In this week’s Science, there’s a decent milestone in where we’re at in terms of integrating our molecular biology knowledge into classical genetics. If you subscribe, a summary is available here. Otherwise, use the “free sample issue” link.
Basically, this group of scientists went back to the Galapagos and studied Darwin’s finches. They isolated the protein that causes the beaks to be different, and manually turned it up and down, resulting in different shaped beaks. They then located the regulatory regions (governing said protien) as markers on the genome, and waved their hands at them.
The cool part about this is not its terrifying utility (it’s not), nor how close it is to being broadly applicable (it’s not). The cool part is that there does not seem to be a quantum / macro disconnect in biology like we have in physics. We can trace smoothly all the way up and down the continuum, and it’s just experimental details and unobserved mechanisms.
