February 27, 2019 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Speciation and Genetic Relatedness
By now massive evidence has accrued of
common descent of all life on earth from the last universal common ancestor.
This fact has allowed the conservation of
genetic material over the course of evolution.
The conservation of genes were accompanied
with conservation of crucial metabolic and developmental pathways displaying
themselves all over the animal and plant kingdom.
Most wise men of various civilizations had
long understood this to be true; in fact, it had to be true.
Only thing was that they were not sure or rather
ignorant was the exact mechanism for the speciation process.
Speciation process is, as you will very
well know, is the process of evolution of a new species from a single ancestral
population which can happen through several mechanisms.
I shall not go into the mechanisms of
speciation for now.
We all animals on this planet share at
least 6331 groups of genes that belong to a common ancestor which lived about
650 million years ago.
This was the time of intensive glaciations
and ice age where the primary forms of life was amoebae, algae and sponges.
It is simply quite astonishing to know the
percentage of genome that has been conserved across species whose extent can be
understood with the simple example of human apes sharing 90% of the genome with
the common house mouse (Mus musculus).
This is the fundamental basis of use of
model organisms; the evolutionary principle and our genetic relatedness.
It is therefore not surprising that this
humble and often despised creature has served as one of the most important
model organisms in biology and medicine.
I myself had the honor of experimenting on
their eyes (along with New Zealand rabbits) at the Wilmer Research Institute
that has now developed Wilmer Core Research Centers that is a leading recipient
of generous research grants in the United States.
I was fascinated and dumbstruck when I
first entered the Animal Module for the Wilmer Core sometime in the July of
2007.
The manner in which the animals of all
sorts starting from house mouse, New Zealand rabbits and even dogs were housed
and taken care stunned me.
I did not see any non-human primates over
there though since ethically they are most objectionable to experiment upon
since genetically they are extremely close to us.
The next laboratory where I did happen to
work upon simultaneously along with Gavin Herbert Eye Institute of University
of Irvine which was that of Allergan Incorporated at Irvine did house several
non human primates.
As per the US Department of Agriculture
report of 2017 Allergan at Irvine had 175 nonhuman primates.
A section of public till this day continues
to protest against the use of animals for research purpose.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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