Silly Design Institute: Let's discuss BOTH sides of the Design Controversy...

There is one species of crustacean, privileges over all other known sighted organisms with eight different pigments for vision, and thus apparently the ability to see eight different primary colors.Please see:Stomatopod Biology
Meet Blueboard, Not Your Average PhilodendronOf course, what I find most interesting is the fact that the different versions of the same gene are used in the marking where the drosophilia (eyeless), the mouse (small eye -- which in mice control the size), and the human (aniridia) will have eyes form, such that, for example, if your take the mouse small gene and substitute it for the drosophilia's, it will perform the same function as the drosophilia's eyeless gene -- and given these homologies, whereas it seemed at one time that vision had been invented about times in the history of life, apparently at the genetic level, it was invented only once.

Specialization of eyes in the same organism? This sounds like a job for Evo Devo!Haven't had the chance to read the article as of yet, but you might want to try:Cubozoan jellyfish: an Evo/Devo model for eyes and other
sensory systems
by JORAM PIATIGORSKY and ZBYNEK KOZMIK
Int. J. Dev. Biol. 48: 719-729 (2004)
doi: 10.1387/ijdb.041851jp
The International Journal of Developmental Biology

Well, as I understand it, even some protozoa are sensitive to light, and at that point, we are talking about single-celled creatures (protozoa), so it shouldn't seem that strange that you can genetically trace all vision back to one ancestor. Tracking the sun? Perhaps. Or they may have simply used "vision" to regulate their depth, perhaps in the ocean. Interestingly enough, there are some bacteria are sensitive to magnetic fields, too.Oh -- and the quantifier was supposed to be "forty." Sorry about omitting that...

Well, all of this is purely academic unless the poor thing had gametes. No gametes, no reproduction, and no way of passing down its splendid genes no matter how well it might have been able to see.But how could it have possibly had gametes if it were only single-celled?Answer me that, Batman!

Ok. Here is the serious answer. Before multi-celled organisms, a single-celled organism had to be a jack-of-all-trades, able to perform everything for itself, including sensation, reproduction, digestion, etc. However, being a jack-of-all-trades, it wasn't especially good at any specific job. To get good at performing specific jobs, you have to have specialization -- which requires multi-celled organisms.Now for an example of a species which is at the very threshold of multicellularity, you might look at the social amoeba. Interestingly enough, they might be helpful in understanding the protein pathways in the human brain...ScienceWeek
2. THE SOCIAL AMOEBA D. DISCOIDEUM
http://scienceweek.com/2003/sw030425-2.htmSocial Amoeba Sheds Light On Communication In Human Brain.
By Sherry Seethaler
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/svalium.aspGenome of social amoeba shows its importance as research model
Category: Genetics News
Article Date: 05 May 2005
Medical and health information

I hope no one minds if I throw-in my two cents.Personally, I think it is a mistake to make rough comparisons between the microscopic and the macroscopic levels: the physics is all different. You have seen waterbugs walking upon the surface of the water -- well generally that wouldn't work for you or me because the waterbug is quite literally supported by surface tension -- which works at that scale.An ant can fall off the top of the Empire State Building and safely land on the ground. Why? For the same reason that the waterbug can walk on water: the volume to surface area ratio is proportional to the scale for objects of similar shape, and the volume is what is proportional to the mass or weight, whereas the surface area is what is responsible for support or air resistance. At the molecular level things become even more strange. There are "motors" which are driven by thermal fluctuations, for example, and now it appears that some proteins make use of quantum tunneling for their peculiar chemistry. For this reason, I will tend to look upon any rough comparison between levels as different as this with a certain amount of skepticism.

Heh -- I thought I got to be the joker!Anyway, gotta go. Have to catch a bus -- stayed late getting a client build done. But I will be checking back!

Earlier post: Most recent post: Well, at this point I am just guessing, but if what you are wondering is what specifically happened at the genetic level, I suspect that this is a case of gene duplication (or perhaps either segment(al) or chromosomal duplication) followed by what is called "sub-functionalization." (Same sort of thing happened in primates at a less dramatic level, taking us from dichromatic vision to trichromatic vision.)Some of the genes responsible for both kinds of eyes are the same exact genes, some are different -- the latter due to specialization made possible by the duplication, then mutation. At some point in the development of the embryo, the different kinds of eyes are probably almost identical, but different protein-markers establish a contexts which lead to different genes being expressed in the development of the different kinds of eyes. (This would also be comparable to hind wing development in the common housefly, where the expression of a protein suppressed the full development of the second set of wings. For more on this, you might want to see "Endless Forms Most Beautiful," pg. 96-8, particularly the section entitled "Making Serial Repeated Modules Different.")This message has been edited by TimChase, 11-29-2005 10:11 AM