And in doing so they have also shown that evolution, though clever, is not always as clever as human engineers for as far as is known nature has neither now, nor at any time in the past, come up with the equivalent of aerial jellyfish.
Aided by clever selection schemes, directed evolution has generated new parts for genetic circuits, cell cell communication systems, and non-natural metabolic pathways in bacteria.
The great chemist Leslie Orgel's second law states that "evolution is cleverer than you are", but surely we have reached the stage where cautious adoption of GM, with prudent vigilance, is the way forward.
In fact, apparent design is sometimes so exquisite that it has generated what has become known among biologists as Orgel's Second Law: "Evolution is cleverer than you are".
An alternative approach utilizes carefully chosen extremophiles that have evolved genes, proteins, and mechanisms to naturally counter disease-inducing insults and ultimately follows Orgel's second rule: " Evolution is cleverer than you are".
(See what I mean about his inclination to insert himself where he doesn't belong? What's that parenthetical doing in there mucking up a clever, pertinent point?) Anyway, the evolution of sports reporting through 140 years or so of American journalism, from the era of Fox's newspaper to the era of Fox television, serves "Over Time" as a subtle spine.
Because evolution left us clever enough to set reasonable goals, but without the willpower to see them through.
We're at a dangerous age in our evolution as a species — clever, headstrong, impulsive and far better at tampering with nature than understanding it.
All throughout the animal kingdom, most of these genes are structurally and functionally highly conserved, suggesting that Wnt signaling played an important role in the evolution of multicellular organisms (Clevers & Nusse, 2012).
