Journal Raindance's Journal: A couple brainstorms on theoretical biology 3
I recently blogged a couple brainstorms on potential tools in the field of phylogeny-
Long-term alternatives to our current common-descent model in contexts where horizontal gene transfer is significant;
Logarithmic Evolution Distance, an intuitive computational approach to comparing genomes.
They were a lot of fun to think about; perhaps they'd be fun to read if you like theoretical biology stuff.
Some day we will all speak English (Score:2)
But by then we will all have specialized so much we still won't be speaking a common language :-)
"allowed types of mutations." (Score:1)
...that's the limiting factor for the accuracy of the new 'log, correct? That and how to involve "junk" DNA.
Anyway, this is why I love having so many friends on slashdot, the gems show up.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, defining the mutation operations permitted to happen on a genome between generations is really important to this metric, complex, and a little underdetermined by current evolutionary theory. Which is not to say a metric like this need hit it right on the head-- it's the sort of thing where an imperfect model of allowed mutations /should/ bias various comparisons more-or-less equally. In theory. :)