LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Some biology related things I found interesting” by Morpheus

Listen Later

Here are some things I learned over the last year that past me would have found somewhat non-obvious or that were surprising to me at the time:

  • New genes are usually not evolved from scratch one basepair at a time.
    • The first evolutionary biology textbook that I picked up after learning that textbooks are the fast way to learn talked about some basic math for how traits spread through a population once they evolve, depending on their fitness both in asexual and sexual reproduction. Essentially, very similar things that are covered in the simple math of evolution sequence. One thing that went unmentioned in both of these, as far as I remember, was what mutations usually look like. Most mutations are simple single-nucleotide mutations, but new genes usually develop when an existing gene is copied. So not only do organisms have ancestors, genes can be [...]

      • ---

      First published:

      October 2nd, 2025

      Source:

      https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nijHcFXp3xJ7Bwke6/some-biology-related-things-i-found-interesting

      ---

      Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store
      LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong

      More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

      View all
      Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

      Making Sense with Sam Harris

      26,377 Listeners

      Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

      Conversations with Tyler

      2,430 Listeners

      The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

      The Peter Attia Drive

      8,187 Listeners

      Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

      Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

      4,151 Listeners

      ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

      ManifoldOne

      92 Listeners

      Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

      Your Undivided Attention

      1,556 Listeners

      All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

      All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

      9,799 Listeners

      Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

      Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

      89 Listeners

      Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

      Dwarkesh Podcast

      489 Listeners

      Hard Fork by The New York Times

      Hard Fork

      5,468 Listeners

      The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

      The Ezra Klein Show

      16,152 Listeners

      Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

      Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

      531 Listeners

      No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

      No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

      131 Listeners

      Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

      Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

      97 Listeners

      BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

      BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

      510 Listeners