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Researchers: Cross species transfer has been “an important driver of evolution”

Denyse O'Leary
July 10, 2018
horizontal gene transfer, Intelligent Design
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BovB element has appeared in species wide apart on the evolutionary tree, for example sea urchins and elephants, cows and snakes/University of Adelaide

From ScienceDaily:

Far from just being the product of our parents, University of Adelaide scientists have shown that widespread transfer of genes between species has radically changed the genomes of today’s mammals, and been an important driver of evolution.

In the world’s largest study of so-called “jumping genes,” the researchers have traced two particular jumping genes across 759 species of plants, animals and fungi. These jumping genes are actually small pieces of DNA that can copy themselves throughout a genome and are known as transposable elements.

They have found that cross-species transfers, even between plants and animals, have occurred frequently throughout evolution.

Both of the transposable elements they traced — L1 and BovB — entered mammals as foreign DNA. This is the first time anyone has shown that the L1 element, important in humans, has jumped between species.

“Jumping genes, properly called retrotransposons, copy and paste themselves around genomes, and in genomes of other species. How they do this is not yet known although insects like ticks or mosquitoes or possibly viruses may be involved — it’s still a big puzzle,” says project leader Professor David Adelson, Director of the University of Adelaide’s Bioinformatics Hub.

“This process is called horizontal transfer, differing from the normal parent-offspring transfer, and it’s had an enormous impact on mammalian evolution.”

For example, Professor Adelson says, 25% of the genome of cows and sheep is derived from jumping genes. Paper. (open access) – Atma M. Ivancevic, R. Daniel Kortschak, Terry Bertozzi, David L. Adelson. Horizontal transfer of BovB and L1 retrotransposons in eukaryotes. Genome Biology, 2018; 19 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s13059-018-1456-7 More.

Well, if 25% of the genome of cows and sheep is derived from jumping genes (horizontal gene transfer), Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutations passed on from parent to offspring) is over. We can all go home now. And rewrite the biology textbooks.

See also: Researchers: Horizontal gene transfer drives global infectious disease

Horizontal gene transfer: Sorry, Darwin, it’s not your evolution any more

and

Life continues to ignore what evolution experts say

Comments
perhaps just more evidence of our One common designer/creator, thus common building blocks in unrelated kinds. as we find w/ 'convergent evolution' RCCF framework for understanding science. Pearlman
We can all go home now. And rewrite the biology textbooks.
We would think and wish. But what really matters is that "the Blind Watchmaker did it". How it happened does not seem to be important enough to require new textbooks. Even as RM & NS are defeated as the predicted mechanism - Darwin always survives in an "Extended" synthesis. That kind of synthesis reconciles contradictory findings. ID is not oriented against Darwinism (neo, extended or otherwise), but against the claim that design can come from blind, mindless forces. Silver Asiatic
Darwinism is dead and so is neo-Darwinism... Found and added this quote yesterday from Third Way, a quote by Eugene Koonin,
"The summary of the state of affairs on the 150th anniversary of the Origin is somewhat shocking: in the post-genomic era, all major tenets of the Modern Synthesis are, if not outright overturned, replaced by a new and incomparably more complex vision of the key aspects of evolution. So, not to mince words, the Modern Synthesis is gone." (The Origin at 150: is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight? Trends Genet. Nov 2009; 25(11): 473–475)
That quote from 2009 was quite brave at the time lest the Darwinist burn the heretic at the proverbial Darwinist stake. Darwinism undercut by "Jumping Genes" and oh yes, undercut by Orphan Genes? https://evolutionnews.org/2018/04/a-pattern-problem-brochosome-proteins-encoded-by-orphan-genes/ The more we find, the more we find we don't yet know ;-) DATCG
...and from the current issue of New Scientist (ISSUE 3185: 7 July 2018) "Out Of Asia - It's Time To Rethink The Map Of Evolution". One of the main drivers of my interest in evolution was the almost continuous "re-writing/re-thinking/re-imagining" I found in so many articles. It was invariably it seemed from just one anomaly. Kuhn would be having a field-day! (https://tinyurl.com/y749xm36) Just sayin'! ronvanwegen

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