Crazy Mutated Monsters - A lesson on evolution

With all of the hoop-la about genes, genomes, cloning and etc., I thought this link this New York Times op-ed about random mutations was interesting.

In short, some propose that during the very early embryo stage some can go all hay-wire in the genomes. Usually if the embryo is all jacked up, then it doesn't survive. It is reabsorbed, expelled, nixed. But what if this mutated embryo makes it and develops okay and is born/hatched, etc.? And just maybe this weird thing is actually a superstar in its environment. And it reproduces? Well that's a new successful organism. Ta-dah.

But that's not typically how it goes. But, the neat thing about science, and what makes genetics and cellular biology so great, is that all the new technology and things we're learning about genes and the genome is still so new. Stay tunes