Well, that's slightly different - the extremophiles tend to live in environments which are hostile to most known life, but I would doubt that there are any bugs capable of breeding through cell lysis! Could be wrong though, and if I am, it'll be brilliantly interesting to read up about them.
Well, I'm years out of date but...
I guess the effect of this stuff is to punch holes in the cell membranes. Enough holes, no cell. So if there's enough to punch a few holes, but not actually kill it, and there's some variation in the ability of the bugs to fix the holes, why would you not have selection for something able to survive in a weak concentration? And then they can gradually work their way up the drain to the source of the poison where the concentrations are higher and nothing else can survive.
After all that's the way antibiotic resistance has been bred.
Andy
I think penicillin acts in a different manner to stuff like bleach and p/acid. But I still remain open to the possibility of a resistance to it, I am not an expert, and am happy to accept the evidence.
Antibiotics work by getting into the bacterial cell and interfering with some chemical process within it - e.g. inhibiting the production of some vital enzyme. Bleach and strong acids physically destroy the bacteria.
It's a bit akin to: cyanide will poison us by interfering with our metabolism. A bullet does it by destroying some vital organ.
IIRC Penicillin interferes with cell wall construction, and prevents growth. Ah...
And in time we'll become .22 resistant... DU cannon shells might take a while though.
Bacteria of course do all this _much_ faster.
Andy
Where was I hearing all about this, the other day? If it wasn't 'Thinking Allowed' it might have been 'The News Quiz' where generation after generation of mice have had their tails cut off in the (vain) hope that it might lead to a specis of tail-less mice. Twas commented that it was all a waste of mice (and tails) since at least one subset of the human race has been chopping bits off male babies' bodies for some 1,200 generations with no sign of it evolving into a natural feature.
Nick
I'd have to remain sceptical of this idea! But it's an entertaining thought!
In message , Nick Odell writes
but that is arse about face, you will only evolve a tai less mouse or whatever if there is some selection pressure - some benefit, to being naturally taiiess, and so selecting those genes. Whatt you are selecting for though is mice that are good at surviving and breeding with their tais cut off.
The way to do it is to allow only those mice with short tails to breed
It would be far more efficient to measure skin thickness and sterilise those with thin skin.
Likewise we could extend human life by sterilising the off spring of those that don't live a long time. Its too late to do anything after the breeding period has passed so you have to tackle the off spring.
That wouldn't extend human life, it'd shift the mean, but then you've got to take regression to mean into account - maybe the long-lived ones were an anomaly? Anyway, what with all this climate change, we should be encouraging people to breed less and live shorter lives!
(I am not a eugenicist)
Not necessarily - what you say would be right if human lifetime was random, but it isn't - some people are more susceptible to eg heart disease or cancer, so removing the people who die earlier would put a selective bias towards the longer lived.
(at the moment there's little selective bias - most people live long enough to breed, and that's what counts - the extra years afterwards don't help much)
Huntingdon's Disease [1] is a case in point: why does the gene for this persist? Because those with the gene are 1% more interested in sex than those without, on average. That's all it takes to keep this in the gene pool. And by and large it has no effect until the breeding years are past.
[1] An awful degenerative disease striking approximately around 40 (with the usual spread).HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.