Scientists Insert Ancient DNA Into Modern Bacteria

Playing with fire....

Millions of years ago, a bacterial gene began evolving, and evolving, and evolving...

That bacteria turned out to be E. Coli, and now it lives in the intestines of warm-blooded creatures like us, generally harmless except when it gives us a bout of food poisoning.

Now scientists at Georgia Tech University have re-wound the clock, synthesising one of the genes called EF-Tu as it was 500million years ago, and inserting the ancient gene into E. Coli in place of the modern sequence.

The researchers - making reference to hit 1993 film Jurassic Park - say they are curious to see if 'life finds a way'.Their experiment aimed to watch evolution in action - seeing if the gene follows the same evolutionary path as the modern bacteria, or if it takes a different route altogether.

(Full story here).