Evolution has taken another step away from being dismissed as "a theory" in the classroom, thanks to a new article in PLoS Biology. The research article, by Brian Paegel and Gerald Joyce of The Scripps Research Institute, California, documents the automation of evolution: they have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes--biological catalysts--without human input. In the future, this "evolution-machine" could feature in the classroom as well as the lab, allowing students to watch evolution happen in their biology lessons.
...beautifully illustrates what about evolution is random and what is not. While the end point is predicted by the selection pressure--i.e., the decreasing concentration of ingredients determines that enzymes will evolve to cope with decreased concentration--the actual mutations that allow this are completely random and cannot be predicted at the outset--i.e., if you bought an "evolution machine" and ran the same experiment, your end product would be an enzyme that could cope with low concentrations too, but the mutations that it acquired to do this might be different.
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