The Long-term Experimental Evolution Project of Prof. Richard Lenski’s team at Michigan state university is a significant movement in our understanding of evolution. The team so far has achieved three decades of evolution of E.Coli bacteria in their laboratory. That corresponds to more than 76,000 generations of the organism starting from the common ancestor, noting that it goes through six or seven generations per day!
The experiments started with growing bacteria colonies in a petri dish and taking small sub-samples to 12 flasks containing a solution of glucose, potassium phosphate, and citrate at 37 oC. On the next day, 1% of the sample from the flask is transferred to a fresh sterile flask. And the process has been repeated every day for the last 34 years.
For humans, 76,000 generations could mean more than 1.5 million years. But does it mean the experiments are expected to see what changes animals or humans to accumulate in 1.5 million? Well, this is a question that ant-evolutionists ask. We will answer these questions in the coming days.
References
Long-Term Evolution Experiments: LTEE
LTEE: Wiki
