I just read an interesting blog article about hacking H1N1
I’m a computer programmer so I actually found it quite interesting since the author made an analogy between computer and human viruses
you can learn a lot about flu virus, it’s program code, how it works and what can be done to make it more lethal or benign
here’s the link http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=353
Some 20 years ago, biologist Richard Lenski, of Michigan State University took a single Escherichia coli bacteria and then kept on feeding it the glucose
one bacteria lead to many and he made 12 different populations that he kept going for 20 years
but then, at about 31 thousand 500 generations of bacteria later, he noticed Escherichia gained the ability to metabolise citrate
the other populations didn’t develop this
now, being careful, Lenski has an archive of every 500 generations stored, so he could replay the process and see if the later generations would develop the same ability (mutation)
the result was, only the original population developed the same mutation when replayed
read more about it here
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