it would be great if at the end of each quote in a newspaper, ad, whatever there was a requirement to include the p-value and e-value of the words used.

working on an x64 version of flash...

oh, wait...

So what you're saying is that the judge should include an analysis of the anonymous poster's financial portfolio as well? I'm sure that would be a lot more helpful to this woman.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23247/

Too true... look at the response to Ardi: "now you have *two* missing links, one on each side of Ardi!"

sad.

The easy answer: it depends on the environment and its inherent selection pressure.

The better answer: It doesn't matter.

The thing to take away from this experiment is that over the course of 40,000 generations, this population of E. Coli developed mutations which increased its fitness level (as relative to earlier populations). If the selection pressure was higher (up to a certain point, i.e. some bacteria needs to survive the test), the mutation rate would appear faster over your sample time set. If another population was present and was more fit (i.e. "in the wild"), it would have displaced the original population, that's how natural selection works.

I think what you're trying to ask is: "Was the selective pressure determined to be in response to stimuli versus a random occurance?"

The authors cover the difference between neutral drift and selective mutations which increase fitness throughout the paper.

Specifically in answer to your question, though, is the following from the expanded methods & materials:

"We performed Luria–Delbrück fluctuation tests33 to confirm that the Ara-1 population evolved an elevated mutation rate. Bacteria were revived from frozen stocks by growth overnight in LB medium. After dilution and 24 h of re-growth in Davis minimal medium supplemented with 25 mg l-1 glucose, we inoculated 24 replicate 10-ml cultures of Davis minimal medium with 250 mg l-1 glucose with 100–1,000 cells. After 24 h of growth to stationary phase, these cultures were concentrated by centrifugation and plated on LB agar containing 20 mug ml-1 nalidixic acid."

While I find some of the reported observations very thought-provoking, I have trouble attaching overwhelming significance to this study due to the way the data is presented. For example, 26 SNPs in the 20k-generational line are non-synonymous. On the surface, I find that a significant departure from the norm, but when you account for 12 total populations and the dataset consisting of only one population, something just feels a bit off.

Now, the authors may really be on to something here, they do raise quite a few questions in my mind (and as I re-read the paper, i'll probably answer some and generate more), so time (and further experimentation) will certainly expand this discussion.

I hate rhythmic gymnastics...

good point -- though the DNA is non-coding, it's structural conformation alone can affect the expression of other factors in the coding DNA.

On the surface, it is very easy to attribute the complexity produced by natural selection as a non-random or directed process. Unfortunately, if you look at the number of failures which were required to come up with this arrangement (and the subsequent spread of the most fit type), it's still just as random as any other natural mutation process.

How long until some Akhibara electro-wizard overclocks your DNA with LN?

What's a few hundred rem among friends?