tales of an ordinary girl

R. Ford Denison at This Week in Evolution has an article up about the evolution of beneficial infections.

"This week's twins were both published in PLoS Biology, so both are freely available on-line. Both have new data on bacteria that infect insects. Both help us understand the conditions under which infecting bacteria evolve to be beneficial, rather than harmful. Finally, both disprove the popular idea that any evolutionary change big enough to matter (except antibiotic resistance, which a creationist commenter once claimed always involves "horizontal transfer" of genes among bacteria, even though resistance often evolves in bacteria in a closed container all descended from a single cell) always involves lots of genes and takes millions of years."

Follow the link to his article to read more.

Also, Greg Laden has a link up about a new study that found herpes my be symbiotic, causing a resistance to the plague and food poisoning.