Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[Phillip Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:36:39 +0200 David Marjanovic
<david.marjanovic@gmx.at> writes:
> > Lateral (horizontal) gene transfer?  Yes, that's another 
> possibility.  It
> > could have swamped out the ancient polyphyletic signal so that it 
> is
> > undetectable today.


> Assuming, of course, that the use of the same bases and amino acids 
> and the 
> same genetic code had already evolved independently.
> You see, if I 
> swap a 
> gene from _your_ mitochondria to _your_ nuclei, it simply won't 
> work. 
> Vertebrate mitochondria read one of the "universal" stop codons as 
> tryptophan,


Yes, but we were talking about the possibility of gene transfer between
two or more non-monophyletic *microbes* at ~4 Gya.  I am assuming that,
with these simpler organisms, the "rules" governing genetic processes are
a bit lax compared to those in vertebrates.

<pb>
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