October 02, 2025

“Some biology related things I found interesting” by Morpheus

Listen Later

4 minutes

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 episodes

View all episodes

Download on the App Store

Download on the App Store

Get it on Google Play

LessWrong (30+ Karma)

By LessWrong

October 02, 2025

“Some biology related things I found interesting” by Morpheus

Listen Later

4 minutes

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

More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

112,214 Listeners

Astral Codex Ten Podcast by Jeremiah

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

131 Listeners

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat by New York Times Opinion

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

7,239 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

559 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,276 Listeners

AI Article Readings by Readings of great articles in AI voices

AI Article Readings

4 Listeners

Doom Debates! by Liron Shapira

Doom Debates!

14 Listeners

LessWrong posts by zvi by zvi

LessWrong posts by zvi

2 Listeners