Evolution you are so cool!

Charles Darwin has understated himself again. He said his theory wouldn't be worth two beans (a bloggy paraphrase) unless it could be shown that "numerous, successive, slight, modifications" accrued over time.

Slight-modification-wise, you can't get any slighter than a subcellular biochemical receptor changing affinity for the protein that fits into it. Researchers reporting in Science determined that an ancient hormone receptor existed tens of millions of years before the hormone it now fits even appeared on the evolutionary scene. Its original function was different, but it was "ready" when a brand new hormone evolved millienia later.

I think of that receptor akin to a human hand; it worked well enough in the mists of time to hold a club or even tools. Then one day the baseball came along, and the old receptor was ready to be, well, Jorge Posada.

A nod to the New York Times for the article on this research.