Veritasium Reaction Review | The Shortest-Running Evolution Experiment

If you ran evolution all over again, would you get humans? How repeatable is #evolution?

Special thanks to Prof. Richard Lenski and team for showing me around the lab — it is an honor to be able to witness and document such a historic science experiment.
Thanks to Dr Zachary Blount for the help with research and setting up the competition time-lapse, Dr Nkrumah Grant for microscope images of the long-term line cells @NkrumahGrant
Devin Lake, Kate Bellgowan, and Dr. Minako Izutsu for being part of this video. Long Live the LTEE!

LTEE website — http://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/index.html
Intro footage courtesy of the Kishony Lab — https://kishony.technion.ac.il
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References:
Lenski, R. E., & Travisano, M. (1994). Dynamics of adaptation and diversification: a 10,000-generation experiment with bacterial populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 91(15), 6808-6814. — https://ve42.co/Lenski1994

Lenski, R. E., Rose, M. R., Simpson, S. C., & Tadler, S. C. (1991). Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. I. Adaptation and divergence during 2,000 generations. The American Naturalist, 138(6), 1315-1341. — https://ve42.co/Lenski1991

Good, B. H., McDonald, M. J., Barrick, J. E., Lenski, R. E., & Desai, M. M. (2017). The dynamics of molecular evolution over 60,000 generations. Nature, 551(7678), 45-50. — https://ve42.co/Good2017

Blount, Z. D., Borland, C. Z., & Lenski, R. E. (2008). Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(23), 7899-7906. — https://ve42.co/Blount2008

Blount, Z. D., Lenski, R. E., & Losos, J. B. (2018). Contingency and determinism in evolution: Replaying life’s tape. Science, 362(6415). — https://ve42.co/Blount2018

Wiser, M. J., Ribeck, N., & Lenski, R. E. (2013). Long-term dynamics of adaptation in asexual populations. Science, 342(6164), 1364-1367. — https://ve42.co/Wiser2013

N, Scharping. (2019). How a 30-Year Experiment Has Fundamentally Changed Our View of How Evolution Works. Discover — https://ve42.co/Scharping

Research and Writing by by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev and Casey Rentz
Animation by Iván Tello
Filmed by Derek Muller, Emily Zhang and Raquel Nuno
Edited by Derek Muller
Music by Jonny Hyman and from Epidemic Sound https://epidemicsound.com
Additional video supplied by Getty Images
Thumbnail image courtesy of the Kishony Lab
Produced by Casey Rentz

Original Video | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sLAQvEH-M
Full Episode | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yObK1irI8pg