Gene conversion and how the fish survives

13:06that are identical to the mother. >> Yes. >> And then those egg cells become Yes. um Amazon fish. >> Baby fish. >> Okay. So, the question becomes, all right, how did it survive, right? How do you How do you actually um you know, if there's a deleterious mutation, if there's like something that goes wrong during the replication of DNA, Mhm. you might be completely >> Right. sidelined right? >> They use um a process where they're actually using gene conversion. This is the idea where you've got multiple sets of chromosomes, right? If there's ever a mistake, their genetic repair mechanism can use the other copy to make that fix. That repair mechanism also creates

13:48um genetic variation at exactly the right frequency to have a pretty healthy population that is that is not completely genetically identical, but it's got this mechanism such that it can stop mutations from going bad and also create tiny little mutations to create variation. So, the the genetic variability is deriving from the sort of uh the the internal cloning reproductive process as opposed to sharing the chromosomes from the mother and the father or, you know, one into male and female. >> Exactly. And that's kind of a dis- an important distinction in the difference

14:28with how it drives its own sur- ability to survive over long periods of time by uh while still not having uh a classic sexual reproduction between uh a male sperm and a female egg. Yes, exactly. And usually that's how we get genetic variability, right? Is like from the combination of two individuals' genes. That's most life actually, even trees, plants, like everything does this kind of mix and match. But these guys are doing a copy and paste, but that copy and paste has enough little tricks that like shows this is actually possible. It challenges this traditional assumption that, you know, asexual reproduction is going to

15:09cause sterile species. >> Yes. It's not actually true. So, maybe evolution has many more ways to actually maintain a healthy genome in that tree of life. And we've been sequestered into thinking that sexual reproduction is sort of an apex mechanism. It might not be. Uh don't tell that to the people who want to uh whatever you call it when you make people all the same. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That that's let's not let them know about that. Yeah. This this was in nature um again at the University of Missouri and the Ludwig Maximilian Universität in Munich, Germany. Tate. Tate. >> It's the it's the the double dot

15:49>> yeah. the umlaut >> The umlaut, yeah. We'll go we will be in Germany for Oktoberfest maybe this year. So, for all the fans out in Germany, let us know. We are going to need to be shown around. Now,