mick writes:
I despair of anybody who, reading this article, finds nothing of interest other than a wrongheaded "challenge to evolution". This is a really exciting article! For the sake of argument, let's assume (prematurely) that mRNA templates exist within the nucleus. An imaginative person could easily get carried away: This could have great importance for our theories of how "DNA life" evolved from the RNA world! It impacts our view of the mutation/selection process! It might even suggest novel means of combatting genetic disease! Where is this information being stored such that nobody has seen it before? Does it occur in other genes? Does it occur in other species?
Hear hear! This story is actually quite a good example of how scientist respond to unexpected results. As
New Scientist report:
Pruitt's team made the discovery after finding that some Arabidopsis refused to "breed true". To Pruitt's irritation as many as 1 in 10 of the offspring grew normally despite their parents having a mutation in both copies of the hothead gene, which causes petals and leaves to stick to one another. He assumed that normal seeds or pollen were contaminating his trials.
But a series of experiments ruled out contamination. They also ruled out other possibilities, including the gene spontaneously mutating back to the normal form, the existence of more than two copies of the hothead gene, or closely related DNA sequences providing a template for repairs.
Eventually, Pruitt was left with one, unbelievable explanation: the normal offspring were somehow acquiring genetic information from ancestors other than their parents.
So, they discover something anomalous, methodically rule out the obvious explanations like contamination, and come to the realisation they've discovered something new and interesting.
And the response of the rest of the scientific community? Pretty much the same as Mick's. Its a surprise, but it's a very interesting one. Clearly the Darwinian thought police have all taken an early Easter holiday...
As an aside: although I can't claim to be an expert, this discovery seems to me to just add to the evidence that DNA is not (quite) the be all and end all of inheritance - haven't some people attributed our lack of success with cloning to the lack of transciption factors, etc. which would normally transmitted to the embryo?
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