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not sure I agree, they reconstituted this mutation in E coli ribosomes, using Fluc as a luminescence readout, and saw a reduction in aggregates at similar luminescence without a reduction in translation speeds.

Not really familiar with translation machinery or luciferase, but it seems pretty compelling to me.

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I'm talking about the intelligence claim. There is nothing surprising about a gene having a molecular effect.

ah yeah, the intelligence claim was basically an afterthought in the actual paper, the smithsonian mag did a bad job with their reporting. the paper is just called: 'Evolution of a core ribosomal innovation in octopus', and I would argue the E coli thing is far from a non-sequitur in that context

the cross-organism increase in fidelity is pretty damn shocking. Ribosomes are one of the most optimized, slow-evolving things out there, and transplanting genes from animals to coli is already a very checkered endeavor.

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