Amazing: Evolution happening before our eyes!

www.freep.com...


But alas, dangerous as well.

Good news: More proof for evolution.

Bad news: Well, ultra-strong bacteria strains are pretty bad...

This does not prove evolution in the Darwin sense, and the fact that germs mutate so as to become resistant to antibiotics isn't news, either. The scary thing is the germ became resistant to the particular antibiotic. The even more frightening thing is that this situation is not being reported on all the alphabet news agencies 10 times a day for a week! Most people don't seem to understand the damage they do by demanding antibiotics from their spineless docters that give them out unnecessarily, and then only take them until they feel better instead of until the bottle is empty.
One of the greatest threats to mankind is this particular threat; I've been worried about it for 15 years now, and for the most part, people still seem unaware.

Thanks William, as if I didn't have enough worries!

Actually, genetic mutation through hudreds of "generations" to improve the oranism's odds for survival is indeed classic biologic evolution.

And yes, this is a direct result of too much antibiotics... including our compulsion with antibiotics in every single cleaning product we use.

"including our compulsion with antibiotics in every single cleaning product we use."

Some tv show did a report on that a few years back. The dangers of excessively using anti-bacterial cleaners etc...

Actually, we knew about this growing problem back in the early 1980's, when I was research assistant at Texas Tech Medical School. Knowledge about it dates to before that, when the problems of overuse of pennicillin became known.

Well, thankfully for me, my mother never used cleaning products. A scrub and water were good enough. And guess what? I never got sick.. Never used used cleaning products, never took me to doctors for medicine or whatever, and I never got sick. Wasn't until I started living by myself and used cleaning products that I started getting sick.

In fact, right now I am sick... and one thing, this sucks!! Not enough to put me down and out, just enough to give me an excuse not to go to work or school!

"That was especially true in the Detroit area, where many intravenous drug users in the 1970s began mixing antibiotics, including methicillin, with heroin."

Scary, scary stuff. Evolution is natural for all successful living organisms and I shudder to think of the mutations that narcotics/antibiotics/bacteria brought forth, with the human blood stream playing crucible.
I fully expect one day to get a rash on my arm, take a magnifying glass to the bumps, and see this looking back up at me saying "that amoxacillian was DEE LEESH, got any more"!?!

Well, what you expect? Before kids could play in the city dump, swim in the east river with its sewage, and so forth. Their immune system built up. But guess what? Today, disinfect, sanatize, antibiotic everything. So, when you do, the disease changes. It grows to become resiliant to live!

People, let your kids play in the dump, swim in sewage, heck I remember playing in the dump. You cut yourself? To bad, wash the blood off, play with the dead rat you found. Guess what? I have been sick three times in my life. While freinds who had the clean freaks, now that they live on their own, monday I got cold, tuesday the flu, clean next day, thursday bubonic plague, friday mad cow. They get sick all the time. Yet me and the freinds I played with in the dump and didn't have clean freak parents, they never get sick.

Wait, four times, I was sick when I made the last post.

In response to the original train of thought, Willie -

this is not an example of classical neo-darwinian evolution. It is MICROEVOLUTION, which is completely different, and almost totally unrelated. No one will deny that microevolution takes place among bacteria and other microscopic organisms because of their rate of reproduction/replication and mutability. I'd go into my thoughts on macro, but that would be off topic.

In any case, this is still a scary thing to think about.

Erm, wouldnt it just mean that with larger organisms, longer reproductive cycles and less mutation it just takes longer. Because last I checked what is happening there is very similar to the classical definition of evolution.

(obviously apart from the fact that its humans screwing around and not natural causes that are creating the changes forcing these organisms to evolve)

The link appears to no longer be valid.

But let me ask, is bacteria producing Arms and legs, or is it
producing more bacteria resistant to something? If so, then
it is not evolution. The media throw around so-called scientific
wording, based upon many biased, so-called scientists.
Variation within a kind is not evolution. Little dogs, and big
dogs are still dogs, unless you are talking about hot dogs.
If you believe in evolution, then you willingly accept such
things. "Natural Selection" is not evolution either.

The poor understanding of evolution I see around is pretty sad.

Evolution is descent with modification - natural selection acting on random variations. Thus, bacteria evolving resistance is evolution.

Natural selection acting on pre-existing variations within a species is evolution (descent with modification). natural selection acting on new variations within a species is evolution (descent with modification). 'Microevolution' is evolution. 'Macroevolution' is evolution.

And there is no such thing as 'kinds' in the real world, using the bible to define such biological terms is silly, otherwise we end up with family level classification to species level classification being the same thing.

Natural selection is an essential part of evolution.

ABE: Just one of the many studies on the evolution of bacterial resistance...

Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, October 2003, p. 3222-3232, Vol. 47, No. 10
0066-4804/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AAC.47.10.3222-3232.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Mutation Rate and Evolution of Fluoroquinolone Resistance in Escherichia coli Isolates from Patients with Urinary Tract Infections
Patricia Komp Lindgren, Åsa Karlsson, and Diarmaid Hughes*
Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Microbiology Programme, Biomedical Center, Uppsala University, S-751 24 Uppsala, Sweden

Received 16 May 2003/ Returned for modification 8 July 2003/ Accepted 11 July 2003

Escherichia coli strains from patients with uncomplicated urinary tract infections were examined by DNA sequencing for fluoroquinolone resistance-associated mutations in six genes: gyrA, gyrB, parC, parE, marOR, and acrR. The 54 strains analyzed had a susceptibility range distributed across 15 dilutions of the fluoroquinolone MICs. There was a correlation between the fluoroquinolone MIC and the number of resistance mutations that a strain carried, with resistant strains having mutations in two to five of these genes. Most resistant strains carried two mutations in gyrA and one mutation in parC. In addition, many resistant strains had mutations in parE, marOR, and/or acrR. No (resistance) mutation was found in gyrB. Thus, the evolution of fluoroquinolone resistance involves the accumulation of multiple mutations in several genes. The spontaneous mutation rate in these clinical strains varied by 2 orders of magnitude. A high mutation rate correlated strongly with a clinical resistance phenotype. This correlation suggests that an increased general mutation rate may play a significant role in the development of high-level resistance to fluoroquinolones by increasing the rate of accumulation of rare new mutations.

aac.asm.org...




[edit on 4-12-2007 by melatonin]