This might be the coolest visualization of evolution ever

[progressoid]

Researchers at Harvard and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have set up what’s essentially a giant rectangular petri dish, called the "microbial evolution growth arena plate" (MEGA plate for short).

Bacteria are then introduced at each end of the table and do what they do best: spread and multiply.

At each end of the MEGA plate, there are no antibiotics. But every several centimeters in toward the center, the scientists paint bands of antibiotics of increasing potency. Each increase of antibiotic concentration is a stressor that the bacteria (they’re just regular E. coli) have to cope with. That is, the bands of increasingly powerful antibiotics (either trimethoprim or ciprofloxacin) are provoking the bacteria to evolve, outsmarting the medicines that are designed to kill them.

...http://www.vox.com/2016/9/8/12852924/evolution-bacteria-timelapse-video-mega-harvard

[lastlib]

1. Ain't no Eevil-lution........

cuz Jay-zus, yanno?

[northoftheborder]

2. Excellent!

[packman]

3. VERY Nice posting - but scary as shit

when you think about the medical implications of anti-biotic germs evolving.

[hunter]

4. Bacteria have been doing this for billions of years.

They're very good at it; they've had lots of practice.

In a certain sense they have evolved to evolve.

(I'll laugh if anyone complains about teleological explanations or anthropomorphism... humans are utterly incapable of looking at the universe in any other way. Pretending otherwise, as scientists, mathematicians, engineers, authors, theologians, or philosophers, leads to all sorts of nonsense.)

[qazplm]

5. yeah but that's just microevolution

doesn't count!!