Moontanman Posted March 9, 2011 Share Posted March 9, 2011 Big brains and spineless penises How DNA deletions may have produced uniquely human traits The spiny genitalia of the Callosobruchus analis beetle Hundreds of deletions in non-coding DNA have helped sculpt human evolution, including an increase in brain size and the loss of sensory whiskers and penis spines, proposes a study published this week in Nature. Read more: Big brains and spineless penises - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/58044/#ixzz1G8lmspjU Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greippi Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Makes sense to me. From what I've seen in my study of the evolution of enzymes different function arises from convergent evolution - the modules are all in place, just to be stuck together like lego blocks to create new things. This could be taken further with the same base set of genetic material that is modified to create new functions - why not deletion of "useless" stuff as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecoli Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 ouch. penis spines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rip:20 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) Makes sense to me. From what I've seen in my study of the evolution of enzymes different function arises from convergent evolution - the modules are all in place, just to be stuck together like lego blocks to create new things. This could be taken further with the same base set of genetic material that is modified to create new functions - why not deletion of "useless" stuff as well. How is the mosaic modular nature of enzyme evolution convergent? Also, if you read the article the changes in non-coding regions are the opposite of useless since they altered phenotype. That's the whole point of the study, that non-coding regions have important regulatory and expression effects. Evolution works across the genome on much more than just composition of protein coding regions (genes). Edited March 17, 2011 by Rip:20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greippi Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 (edited) Ahhh I'm sorry, I was ill and a bit delirious. I meant divergent of course! Not convergent. In fact the entirety of my post does not make sense to me now. Edited March 25, 2011 by Greippi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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