There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Simple’ Organism

What may be the most thorough study ever of a single organism has produced a beta code for life’s essential subroutines, and shown that even the simplest creatures are more complex than scientists suspected.

The analysis combined information about gene regulation, protein production and cell structure in Mycoplasma pneumoniae, one of the simplest self-sustaining microbes.

It’s far closer to a “blueprint” than a mere genome readout, and reveals processes “that are much more subtle and intricate than were previously considered possible in bacteria,” wrote University of Arizona biologists Howard Ochman and Rahul Raghavan in a commentary accompanying the findings, which were published last Thursday in Science.

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HowToBe said:

Science keeps thinking it has everything figured out, but there's always more to learn.

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Evolution is not a one-way road towards complexity

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about mollusks, e.g. snails, slugs and mussels. The research group of Andreas Wanninger, Head of the Department of Integrative Zoology of the University of Vienna, took a detailed look at the development of cryptic worms. The larvae of the "wirenia argentea" hold a much more complex muscular architecture than their adults -- they remodel during their metamorphosis. [...]
Taking together the data currently available, a coherent scenario emerges that strongly suggests that today's simple, wormy mollusks evolved from an ancestor that had a much more complex musculature (and probably overall internal anatomy) and was covered with protective shell plates.

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Keit said:

...although the idea of gradual evolution from more simple toward more complex organization is still the prevalent one, there are all kind of research papers, like the following one, that show how evolution may not be that straightforward after all.

_http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/uov-ein101813.php

Evolution is not a one-way road towards complexity

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about mollusks, e.g. snails, slugs and mussels. The research group of Andreas Wanninger, Head of the Department of Integrative Zoology of the University of Vienna, took a detailed look at the development of cryptic worms. The larvae of the "wirenia argentea" hold a much more complex muscular architecture than their adults -- they remodel during their metamorphosis. [...]
Taking together the data currently available, a coherent scenario emerges that strongly suggests that today's simple, wormy mollusks evolved from an ancestor that had a much more complex musculature (and probably overall internal anatomy) and was covered with protective shell plates.

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So, maybe it has less to do with complexity, and more to do with efficiency and perhaps a "purpose", where modifications in purpose trigger a required reorganization. Information theory, anyone?

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