a species and as a civilization, however that does not mean the non-fittest will be wiped out. Yes, maybe they will be -- but not overnight. Over genetic pool is far too interbred and mixed up for something like that to happen.
for samples of microorganisms from Lake Vostok
From the article: Daphnia retrocurva are zooplankton that live in lake waters for one summer and then die, leaving eggs behind. Scientists have found eggs that didn't hatch for years -- and are hatching them to see how the animal has adapted over time. (University of New Hampshire)
We're not talking about bringing back Dodos!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It, uh, wasn't the same animal putting on or taking off a helmet.
The eggs laid in prey-heavy years were born with spines & a helmet, and the eggs laid in prey-scarse years were not, even though they were the many-generations removed descendants of the former.
The scientists weren't reproducing this situation in the lab, they were merely hatching old eggs to see which traits were dominant in which era.
As for the difference between unwilling and unable, give it time. Any reasonable estimate as to how long such an event would take runs into hundred(s) of generations. We simply haven't had enough time for one to take place. Now, you can prove that it has taken place, but you have to accept genetic evidence for it. There is tons of genetic evidence for 'speciation' that has resulted in 'unable' but creationists don't seem to be willing to accept such genetic evidence.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
I refer you to http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/aoc/ , in the 2001 conference, paper 61 "Evolutionary Isolates and Cryptic Species in Australian Birds, Basis Nature: What to call Species" for a reasonably recent discussion of this issue.
However I was first aware of this in 1992, I can't recall the original source, but it was fairly well known in Population Ecology Circles in Australia at the time.
I can also refer you to www.geocities.com/pb56_au/mtbuffalo/ student/activities/speciation.PDF which illustrates the debate on this issue. Note that the species in central NSW have vanished, so in the map in this document imagine varieties that filled the concave side of the curved range shown.
You are of cource correct that my "definition" was too lax, and I'll accept your correction on this. It doesnt dilute the point I was making however.
I mean, you have heard of Albert Einstein and the general theory of relativity? Gravity doesn't exist. It's not a force. It's a pseudo- or false force.
Timespace is curved, and it's that curvature that gives the acceleration. There is no such thing as gravity, just as there is no such thing as centrifugal force.
So there is a consensus on gravity - and that is that it isn't a valid theory.
I'd like to point out that there is no real discussion between evolution vs. creationism, except in the minds of people who misunderstand science. Evolution is a really great theory, just like the General Theory of Relativity is a really great theory. You do know that physicists do not accept it as gospel truth and in fact are looking for a better theory to replace it, right? Aren't biologists looking for a better theory than evolution to replace it one day, or have they accepted it as a religion and begun treating it like a faith?
Creationism is a completely different concept. It doesn't try to explain the origin of the diverse creatures. Believers of creationism instead look towards all things in the world around them and accept it as testament of the glory and intelligence of God. They also accept themselves as created in the image of God as children of God. Many scientists are creationists. That isn't contradictory. They treat science the same way as people did from previous generations: By understanding the natural world around us, we will understand the nature of God, and thus ourselves, better. In fact, for many of these scientist, it was a sort of divine inspiration to discover new intelligence or knowledge. Each point of science, each bit of evidence, each theory that seemed to work, was treated as a gift from God.
Do you see how evolution doesn't even really enter the argument for creationists?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Also, show me a mutation that was for the better of the species.
Pesticide/herbicide resistence, happens with increasing frequency. Predicted by evolution: change the environment and a mutation that confers an advantage in dealing with the new environment will rapidly spread through the population.
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/
Them pesky biologists! Cut their funding, that'll teach 'em to contradict your gut feelings about the world!
There are so many accounts of passenger pigeons *darkening the daytime sky*. It's hard to imagine an animal that was alive in great numbers just a few generations ago, that is now *completely* extinct.
It went from being *the* most abundant species of bird, to *extinct* in the span of maybe 50 years, during a period of relatively low population and industrializaion, compared with today.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Netcraft confirms that this is an "extinct" unix
system... (alas, poor SGI).
I don't think that the Fountain of Youth is really required in this case as the critters have very short life spans (months vs. years)
Sure, if they were elephants or tortoises, then you'd have some issues.
That's the good thing about these zooplankton is that you can see many many generations over a short period of time.
Kind of cool, actually.
This would give proof of evolution?
How long until the Bush administration puts an end to their research?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Oh Bill... I actually think it's a good thing he didn't make it this far because the reign of King George II (or Reagan III, if you prefer) would have made his fricking head explode.
RIP.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Many egg forms as well as bacteria can exist intact in a cysted state for a very long time under surprisingly harsh conditions. From a USDA anthrax fact sheet: "When cells of B. anthracis escape from the animal's body through bloody discharges from the natural openings of the body after death, and are exposed to oxygen, they form spores. These spores are highly resistant to heat, cold, chemical disinfectants, and long dry periods. B. anthracis spores are reported to survive for years in the environment."
m
More here http://www.usda.gov/homelandsecurity/anthraxfs.ht
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Everything around you is evidence of the creation.
QED.
PS. You yourself are also evidence of the creation.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
People who claim that religion and reason are mutually exclusive are themselves ignorant about what religion is.
The people most likely to do this are the religious themselves, typified by creationist groups that seek to get their 'theory' into textbooks as a direct contrast to evolution. If the religious stuck to religion and stopped trying to interfere with or invalidate science we wouldn't even be having this debate.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?