Evolution captured on video courtesy of Harvard Medical School

A time-lapsed video reveals how bacteria develop resistance to increasingly higher doses of antibiotics in a matter of days.

The experiments, described in the Sept. 9 issue of Science, are thought to provide the first large-scale glimpse of the maneuvers of bacteria as they encounter increasingly higher doses of antibiotics and adapt to survive—and thrive—in them.

The invention was borne out of pedagogical necessity—to teach evolution in a visually captivating way to students in a graduate course at HMS.
Source
Journal article for you-know-who

Apparently this happened back in 2016, but I've just now come across it. Scientists at Harvard Medical School have come up with a way to display evolution in real-time by showing how bacteria evolve to survive large amounts of antibiotics that would otherwise kill them, sometimes with a 100,000-fold resistance increase.

In the span of 10 days, bacteria produced mutant strains capable of surviving a dose of the antibiotic trimethoprim 1,000 times higher than the one that killed their progenitors. When researchers used another antibiotic—ciprofloxacin—bacteria developed 100,000-fold resistance to the initial dose.

Seems like a pretty clear example of evolution to me, and one you can actually observe. Some bacteria live, breed and die very quickly, evolving to create new kinds of bacteria that did not exist before which are capable of surviving things that would have killed off the earlier bacteria.

You're misunderstanding the debate over evolution.

No one, that I know of at least, claims that resistances do not develop (which can become passed via hereditary).

The debate is about the evolution of species - which is still theoretical and hotly debated to this day.

This report does not have any bearing on that debate.

a reply to: trollz

Well that was cool. I expect the usual lot in bleating that it isn't a goat turning into a tortoise or something so it isn't evolution. Just ignore those.

For example some people are lactose intolerant while others have inherited a tolerance to it.

Another example could be sickle cell anemia.

However both those with and without it are still technically homo sapiens sapiens. We are all still among the same subspecies.

a reply to: trollz

A time-lapsed video reveals how bacteria develop resistance to increasingly higher doses of antibiotics in a matter of days.

Thats adaptation, not 'evolution', right?

The survivors that were immune multiply, this is how super strains 'develop'. The same thing happens when farmers spray insecticide on their crops. The survivors procreate, then a new more potent insecticide is sprayed and the survivors again , multiply. Eventually our insecticides and antibiotics aren't going to work anymore.

originally posted by: testingtesting
a reply to: trollz

Well that was cool. I expect the usual lot in bleating that it isn't a goat turning into a tortoise or something so it isn't evolution. Just ignore those.

In other words you aren't savvy to the current academic debates over the theoretical evolution of species yet remain keen to make uninformed derogatory comments.

Gotcha.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: trollz

A time-lapsed video reveals how bacteria develop resistance to increasingly higher doses of antibiotics in a matter of days.

Thats adaptation, not 'evolution', right?

The survivors that were immune multiply, this is how super strains 'develop'. The same thing happens when farmers spray insecticide on their crops. The survivors procreate, then a new more potent insecticide is sprayed and the survivors again , multiply. Eventually our insecticides and antibiotics aren't going to work anymore.

As I understand, mutant bacteria were created which reproduced and spread, ultimately creating bacteria that were different from the earliest bacteria. So... It's not just one kind of bacteria adapting, it's one kind of bacteria evolving into new strains of bacteria that are different from the originals in order to survive.

a reply to: trollz

We have seen Evolution in action a few times I will add to the thread after work.

originally posted by: testingtesting
a reply to: trollz

We have seen Evolution in action a few times I will add to the thread after work.

Yes please share. I am unaware of a single example where we have "seen" a species evolve into another species.

I am aware there is a lot of conjecture however.

a reply to: muzzleflash

The American goats beard for one off the top of my head.

originally posted by: trollz

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: trollz

A time-lapsed video reveals how bacteria develop resistance to increasingly higher doses of antibiotics in a matter of days.

Thats adaptation, not 'evolution', right?

The survivors that were immune multiply, this is how super strains 'develop'. The same thing happens when farmers spray insecticide on their crops. The survivors procreate, then a new more potent insecticide is sprayed and the survivors again , multiply. Eventually our insecticides and antibiotics aren't going to work anymore.

As I understand, mutant bacteria were created which reproduced and spread, ultimately creating bacteria that were different from the earliest bacteria. So... It's not just one kind of bacteria adapting, it's one kind of bacteria evolving into new strains of bacteria that are different from the originals in order to survive.

The bacteria in the highest antibiotic zone are the same as the bacteria that they started with. No fundamental change was made to their genetics. Their metabolism is the same, their membrane markers are the same, etc. They can still be identified by their metabolisms, stains, etc. They did not become anything new. At most they are a different strain of the same organism.

As I have heard before, 'survival of the fittest' is not the same as 'arrival of the fittest.'

"Evolution" is the biological foundation of "Adaptation". This stuff is encoded into DNA so spectacularly that adaptation is the fundamental component of all living 'things'... from the cellular to the cultural scales 'pathological adaptation' can be observed at every step and every scale as all physical biology / consciousness / intelligence flows from DNA following 'fractal manifestation science' that itself is the very essence of "Evolution".

'It' is going on in your yard, the the street to get there, inside the brains of the people walking down it... right NOW.

Now how or what is or is not behind all of this is for each person to decide. But I can tell you this: for people to form tribes and fight about it (like all the other BS) is primitive ape man stuff. Dont want to be a monkey, everyone, quit acting like them.

a reply to: muzzleflash

You're hitting the nail on the head. We are witnessing a species adapt, not change its species.

Then again this ends up being semantics, as adaptation is a form of evolution.

Considering the time scale that it would take, I highly doubt we are going to get a time lapsed video of true evolution. However, if one looks around, you can clearly see where some animals have "evolved". Think about.... 250 years ago seems like a long time. Heck 2000 years ago seems unimaginable. Now try to imagine 20 million years ago and all that can happen over that time span.

We have fish that can walk out of water. Mammals in the sea. Mammals flying. Birds and reptiles sharing similarities.

a reply to: chadderson

From adaptation we see specialization, no?

From specialization is 'speciesization' too far off?

You study plants across the world, fr example, there's endless examples of differing species closely related in se the New World and the Old World. Over millions of years, it was only the hand of 'god' directly involved in saying okay that species there I'll split into 12 more different species... or they just specialize enough over time they become 'new species'?

I cant stress enough how there are endless examples like this in nature, more towards its the entire tale of the Plant Kingdom than vice versa... there are even scores of them that have a list of subspecies under their belts, that going by typical designation routines could just as easily be called their own separate species (where theres a LIST of different characteristics used in such determinations and in one single species you can see these turn out with potentially 'wild' divergences)....

And that's before we get into humans meddling with them. I dont know the exact numbers, but there might be just as many if not more 'varieties' of existing plants species as total species in existence. And again here we have potentially DRAMATIC differences in one 'variety' from the next, like completely 'different animals' (and plants ARE creatures), all by merely exploiting the very nature of the plants themselves.

Now what anyone wants to call that "nature", why make a big thing about it. Its hard wired into all life. How it 'got there', fine argue about if it were a 'god', or not, whatever. If I were all about there just having to be god, then I'd call that the 'hand of god'. Or whatever.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: trollz

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: trollz

A time-lapsed video reveals how bacteria develop resistance to increasingly higher doses of antibiotics in a matter of days.

Thats adaptation, not 'evolution', right?

The survivors that were immune multiply, this is how super strains 'develop'. The same thing happens when farmers spray insecticide on their crops. The survivors procreate, then a new more potent insecticide is sprayed and the survivors again , multiply. Eventually our insecticides and antibiotics aren't going to work anymore.

As I understand, mutant bacteria were created which reproduced and spread, ultimately creating bacteria that were different from the earliest bacteria. So... It's not just one kind of bacteria adapting, it's one kind of bacteria evolving into new strains of bacteria that are different from the originals in order to survive.

The bacteria in the highest antibiotic zone are the same as the bacteria that they started with. No fundamental change was made to their genetics.

And how exactly do you know there was no mutation to change their genetics? Were you one of the lucky doctoral candidates working on this experiment? Perhaps then you could link a citation supporting your statement?

Their metabolism is the same, their membrane markers are the same, etc. They can still be identified by their metabolisms, stains, etc.

A lot of assumption went into your assertions and not a lot of fact. For the bacterium to survive and then reproduce with even higher resistance, there most definitely were mutations involved. In fact, after reading the article and the paper, there is nothing in the literature that supports or vindicates your assertions in the least.

They did not become anything new.

Sure they did, they became an entirely new bacterium that was completely resistant to antibiotics that were 1000x stronger than the lowest level of antibiotics at the outer edges of the agar

At most they are a different strain of the same organism.

So you’ve examined the genetics of the bacteria involved in this experiment? Or are you stating your opinions as if they are facts? Personally, I would say that an organism that has developed mutations over successive generations that allow it to survive doses of antibiotics that were 1000x higher than the LD50 for the antibiotic and organism in question, are a markedly different organism than those that existed at the beginning of the experiment.

People can go in and on about it’s only adaptation or whatever nonsense makes them feel better but the bottom line is that adaptation to a specific ecological niche is indeed an evolutionary advantage because the same mutations would not be beneficial I. A different ecological niche.

As I have heard before, 'survival of the fittest' is not the same as 'arrival of the fittest.'

And anyone who pays attention to biology in general and anthropology or evolutionary biology in particular, would be well aware that “survival of the fittest” is a Darwinian anachronism that plays no real roll in how evolution is viewed studied and catalogued in the 21st century and it’s been this way since genetics were discovered and genetics were combined with the parts of Darwin’s theory that actually worked into what Haagen referred to as the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis since the 1940’s

a reply to: peter vlar

Read their papers and point out where any new genetic information was created, instead of transduction.

I'm patient. I'll wait.

This is nothing more than a human fattening up for the winter. No new strain, just adaptation.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
a reply to: peter vlar

Read their papers and point out where any new genetic information was created, instead of transduction.

I'm patient. I'll wait.

While patience is a virtue, one only had to read the abstract to see that there were observed mutations and that they tested above and below the bacterial front. What they learned was that the most antibiotic resistant bacteria were sometimes behind a group of less resistant bacteria as the front moved onto and through increasingly more potent levels of antibiotic.

Here, we introduce an experimental device, the microbial evolution and growth arena (MEGA)–plate, in which bacteria spread and evolved on a large antibiotic landscape (120 × 60 centimeters) that allowed visual observation of mutation and selection in a migrating bacterial front. While resistance increased consistently, multiple coexisting lineages diversified both phenotypically and genotypically. Analyzing mutants at and behind the propagating front, we found that evolution is not always led by the most resistant mutants; highly resistant mutants may be trapped behind more sensitive lineages.

a reply to: Teikiatsu

As I have heard before, 'survival of the fittest' is not the same as 'arrival of the fittest.'

Sweet