O, the Birds and the Bees and the Cigarette Trees...

Let me start off by saying: If you aren't watching Pushing Daisies, you are missing one hell of a brilliant show... Fantastic, even...

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So as we travel and discuss the not-so-meritorious merits of "creation science" and how it fails in comparison to even remotely give a satisfactory answer to the most basic questions even a two-year-old could think of on a bad day (such as, "Where did all the skeletons and fossils of non-homo sapiens come from?" and "What other explanation can you provide for why 99% of the world's marsupials are in Australia?"...), and dealing with such claims as "All you need is faith!" (when having such won't get your teeth clean in the morning, let alone use evolutionary-proven biological sciences to create a vaccine for the flu every year) and "I have all the proof I need!" (which would negate the fact that you are using faith at all...), it's always nice when science once again shows how evolution is the only way to explain the diversity of life we have here on this rock.

(Remind me one day to post about chimerism...)

Beyond chimerism, into heretofore unfathomable real-life revelations about DNA swapping and genome sharing, a bacteria comes to light that not only fuses it's DNA to it's host, but this once-independent-minded little creature actually has it's DNA passed on with it's hosts, and can be recreated even after antibiotics are used to kill it. From the article:

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[...] The bacterium invades a member of a species, most often an insect, and eventually makes its way into the host's eggs or sperm. Once there, the Wolbachia is ensured passage to the next generation of its host, and any genetic exchanges between it and the host also are much more likely to be passed on.

Since Wolbachia typically live within the reproductive organs of their hosts, Werren reasoned that gene exchanges between the two would frequently pass on to subsequent generations. Based on this and an earlier discovery of a Wolbachia gene in a beetle by the Fukatsu team at the University of Tokyo, Japan, the researchers in Werren's lab and collaborators at J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) decided to systematically screen invertebrates. Julie Dunning-Hotopp at JCVI found evidence that some of the Wolbachia genes seemed to be fused to the genes of the fruit fly, Drosophila ananassae, as if they were part of the same genome.

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Werren and Clark are now looking further into the huge insert found in the fruit fly, and whether it is providing a benefit. "The chance that a chunk of DNA of this magnitude is totally neutral, I think, is pretty small, so the implication is that it has imparted of some selective advantage to the host," says Werren. "The question is, are these foreign genes providing new functions for the host? This is something we need to figure out."

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Before this study, geneticists knew of examples where genes from a parasite had crossed into the host, but such an event was considered a rare anomaly except in very simple organisms.

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Well, slap me silly and call me Daisy Duke! It's almost a shame evolution is false, else this might help explain further and different ways we might utilize genome-sharing and distribution to find cures for all sorts of chromosomal disorders and inherited diseases!

But, since evolution is so "false," and such a lie perpetuated by demons and Satan to steal glory from sky god, I guess we'll never know what potential this knowledge could have lead to, eh? I suppose we'll just have to keep praying for miracles in an age when all the answers are right there--and being ignored in an effort to perpetuate dead traditions...