Deep-Sea Microorganism Hasn't Evolved For Over 2 Billion Years

sfcrazy writes: Evolution is a natural process — everything evolves over a period of time, depending on the environment. But now scientists have discovered an organism which hasn't evolved for over more than 2 billion years. That's almost the half of the life of the Earth. "The scientists examined sulfur bacteria (abstract), microorganisms that are too small to see with the unaided eye, that are 1.8 billion years old and were preserved in rocks from Western Australia’s coastal waters. Using cutting-edge technology, they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago — and that both sets of ancient bacteria are indistinguishable from modern sulfur bacteria found in mud off of the coast of Chile." Scientists say the extreme stability of the environment around the organisms made further adaptations unnecessary.

Comments

Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rubycodez]

Wasps haven't evolved in at least 35 million years....sometimes there is no force nor need for evolution.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[BlackSWE]

~2.3 billion years > ~35 million years. Just saying...

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[MightyMartian]

Morphological changes may have been minimal, but I suspect genomic changes have still occurred. Neutral drift alone would assure that these bacteria were not identical at the molecular level to their two billion year old ancestors.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[Nutria]

Naturally, the only response possible is, "citation, or it didn't happen."

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[unrtst]

sometimes there is no force nor need for evolution.

.. and from TFS:

...made further adaptations unnecessary.

It really bugs me when I see the theory of evolution referred to this way. There is no "need" or "desire" or "necessary" involved. Similarly, "survival of the fittest" has nothing to do with who is in the (subjectively) best shape or who is the smartest (though there may be correlations). Fish did not decide that they'd like to walk on land or breath air (if they did, it had nothing to do with that happening).

If these things haven't evolved in 2 billion years, it simply means that any mutations that may have occurred resulted in lines that did not reproduce as effectively. That's still a very impressive feat, but it's not because it didn't "need" to, it's because when it did change it didn't do as well. In this case, it's very likely that this is at least partially due to the simplistic nature of this bacteria (fewer dip switches in its DNA, so to speak) and, of course, as the article points out, the very consistent environment (allowing for an optimized implementation to consistently out perform any random brethren).

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[boristdog]

But they did go Blind in Texas.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[Chikungunya]

I have always interpreted the "need" or "necessary" as the requisites that have to be fulfilled in order to find a certain organism in a certain place today (or whatever time they are talking about). So yes, the organism or the species don't "need" adaptations, they just survive or not, but you "need" the adaptations in order to explain how they can survive there. This kind of place "need" very few explanations because there is not real change and any organism that could survive at the beginning could just keep doing it.

Nevertheless, this finding assumes quite a lot of things, they compared the morphology of fossils with modern organism and propose that the lack of visible differences means no adaptations, also they compared bacteria from two distant geographical places and assumed that this means genetic isolation (likely but not certain). I would prefer if they waited until they could report on both modern bacterial genomes (trivial task nowadays) before making such bold conclusions.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[blue trane]

Disagree. Why did some fish go on land, others not? I think there is some element of will, choice, involved. Some animals are naturally curious and want to explore, and with epigenetics can push their own evolution in ways they choose. We can do it; eyeglass technology means we don't have to be subject to evolutionary pressures relating to eyesight. We can choose which direction we want to go in. I think animals are similar. There is much more going on than naive realism thinks.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[TapeCutter]

fewer dip switches in its DNA, so to speak

The number of "dip switches" an organism has does not correlate well with the complexity of it's body or behaviour, for example humans have about 35k genes, amoeba have half a million or more. Mathematically evolution is an exercise in hill climbing, the environment the sulphur bug lives in is the same "hill" as it was 2B years ago. Once the bug has evolved to the top of it's local hill it will stay there until the environment changes, since by definition evolving downhill would imply "survival of the weakest". This is not to say there won't be downhill mutations, just that over time random mutations will always tend to climb upwards until they can climb no further.

This doesn't mean the creature is the best fit possible for that particular environment, there may be several "hills" to climb in the same environment, eg: sharks and Barracuda haven't changed for 10's of millions of years, they have climbed two different evolutionary hills to fill similar niches in the same environment. When that happens it's virtually impossible to climb down from one hill to get to the base of another hill even though they are in the same environment.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[TapeCutter]

Anthropomorphising evolution doesn't bother me, it's very descriptive and very clear to people who already understand evolution. What does bother me is when creationists use it in a strawman argument such as the one you described in your post. It's not just evolution, people use this kind of language as a kind of shorthand for discussing concepts they already understand, for example, every software house I worked for in the last couple of decades had people constantly talking about what the code "thinks", "wants", etc.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[lgw]

Lamarck called; he wants his discredited theory back.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[JimSadler]

I would think that any organism would seek a better or easier path and perhaps come back to center as no gain was found but I think the drift would be endless even if the return to center is endless. Otherwise we would have to explain the ability of an organism to simply be content and intelligent enough to stop trying to change.Other than a decision making process the only other explanation might be divine intervention.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rubycodez]

A wasp is a very complex multicellular organism though, and yet it stopped evolving so long ago. The american alligator species is 150 million years old !

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[jdschulteis]

I would think that any organism would seek a better or easier path and perhaps come back to center as no gain was found but I think the drift would be endless even if the return to center is endless. Otherwise we would have to explain the ability of an organism to simply be content and intelligent enough to stop trying to change.Other than a decision making process the only other explanation might be divine intervention.

There is no seeking, no contentedness, no intelligence, no decision making process, and no divine intervention.

There is only a stable environment, in which no mutations have occurred that conferred a reproductive advantage.

There is beauty in simplicity.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rtb61]

Catch though, it is bacteria and due to a fairly short evolutionary scale, you can not assume it is in fact the same as the original and in fact might have evolved more than once. Of course just because it looks the same does not mean it worked the same or that the DNA matches. Appearances can be deceiving.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[itzly]

Most likely, in some area, fish got regularly stuck in mud pools, and the adaptations helped them survive longer until the next rain. Breathing air and the ability to get around a bit would be advantages.

Re: Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[Demena]

Which is the only way we will ever get rid of religion. Eventually, given humanity does not fall, evolution will defeat god as the fittest (mostly, not always) of the two survives.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[GNious]

~2.3 billion years > ~35 million years > 6000 years old planet

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[gsslay]

Are you seriously suggesting that a fish understood the concept of "breathing air", decided it would be useful, and set itself the target of developing lungs?

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

I'm pretty dubious about this - and your assertion down-thread that the "American alligator" hasn't evolved for 150 million years" is frankly incredible.

I don't know where you're getting your palaeontology from, but you need better sources.

I'm not terribly up to scratch on the palaeontology of wasps, though I do recall that one of the large insect-rich deposits of amber is from Dominica and is about 35 million years old, so I'm going to hypothesise that you've got the far end of a "Chinese Whisper" which started with "organisms which look like modern wasps were found in (Dominican amber) which is 35 million years old".

I know my reptile evolutionary history somewhat better. While there were undoubtedly suchiform ("crocodile shaped") Suchian reptiles (ancestors of crocodiles) around 150 million years ago, that does not mean that they're the same species as the modern American alligator. At the very least, there was a modest burst of suchian evolution in the period shortly after the Cretaceous-Palaeocene boundary extinctions, which would very likely have affected many aspects of the lives of all large organisms that survived the end-Cretaceous events. Shortage of large prey would have made dwarfism a common strategy for tens of millennia, followed by an opportunity for the suchians to become the dominant land animals. Which they would have been in competition with phorusrachid "terror-birds" and mammals. It's arguable if the mammals (about 6000 species) or the birds (nearly 10000 species) won that race.

A few years ago I had the pleasure (I'm a geologist - I have ... abnormal ... pleasures) of spending an afternoon going through the Natural History Museum's cabinets of fossil coelocanths from the Mesozoic, and comparing them with the 1960-odd specimen in the main hall of the museum. From personal observation I can assert that this famous "living fossil" has changed over the 90-odd million years during which we haven't had a fossil record for it. For a start, it's about 4 times the size of it's older relatives.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

and yet it stopped evolving so long ago.

This is extremely implausible. I suspect you have been the victim of the misreporting of the actual science results. As I elaborate in my comment on your FP.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

Goddish idiots like you shouldn't be allowed to use modern technology. Like medicine, or electricity.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

[..] I suspect genomic changes have still occurred. Neutral drift alone would assure that these bacteria were not identical at the molecular level to their two billion year old ancestors.

I would put good money on this being true. Not my normal "1 pint" bet, but this time a whole hangover!

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

If these things haven't evolved in 2 billion years, it simply means that any mutations that may have occurred resulted in lines that did not reproduce as effectively.

The reproductive efficiency can change appreciably. what doesn't seem to have changed is the gross morphology of the organism.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

Lamarck called; he wants his discredited theory back.

Lamark's theory is perfectly fine. It's not a good explanation for natural biological evolution, but it is a fair explanation for the evolution that takes place in the cultures of social animals, including humans.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

I would suggest Neil Shubin's "Your Inner Fish" finds its way onto your bookshelf. Or video feed. While that's a superficially appealing way to envisage things, the fossil record of the evolution of land-dwelling tetrapods was considerably more complex.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

every software house I worked for in the last couple of decades had people constantly talking about what the code "thinks", "wants", etc.

A recent article I listend to o nAI development suggested that it was better to name your routines like "B217" instead of "Understand_Question", precisely to dodge anthropomorphic thinking like this.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[unrtst]

Disagree. Why did some fish go on land, others not? I think there is some element of will, choice, involved.

Fine. Not that I agree, but fine, think what you will.

Now, is that part of Darwin's theory of evolution? No, and that's the part I'm complaining about.

* people say "survival of the fittest" and use that as justification for being smart, or working out more, or war, etc etc. It's not directly related to any of those things.

* people say didn't "need" to change, but "need" has nothing to do with it.

These confuse the situation and make all involved a little bit more dumb because it destroys our ability to communicate clearly and pass on ideas to others. Some people (including some responding to me) basically said that we all understand what was meant (ex. "Anthropomorphising evolution doesn't bother me..."). You, blue trane, are the perfect example of why it SHOULD bother people.

Please note, I'm not judging your opinion on this one way or the other. I'm simply saying that people shouldn't refer to what you're proposing as being Darwin's theory of evolution, or vice-versa (not that you did directly, but that was the point being made).

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[BlackSWE]

If you really think the bible's representation of age and time is literal then I'm sorry but you are just as knowledgeable as people 2000 years ago.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[BlackSWE]

I totally agree! :D As a third point, the different bacteria could have evolved separately and got to the same point. as an example, flies, birds, and bat are all different, they all evolved and formed wings.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rubycodez]

Very plausible and peer reviewed fact. the world between your ears has nothing to do with reality.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rubycodez]

You're confused, you were looking at a different species. The American Alligator species is indeed 150 million years old, look it up

Re: Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

If I had time, I might look it up by checking for reports of fossils. But what would I know - I'm just a working geologist who deals with this stuff every day of the week. I'm sure you claimed experience in coding Ruby is far more relevant. How much variation in tooth profile and spacing do you see in the fossils you have access to?

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

OK, so I took the time to look it up.

The oldest references that I can find to the age of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) is the Florida Museum of Natural History, who are of the opinion that the morpological differences between Alligator olseni (White, 1942) and Alligator mississippiensis (Daudan, 1802) are insufficient to justify calling them separate species. By the rules of zoological nomenclature the senior synomym applies. Specimens ascribed to olseni (and therefore, if you accept the FLMNH position, to mississippiensis) date back to the early Miocene at 16-18 Myr, possibly the earliest Miocene at 22-23 Myr. If you don't accept the FLMNH synonymy, then the oldest known fossils of Alligator mississippiensis date to the Pliocene around 5 million years. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/vertp... http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/vertp...

Sorry to destroy your assertion by doing the most trivial of research. I hope that your attention to detail is better when you're coding Ruby, but you've hardly left that impression.

Re:Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[rubycodez]

Your research is indeed trivial, and wrong

http://www.georgiaaquarium.org...

http://animals.nationalgeograp...

Re: Plenty of other creatures haven't "evolved"

[RockDoctor]

While I don't take much comfort from an AC, I think that I've won the exchange of references. I'd strongly suggest some better education. I hope you can reclaim anything you spent on your education so far, because you were screwed.

Why Evolve?

[cusco]

When you're perfectly adapted any change is deleterious and will be selected against.

Re:Why Evolve?

[Rob Y.]

If they reproduce asexually, then evolution has to count only on random mutations and copying errors. Sexual reproduction intentionally mixes up the genes so you get new combinations all the time. Evolution based on random mutations that still produce a viable organism is closer to monkeys at typewriters.

Re:Why Evolve?

[cusco]

Yeah, it's a sulfur bacterium, they reproduce asexually. They live a pretty low-energy lifestyle, pretty much any deviation from the minimalist list of activities of which they're capable will be selected against.

Re:Why Evolve?

[presidenteloco]

In a simple and stable environment, the critters could have adapted a locally optimal form and strategy (given the evolutionary path they had already taken), to the point where all variations reachable from the current form function worse and are selected out. "reachable" is key here. You (your lineage) are very unlikely to evolve into spherical iron rock crystal creatures of roughly the same mass. The relative Kolmogorov complexity to get your form to that form, as well as the energetic infeasibility, mitigate against that direction, no matter how random evolutionary variation is. There are always constraints, not only on survival probability, but also on variation direction possibility.

This has zero to do with religion. It's about combinatorics, complex system constraints, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

Re:Why Evolve?

[Gordo_1]

> Yes, except that is exactly how evolution doesn't work.

Not sure I understand why all the snark and ad hominems other than you feel emboldened by hiding behind AC (as if Slashdot karma is some kind of valuable resource?) Anyway, I don't think the parent's comments are all that out of line. A gene pool is going to change from generation to generation due to random chance occurrences like DNA transcription errors and such, and the changes that sustain are more often than not going to be ones that enable that organism to survive and reproduce better in that environment, yes? If selection pressures in the environment they live in stabilize over time, one would expect that the magnitude of evolutionary changes for that organism will gradually diminish because as time progresses, there are fewer useful adaptations that haven't been incorporated, so-to-speak. All bets are off if the environment destabilizes, but eventually, if stable over a long period of time you might get to a stable organism as described in TFA.

So... Does that make me religious?

Re:Why Evolve?

[sg_oneill]

Thats actually an interesting point. Its entirely possible that there are even better states available, however to reach from their local optimum to the even better optimum they need to cross a large enough number of mutations with poor or poorer optimization that it simply isn't going to happen. Unfortuantely evolution does not necessarily have the sort of "hill climbing" patterns for finding better optimizations a mathematician might employ, so its stuck there. The danger of course is if the trough becomes a rut the species might be poorly adapted to change.

Re:Why Evolve?

[TapeCutter]

That effect is said to have played a critical role in human evolution. However we did not climb a static hill, rather the hill was constantly moving around and we evolved to fill ALL the places it travelled through. The rift valley where modern humans first appeared turns out to be particularly sensitive to climate change (particularly the changes induced by the Earth's 'wobble'). During our 2 million year evolution the climate in the rift valley went from ice to wetland to desert scrub and everything in between several times. Turns out that when we left Africa the extreme variety of climates (hills) we had evolved in made us well suited for occupying virtually all of the land based environments found on the planet.

Re:Why Evolve?

[Applehu Akbar]

Meanwhile, Democrats claim to be evolutionists when that's what it takes to win those fish-in-a-rain-barrel arguments with creationists. Their lip service to Darwin, however, doesn't extend to economics, where they remain proud supporters of social Lysenkoism.

Re:Why Evolve?

[jdschulteis]

How did eyes evolve? The structures are too complex to be accounted for by traditional evolutionary explanation mechanisms.

That old chestnut? Open your eyes.

Re:Why Evolve?

[pitchpipe]

I would post logged in, but my karma is already as low as can be for deriding fuckin more ons.

I don't get it: why would you be modded down for deriding yourself?

Re:Why Evolve?

[Gordo_1]

You appear to have a very pedantic understanding of the English language. I don't fault you for it, as it can probably be attributed to a genetic anomaly. In any case, let me spell it out for you:

Using the terms 'selection' or 'useful' as it relates to evolution does not imply that one believes there is any conscious, intelligent/scheming/maniacal actor involved. It simply means that randomly generated traits are more likely to be passed down to future populations if they happen to interact with the environment in such a way that the organism containing those traits has a greater likelihood of surviving to reproduce or can otherwise reproduce faster or with more partners.

Re:Why Evolve?

[RockDoctor]

Many bacteria - I don't know if this particular group - can engage in varying degrees of horizontal gene transfer by conjugation or a number of other processes. Most bacterial reproduction is asexual, but it's not the only trick in their repertoire.

Re:Why Evolve?

[blue trane]

Does it also evolve a blind spot, like in humans?

Re:Why Evolve?

[cusco]

Eyes have evolved multiple times in multiple ways. IIRC the most efficient and advanced eye belongs to the squid. Unlike mammals the squid's eyes have the light-sensing cells in front of the blood supply instead of behind it, and they do not have a blind spot.

There are exceptions to evolution...

[__aaclcg7560]

"Changes?! We don't need no stinkin' changes!"

Yay for bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not everything evolves.
Things only evolve if there's an environmental pressure that causes it. Otherwise, there's just as much of a likelyhood that they'll stay exactly the same. If an organism is successful and suited well enough to it's environment that it out-competes any altered versions of itself, then it won't change.

Earth has only existed for six thousand years.

[mmell]

Ask a WASP.

Re:Earth has only existed for six thousand years.

[l0ungeb0y]

Hmmm ... I don't think WASP means what it think it means. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant is typically used to describe lacoste clad and teeth whitened mcMansion types, not bible banging NASCAR fans

uhhh

[bob.lansdorp]

Just because a fossil looks similar does not mean it hasn't evolved. Most evolution happens on the molecular scale, if you looked at the genomes I guarantee they would be different.

Re:uhhh

[JumperCable]

I agree with your primary point. However the article does state he analyzed the chemistry too. I wonder how much the chemistry is really going to change if the microbes are pulled from the same environment. I would expect proteins to break down after a couple of billion years.

Schopf used several techniques to analyze the fossils, including Raman spectroscopy — which enables scientists to look inside rocks to determine their composition and chemistry

Re:uhhh

[Em Adespoton]

He doesn't need a methodology for analyzing the changes to point out that the scientists could not arrive at the conclusions presented in the media (not I'm not saying they arrived at those conclusions) without such a methodology.

I'll add to that that the information as presented in TFS does not prove or disprove that descendents of the original bacteria evolved -- it just shows (if you accept their methodology) that at least some of them didn't, at least not in the ways the scientists were measuring.

Since these bacteria DO use DNA, which has built-in mutation weaknesses, this is impressive no matter how you look at it. It is possible we will find that they have some process that inhibits the mutation of their genome in a significant portion of their culture.

Re:uhhh

[Phronesis]

Just because a fossil looks similar does not mean it hasn't evolved. Most evolution happens on the molecular scale, if you looked at the genomes I guarantee they would be different.

The paper in PNAS discusses this at length. It clearly states that it would be very nice to be able to check DNA, but that defining species in microbes is about phenotypes, not genotypes, and the important thing is that there is no sign of speciation (that is, two separate populations, separated in space, did not diverge.

The morphology-based “concept of hypobradytely does not necessarily imply genomic, biochemical, or physiological identity between modern and fossil taxa," a claim of extreme evolutionary stasis—a lack of speciation over billions of years—would be strengthened not only by discovery of additional fossil communities but by firm evidence of their molecular biology. Although speciation-based evolution occurs at the phenotypic rather than genotypic level of biologicenvironmental interaction, the biomolecules underlying such change are not preserved in the rock record in which such assessment can be based only on indirect proxies and inferences of physiology based on isotopic analyses

However, the article noted, it's possible that this interpretation is wrong and that what they saw was two separate populations that underwent convergent evolution rather than one population that was separated and remained static or that there might have been significant biochemical evolution that did not change the morphology.

Moreover, large-diameter (“giant”) sulfur bacteria of differing phylogenetic lineages can exhibit similar morphologies and patterns of behavior suggesting convergent evolution of morphologic “look-alikes” adapted to a same or similar function. Although it remains to be established whether such morphological “mimicry” is exhibited also by the more narrow 10-m-diameter sulfur bacteria described here—the two modern sulfur bacterial taxa of similar dimensions being aerobes rather than anaerobes like the Duck Creek and Turee Creek fossils—it remains conceivable that the marked similarities between the two mid-Precambrian communities and their modern counterparts could be an example of the so-called Volkswagen Syndrome, a lack of change in organismal form that masks the evolution of internal biochemical machinery

Re:uhhh

[RockDoctor]

they found that the bacteria look the same as bacteria of the same region from 2.3 billion years ago

I was making exactly this point - the difference between true biological species and the palaeontologist's approximation of a "morphological species" - earlier today on a Coursera dinosaur palaeontology course.

On the other hand, in most palaeontological circumstances, morphology is all we've got to go on.

Re:uhhh

[RockDoctor]

Raman spectrscopy can detect gross differences in composition and structure - lipids versus cellulose, for example, but in such old rocks it's not going to be a high precision tool. It's about the best tool we've got for such old fossils though.

Re:uhhh

[RockDoctor]

I don't have access to the full paper, but this doesn't surprise me.

The morphology-based âoeconcept of hypobradytely does not necessarily imply genomic, biochemical, or physiological identity between modern and fossil taxa," a claim of extreme evolutionary stasisâ"a lack of speciation over billions of yearsâ"would be strengthened not only by discovery of additional fossil communities but by firm evidence of their molecular biology

Schopf may have had his boldest claimed discovery challenged (successfully) by Brasier (recently deceased, alas ; Intended to buy the guy a whiskey if I ever met him ; fun writer), but that doesn't make Schopf a fool. Unlike some of the dimmer denizens of Slashdot, he wasn't going to make that error.

Visual only

[Tablizer]

They seem to be going by visual appearance. There may be loads of DNA changes that affect metabolism chemistry and behavior that wouldn't be detectable by visual inspection of fossils. Looks can be deceiving.

Also in the TFA: "If they were in an environment that did not change but they nevertheless evolved, that would have shown that our understanding of Darwinian evolution was seriously flawed."

It's possible for a chance mutation or set of mutations to "discover" a new feature even in a stable environment. There are probably always better designs in highly remote combinations of mutations.

Re:Visual only

[endercase]

Thank you. haz my upvotes. With this ... even in a unchanging low radiation envioment ... some random traits still might be usefull.

Re:They found...

[rubycodez]

I don't think the nutbars are the most dangerous part of our new Republicans, rather being bitches of big corporate interests. Back when I was young it started, the "Rockefeller Republicans". That kind of shit causes wars of choice and police state.

the reason is simple

[Tumbleweed]

There are no activist judges in the ocean!

If it ain't broke don't fix it

[TrollstonButterbeans]

Is part of evolution

Re:If it ain't broke don't fix it

[Cro Magnon]

Too bad UI developers don't realize this.

Re:Summary is wrong

[Livius]

How often does a species reproduce?

Looks good enough for science writers

[nowsharing]

To summarize: Fossils that look similar "haven't evolved". That is quite possibly the stupidest thing that I read today.

bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided eye

[Nutria]

Has our educational system sunk so low that it must be mentions that you need a microscope to see bacteria?

Re:bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided

[quenda]

Most, but not all.

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re:No direct evolution exists

[Sique]

The human as a species is not stabile in any biological sense. To the contrary, it seems as if the genetic drift within the human genome has sped up considerably in the last 5,000 years.

Re:bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided

[ihtoit]

Not so, some are large enough to see with the naked eye: Sogin, Nature, vol. 362, page 207

Re:Summary is wrong

[Barsteward]

Species, Species II, Species III and Species - the awakening . http://speciesfilms.wikia.com/...

How can the prove that the sulfur bacteria has not

[TimSSG]

How can the prove that the sulfur bacteria has not evolved? Note: They could prove that the sulfur bacteria still exists like it did long ago. But, I see no way they can prove there was NOT failed evolution paths taken in the past. And, I am NOT sure that there has NOT been evolution paths taken in the past that has resulted in bacteria so different that it might not be currently believed they evolved from this sulfur bacteria. Tim S.

Re:bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided

[Nutria]

But how many? Specifically, what tiny proportion? (Since otherwise, the Ancient Greeks would have discovered them.)

Re:bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided

[ihtoit]

proportion?? How many species of bacteria are there? Good luck pulling any kind of proportional measurement. Let's just say a number greater than zero, and you be fucking satisfied with the citation I gave you, hm?

Re:Summary is wrong

[tompaulco]

Devolving is a form of evolving, just as deceleration is a form of acceleration.

Found in Chilean mud, really?

[Applehu Akbar]

I would have looked in a Senate subcommittee.

Re:bacteria ... too small to see with the unaided

[R3d M3rcury]

Not to mention the giant ones in space.

I'll raise you a Billion years

[Trax3001BBS]

Copy of my post to the /. "Scientist Says Potential Signs of Ancient Life in Mars Rover Photos" http://science.slashdot.org/st...

From a link on microbial lifeforms found on Earth http://www.astrobio.net/news-e... "What’s more, MISS have remained unchanged over the last 3 billion years" MISS: microbially-induced sedimentary structure.

"3 billion years and little if any mutations in a microbe life or it's off spring.
“But it also raised the question: why are they so identical?” she adds. “And what does that mean about the organisms that created them?”"

Full of shit -- don't read the article

[penguinoid]

The journalists reporting on this article don't know the first thing about evolution. First of all, much evolution can happen without a creature's shape changing. Which is especially true when the creature's shape is incredibly, mindnumbingly simple. Secondly, it falsely states that evolution doesn't happen in a stable environment. No, in a stable environment there would simply be less environmental natural selection. This means less selection for things such as changing the thickness of the fur coat to adapt to the temperature. However, there will still be competition within the own species, occasional but far less likely adaptations to the environment, and especially an accumulation random mutations which neither increase nor decrease fitness.

Re:"cutting edge technologies"?

[RockDoctor]

The likelihood of getting a vaguely complete DNA sequence from multi-billion-year old fossils is slender. Our best example of "ancient DNA" from fossils has a less than 1% complete genome from rocks a little over 100Myr old. 2000 Myr old fossils might have a 0.0000000000000000001 % complete genome (if preserved in exceptionally well.

Re:Summary is wrong

[Livius]

In other words, too often..