BIOLOGY 1M03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Mendelian Inheritance, Pleiotropy, Natural Selection 2
5 Mar 2018
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New study suggest that the appendix may not be as vestigial as the textbook suggests. Appendix could be a sanctuary for bacteria that helps restore the gut bacteria after you get sick. Clostridium difficile is a deadly pathogen that normally does not compete well with gut bacteria but can kill people after they have been on antibiotics. Individuals without an appendix were 4x more likely to have a recurrence of c. difficile. Evolution by natural selection is not goal directed. Adaptation do not occur because organisms want or need them. All of species that exist today are evolved from a common ancestor. Animal behaviour is selfless and is for the good of the species . Individuals with selfish alleles survive and produce offspring. As a result, selfish alleles increase in frequency while self-sacrificing alleles decrease in frequency. Natural selection results in the most optimal phenotype .
