According to ScienceDaily:
The discovery was made possible by a new imaging method invented at IU that let scientists see for the first time how bacteria use their long and mobile appendages — called pili — to bind to, or “harpoon,” DNA in the environment. The new study, reported Oct. 18 in the journal PLOS Genetics, focuses on how they reel their catch back in.
By revealing the mechanisms involved in this process, the study’s authors said the results may help hasten work on new ways to stop bacterial infection.
Paper. (open access)
Which raises an obvious question:
This is a far cry from claims by Darwinians decades ago that the rise of antibiotic resistance represents “Darwinian evolution in action before our eyes.” “More Ways of Information Sharing Found in Living Things” at Evolution News and Science Today:
Never mind that people who doubt the claims of the Darwin-in-the-schools lobby will supposedly be science-illiterate.
Wait. What does this story remind us of? Oh yes, recently a writer at The Atlantic went so far as to express doubt about the claim of a Darwin-in-the-schools lobbyist that everyone needs to buy into their approach to evolution if we want to understand superbugs.
Actually we will make better time understanding superbugs if we forget Darwin and learn much more about horizontal gene transfer.
See also: Horizontal gene transfer: Sorry, Darwin, it’s not your evolution any more
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