Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[Roberto Takata <rmtakata@gmail.com>]

On 8/19/06, Phillip Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com> wrote:
> Lateral (horizontal) gene transfer?  Yes, that's another possibility.  It
> could have swamped out the ancient polyphyletic signal so that it is
> undetectable today.

More then just lateral gene transfer. An encapsulation of an entire
gene ecosystem.

Let's start with a ARN world. Gazillions of independently formed RNA
sequences. Some sequences could associate in a way that they could
reproduce faster and/or efficiently - a biomolecular symbiosis. Some
sequences on the other hand could "predate" others: cliving them and
taking their precious - and progressively more rare - nucleotides.
Some predators could be domesticated by some biomolecular symbionts -
and could be used as a defense against parasite sequences (maybe RNA
virus ancestrals, which insidiously insert themselves in another
sequences, be duplicated and splicing out just to insert again in
another self-reproducing sequence) and/or to "predate" on other
sequences.

Some symbiotic biomolecular association could increase in complexity
giving birth to an authentic genetic system - the gene ecosystem -
which could be encapsulated by protobionts, coacervate or other
vesicular bodies.

Well, surely it is an just-so history now. But maybe it could be
developed in an testable ground someday.

[]s,

Roberto Takata