“ughly one in a thousand trillion trillion. Yet the lambda viruses repeatedly acquired all four mutations in a matter of weeks. “There’s this thinking that it all has to come together at once,” Dr. Lenski said. “But that’s just not how evolution works.” Paul Turner, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University who was not involved in the research, said, “I really love this paper.” He said such experiments might allow scientists to forecast evolution in viruses and bacteria, potentially helping to prepare for new diseases. “It gives us hope of making evolution more predictive,” Dr. Turner said. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: January 26, 2012 A previous version of this article misstated the probability that all four mutations for lambda viruses would arise at once. It is roughly one in a thousand trillion trillion, not one in a thousand billion billion.”
—Study Finds Virus to Be Fast Learner on Infecting - NYTimes.com
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