Abstract
Jocks versus geeks--the downside of genius?
Highlights
Genomes seem to change relatively steadily through evolution, with an accumulation of mutations which have such a linear relationship to elapsed time that we can use them as a fairly reliable ‘‘molecular clock’’
Because some mutations matter more than others and interact with each other in complex ways, the gross appearance and behaviour of species—the phenotype—can differ in quite spectacular ways even between closely related species
It’s by filtration through this information network that the consequences of genomic differences become manifest in the whole organism
Summary
Genomes seem to change relatively steadily through evolution, with an accumulation of mutations which have such a linear relationship to elapsed time that we can use them as a fairly reliable ‘‘molecular clock’’. One of the spectacular changes in phenotype that we tend to be most interested in is the enhancement in our own brain power which has occurred over the 6 million years that separate us from our last shared ancestor with chimpanzees. Not all tissues follow the molecular clock: while kidney and visual cortex (V1) accumulated metabolic changes proportionally to species’ divergence time (MY = million years), metabolomes of skeletal muscle and the brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC) evolved exceptionally rapidly in the human lineage.
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