Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Creating life
Summary: Lamarck was right for protozoa?
Keywords: Life
Message-ID: <7111@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 31 Oct 89 15:31:37 GMT
References: <2461@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <1989Oct31.034851.24494@agate.berkeley.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 17

In article <1989Oct31.034851.24494@agate.berkeley.edu>, mkkuhner@codon2.berkeley.edu (Mary K. Kuhner;335 Mulford) writes:
> My favorite experiment showing the complexity of non-DNA information
> in the cell was done with a protozoan which is covered with cilia,
> all lined up the same way.  Very precise microsurgery was used to
> cut a strip off of the cell wall and put it back in reverse.
> Somehow the cell survives this, and ends up with a row of backwards
> cilia.  All descendents of that cell have a similar row, because
> the old cell's cilia are used as templates for the new arrangement.

This would seem to imply that, at least for unicellular life,
Lamarck was not entirely wrong.  If protozoa can inherit acquired
traits, then won't acquired traits partially direct their
evolutionary course, at least in the generative information which
is not encoded in their DNA?  Has their been any research done to
explore this possibility which the microsurgery you describe so
well highlights? 

Russell