> When I hear the word "Mutation" I can't help but to think of a deformity. But that > still doesn't explain when/where life started where said reproduction was even > possible. > > There's a JUMP between "chemicals" and complex organisms. It's glossed over in the > hopes that nobody asks such questions.
By coincidence, a microbiologist friend of ours came over last night to practice a presentation she's giving Wednesday on bacterial quorum sensing - a mechanism which basically allows single-cell organisms to start working together, simply by achieving a certain local density threshold. Pretty freakin' fascinating, it was, and an interesting new possible mechanism for defeating resistant strains of bacteria by keeping them from "joining up".
The "JUMP", for quorum sensing, is like the difference between one ping pong ball bouncing around a room, trying to land in a single drinking glass, vs. 1,000 balls and 1,000 glasses, with each "hit" triggering DNA/RNA copying that makes the next hit more likely. -JW
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