Evolution and historical continguency caught on tape! E. coli amass traits over time.

Darkfrog submitted, created time 6 months 4 weeks (www.pnas.org)

Historical contingency is a new phrase for me. I gather that it means "the idea that a given new mutation cannot create a new trait unless certain other, related mutations have already taken place." Anyway, it's been observed, repeatedly, in a laboratory setting.

Researchers split some identical E. coli into twelve colonies and gave them a glucose-poor medium that contained citrate, which E. coli cannot ordinarily process. Eventaully, around generation 32,000 some of the E. coli gained the ability to use citrate as food

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