Nacario's Digital Scrapbook

• An experiment at Duke and NC state was derailed when bacteria evolved from it's original form into various forms. There original goals have been replaced with higher ideas.
• Researchers put a group of mice in a sterile isolator and introduced a bacteria to them. The bacteria mutated into numerous types and this find was unexpected. The new bacteria were hardier in mice than it's original form.
  
• The assistant professor said that this was the first time bacteria evolution has been seen in a complex environment. He also had another idea of experimenting with evolution that could use bacteria to do good for biotechnology and medicine.
• Experimental evolution is used in labs to try to get bacteria to develop new strains, which could be used probriotic substances, which are organisms that are are seen within the digestive system.
• Only problem is that engineered bacteria may not stay that way for long, the mutation of bacteria was so quick in the study, that newer forms of bacteria were more diverse and different than it's predecessors. The culprit to this diversity was evolution, even in a sterile, isolated environment.
• This article relates to evolution in a different way then what we talk about in class. We talk about evolution happening in a non controlled environment but in this article the evolution takes place in a sterile, controlled environment. This means that even without selective pressures, the bacteria in the experiment continued to differentiate.

To me, I thought the bacteria in a controlled and sterile environment would stay the same because there were no selective pressures in their environment. However I was proven wrong in this article and evolution can still take place no matter the environment. I wonder if the bacteria evolves not because of pressures, but of interest in itself. I know we said that we cannot evolve into anything we want, but what if there are no pressures to evolve from? Would evolution just take course in any way it pleases? This article has broadened my thoughts on evolution and makes me think that nothing is impossible for evolution.

http://vedicsciences.net/design/bacteria5.jpg