Evolution and technology

SCIENCE IN ACTION

By MICHAEL JOHN UGLO
WELCOME all to the 13th and final lecture of the Science of Organisms serious.
Knowing our being in the vastness of space and our home planet earth is the best thing one can do because it will be living in our world in vain without knowing where and who you are.
Evolution is a topic of controversy in science and religion and is often hotly debated. If you have been in the lectures or were reading the lectures for the past 11 Fridays, you will appreciate and reason your being and at least form an opinion to provide your input to this topic.
Man has moved from nomadic and sedentary flint axes to green revolution, then to industrial and now to technology age and revolution. Sadly or not as far as Science and Technology is concerned we are deriving from mass collection of materials like our ancestral stone age practices such as the current inorganic chemistry of the silicon computer chips and the group three and group five elemental doping of the solid state electronics. When we transit to nanotechnology then as a bottom up innovation then, we will begin to manipulate matter itself. At that moment we would have reached a metaphysical moment in time that will make anyone come up with a computing machine or device and after achieving a purpose can dismantle it. The computing machines we have at the moment will be a thing of the historical past and will be seen to be collecting at the museums.
The above brief account should put all of us and the nation of Papua New Guinea into the bigger picture of where we are. Everything around us may seem traditional not only for PNG but the world and mankind. Hence, we have not shifted much from our stone age but still transitioning as far as nano-computing and thus nanotechnology is concerned.
Evolution
Evolution is the life line of the study of biology or study about life. Plants, animals and microorganisms come in a variety of forms and varieties known as the biodiversity. The idea about every living thing on earth come from a common ancestor or creation was by God are two general views.
The evolutionary processes of natural selection such as sexual selection is common as well as the genetic drift. The genetic drift is when an organism’s genes are transferred from one chromosome to another or from a species to another species or a population to another population. It can also be from one ecosystem to another ecosystem. There is also a horizontal transfer of genes from the environment to a unicellular prokaryotes as evident in bacteria. This results from a bio-molecule such as an RNA or a DNA changing the genetic structure of a cell.
The observations common in the evolutionary process are as a result of natural selection such as sexual preference and genetic drift that cause the genetic variations. Firstly, the biochemical, the structure or the morphological as well as the phenotypes expressed by genes as shown in the behaviors are observed. Secondly, the varying characters of organisms imply the different ways the organisms employ to survive in their respective environments and the different environmental conditions.
The third is the heritable characteristics passed down from generations to generations from parents to their children or progenies.
In the heredity of traits from parents to progeny, the variations come from mutations, sex and re-combinations and gene flow.
Mutations are changes taking place in the structure of the DNA. Larger sections of a chromosome can be copied and their DNA sequences are altered. This adds extra genes to the genome of a cell which become the sources by which new genes are formed or evolved. The redundancy of these extra genes therefore forms the basis for these new genes and thus completely new genes can arise from the ancestor or parent genes. New genes can come about from previously non-coding genes as because the genes that did not translate their information to the formation of any proteins can now do so.
Proteins can also be changed and on a bigger percentage in mutation and these changes are always fatal. These proteins have resulted from the altered genes of the genome where by a smaller percentage of it can be non-fatal or of little benefit. Smaller sections of chromosomes can also be duplicated and become the domains or collectively acquire very specific functions and hence become the source to produce very specific products like antibiotics from large enzymes such as polyketide synthases.

In sex and recombination, asexual reproduction produces organisms with genes similar to one another because the genes cannot recombine or mix with genes of the other organisms. Their genes are very similar to one another. In sexual reproduction fifty percent (50%) of a particular parent is combined with 50% of another partner of a haploid germ cell to form a new individual. For instance, there are 46 chromosomes of humans. This chromosome is halved to 23 in a meiotic cell division to produce a 23-chromosome haploid cell. The haploid cells are the germ cells and the diploid cells are the somatic cells or normal body cells which do not half their contents. All organisms are diploid cells which multiply in a mitotic cell division or in mitosis versus meiosis which halves its content to produce haploid cells.
There is independent assortment of genes from a pair of similar chromosomes called a homologous chromosome pair one from each parent in a meiotic cell division. The alleles of these are not changed but rather recombine with each suitable allele with another to produce young with new allele combinations. The genes recombine and progress through the generations. This is the basis that provides the genetic variation. It is seen that through that recombination and progression favorable individuals are borne, survive and pass on through the generations. The principal 50 per cent genes of one parent continuously halves in a meiotic cell division producing a haploid germ cell through the generations with the favorable organisms with genomes that are able to live on. It is a continual evolutionary process and also seen as coevolution of species that can result from this progression of the germline resulting in the world’s biodiversity and is in a progression.
The gene flow is when genes are exchanged between populations and also between species. For example, when genes are exchanged between populations of cats of the hinterland and the coastal land it can cause variations in the genes of the progenies. When there is gene flow between species, it results in the young called the hybrids. Gene flow can also occur in horizontal transfers to cause genetic variations. Horizontal transfers occurs when genes are transferred from one organism to another that is not its offspring. In bacterial populations, horizontal transfer of genes can occur from its environment and get included in one bacterial cell. In such as a case and in medicine, the bacteria can develop resistant genes to antibiotics that can be applied to it to stop its spread.
The prokaryotes like bacteria and archaea which have a lesser detailed cell organelles than the eukaryotes from single cellular organisms like fungi to multicellular organisms with much detailed organelles are developed through horizontal transfers. Organelles such as chloroplasts that carry out the processes of photosynthesis and mitochondria which is the power house of the cells that provides the energy for the cellular respirations get included in the eukaryotic cells from horizontal transfers from the environment.

As a result of the genetic variations and the evolutionary processes, the biodiversity results from adaptation, coevolution, cooperation, speciation and extinction as part of the process. In adaptation, two things happen. Firstly, the organism is able to survive in its habitat. That is, it adapts to that environment. It gets its food and water, shelter, gets protection from enemies, and reproduces in that particular environment. Secondly, an organism develops its body parts to help it to survive or to adapt to that particular habitat. Such as the fish develop gills to survive in the water while the amphibians develop both lungs and gills to live both in water and on the land. There are also studies in the developmental biology that looks at the embryonic developments while the organism is start developing at the embryonic stage. Some parts of the body through evolution can appear as different parts of the body. The structures of the parts that were lost in evolution will reappear with the developmental genes. Such is the case when new structures as peculiar parts appear in organisms as directed by the genes and appears extraordinary that one may think is stunning.? ?
In coevolution, it is seen in a predator-prey relationship and a pathogen host relationship. As the first species develops a means of adaptation, the second species also develops its means to adapt. There is both conflict and cooperation in this evolutionary race. As the second species develops its adaptation forms the first species develops its means to counter it. Hence, the evolution arms race goes on here in nature and this is called the co-evolution.
Cooperation in evolution is when two organisms live cooperatively in one habitat. The action of one species is beneficial to the other organism. For instance, in social animal such as termites, ants and bees, each worker protects which is sterile protects a fertile group. Hence their workers’ somatic cells are directed to do certain thing to preserve this necessity for their survival. If they do not follow the signals and multiple uncontrollably, then malignant cells called the cancerous cells develop so it is fatal to this organism’s survival. In such situation, the genetic material in the alleles are selected for the kin to be carried on down through the generations. Also, group selection helps in this cooperation exercise as an important process as the group protects the organisms.
Next week: Geology, geophysics and geo-technology

• Michael Uglo is the author of “Science in PNG, Pacific, Asia and Caribbean” and a lecturer in avionics, auto-piloting and aircraft engineering. Please send comments to: [email protected]