In how many ways can evolution be tested in a laboratory over a short period of time?

Question

Exposing a culture of rapidly-reproducing bacteria to antibiotics and observing how the population recovers after a fairly short period of time would be the best test I can think of. It seems to me that many people think that just because something would take a very long period of time, it doesn't seem plausible to them. However, I have read in my college's catalog that a class I'm taking later discussing evolution has a lab associated with it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a huge variety of tests for evolution in a laboratory.

Also, seeing how mutagens cause mutations by examining DNA before and after exposure would be another test I could think of. There are probably thousands of very short tests for evolution in the scientific journals. I am simply wondering what other ways there are.

Answer 1

Stanford is doing evolutionary experiments with yeast grown under the selective pressure of nutrient limitations.

http://genome-www.stanford.edu/evolution/



Artificial selection culling the population for yeast that clump and breeding for improved clumping with continued selection for novel mutations that promote clumping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/yeast-reveals-how-fast-a-cell-can-form-a-body.html?_r=0

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/01/researchers-evolve-a-multicellular-yeast-in-the-lab-in-2-months/





Addition of a predator to an isolated tank of green algae selects for colonial clumping in a week.

http://pleiotropy.fieldofscience.com/2008/11/watching-multicellularity-evolve-before.html

Phagotrophy by a flagellate selects for colonial prey: A possible origin of multicellularity

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q239365007h43465/

Answer 2

There is no real limit. If you can devise an assay (the cheaper, the better), you can demonstrate evolution in microorganisms in a short period of time: as little as overnight. The Ames test, a routine test for potential carcinogens, relies upon this as a principle.

Answer 3

there are people that are higher than us civilians that are many of years in advance they have every thing many and many of years before us they make up alot for us to think its true like for instance mermaids they were put in cartoons as a child make belive but centries ago before boats all these different places around the world had drawings all over the world almost identical may not help much but there are people who are 100s of years ahead of us my minimum would be 60

Answer 4

Do u realize how rediculas u sound. This 18th century mentality has no concrete proff what so ever Intellegent design by the almighty is why we are here. The bible is what u need to ficus on. Take for instance Noahs are was discovered on a mountain in Turkey the shuttle discovered that. If you have any objectivity left in your studies then you may find your answe.