Erez Aiden’s team of Baylor researchers discover a CTCF protein controlling 3D formation of 10,000 loops. Only 1 of 4 orientations is found. Challenges for evolution:
1) How did this essential CTCF protein develop to loop DNA when the DNA is essential for its production.
2) How was the 1 orientation in 4 selected?
See: There’s a Mystery Machine That Sculpts the Human Genome Read More ›

Despite showing no behavioral signs that they are aware of anything, some patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative state are able to remain conscious because the thalamus in their brain is still intact, even though its connection to the motor cortex (which controls our voluntary movements) is severely damaged, according to a University of Birmingham report (19 October 2015): Dr Davinia Fernández-Espejo, from the University of Birmingham, explained, “A number of patients who appear to be in a vegetative state are actually aware of themselves and their surroundings, able to comprehend the world around them, create memories and imagine events as with any other person.”… “In highlighting damage to the pathways that physically connect the thalamus, one of the Read More ›

A few days ago, scientist and young-earth creationist Dr. Jay Wile wrote a post on his Proslogion blog, in which he reported that Dr. Jeff Tomkins had abandoned his claim that human and chimpanzee DNA are only about 70% similar, in favor of a revised figure of 88%. But even that figure is too low, according to the man who spotted the original flaw in Dr. Tomkins’s work. Dr. Wile reports: More than two years ago, Dr. Jeffrey P. Tomkins, a former director of the Clemson University Genomics Institute, performed a detailed, chromosome-by-chromosome comparison of human and chimpanzee DNA using a widely-recognized computer program known as BLAST. His analysis indicated that, on average, human and chimpanzee DNA are only about Read More ›

From Digg: Will we recognize alien life when we see it? However, one of his most interesting works is a slim book from 1944, based on a set of lectures Schrödinger gave in Dublin. It poses a single question: What is life? Good question. As it happens, we noted earlier, The definition of life has reached the point where science historian George Dyson tells us, “Life is whatever you define it to be.” Richard Dawkins has suggested it is “anything highly statistically improbable, but in a particular direction.” And at a year 2000 international “What is life?” conference, no two definitions were the same. Biochemist Edward Trifonov noted that there are 123 definitions available and, undeterred, promptly proposed his own: Read More ›

Courtesy Christian Scientific Society, here. Friday night: Doug Axe, Biologic Institute Intelligible Design Although technical work in mathematics and experimental biology has been crucial for establishing the academic legitimacy of intelligent design, the downside of emphasizing technical arguments is that it promotes a perception of elitism. My impression is that the vast majority of people who favor design over Darwinism feel unqualified to offer a robust defense of design, which means everyone is looking to the experts to resolve this controversy. Contrary to this, I argue in my forthcoming book that the key insights for resolving the controversy come from common-sense reasoning and experience-based intuitions shared by all people. This makes everyone qualified to participate in the debate. … Saturday Morning: Read More ›

Maybe. This vid on intelligent design vs creationism has brought up PZ Myers, as well as Larry Moran, Darwin’s tenure tag team. McLatchie keeps this up and we could organize a Darwin beauty pageant. O’Leary for News will serve coffee and iced cupcakes. Vid: One minute apologist: What is the difference between ID and creationism? See also: Vince Torley’s Larry Moran commits the genetic fallacy Follow UD News at Twitter!

We’ve all heard the old saw about lies, damn lies and statistics.  It seems the aphorism holds when the statistics are charted.  Here is the only chart you will ever need when discussing global warming: See here for an explanation.

Well, there would have to be some, wouldn’t there? Otherwise, genomics would be hardly anything like it’s cracked up to be.* From the Atlantic: These genes might have contributed to the distinctive traits that make us human, but ironically, they are also very hard to study and often ignored. Many are missing from the reference human genome, which was supposedly “completed” in 2003. One such unique human gene is HYDIN2. It first appeared around 3.1 million years ago, as a duplicate of an existing gene called HYDIN. During the duplication process, “the head got chopped off and the tail got chopped off,” explains Max Dougherty from the University of Washington. It was as if someone had transcribed a book but neglected Read More ›

From New Scientist: It’s not the first time that people have claimed the discovery of potentially organic carbon in Hadean zircons – but the carbon in those earlier claims turned out to be an artefact of the preparation techniques used to study the zircons, says Harrison. “I think there will be little dispute regarding the primary nature of the inclusions,” he says. … Ultimately, carbon isotope data on its own is too ambiguous to decide whether Hadean carbon is evidence of Hadean life, says Thomas McCollom at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “I know a lot of people want to use such data as evidence of life, but this is governed more by what they want the outcome to be Read More ›

Here, with Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen, a co-founder of the Public Library of Science (PLOS): Yesterday the Gina Kolata published a story in the New York Times about the fact that many clinical studies are not published. This is a serious problem and it’s a good thing that it is being brought to light. But her article contains a weird section in which a researcher at the University of Florida explains why she hadn’t published the results of one of her studies: … “It was a small study and our hypothesis was not proven,” Dr. Cooper-DeHoff said. “That’s like three strikes against me for publication.” Her only option, she reasoned, would be to turn to an open-access journal that charges Read More ›

For two hours. Maybe they should all go to relationships counselling twice a week. Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose

Bobby Conway, of One Minute Apologist, asks Jonathan McLatchie about the concept of irreducible complexity: Note: The term was not coined by Michael Behe, as often supposed or in creationist literature. Rather, here is where it originated: — Some say, of course, that the idea of irreducible complexity (IR) arose from creationist literature (also here.) Seriously, the term has so far been traced to Templets and the explanation of complex patterns (Cambridge U Press, 1986) by theoretical biologist Michael J. Katz. “Irreducible complexity” appears as an index entry in Katz’s book, and set forth as follows: In the natural world, there are many pattern-assembly systems for which there is no simple explanation. There are useful scientific explanations for these complex systems, but Read More ›

Professor Larry Moran’s latest post on Sandwalk criticizes Jonathan McLatchie for claiming that Intelligent Design is a legitimate scientific investigation. On the contrary, declares Moran, Intelligent Design is a movement whose members are motivated by a desire to discredit materialism and defend their belief in a Creator. 99% of ID activities, he claims, are attacks on evolution, rather than attempts to scientifically identify which objects were designed. Moran respects McLatchie for his solid grasp of evolutionary biology, but regards him as having “fallen in to the trap of deceiving himself about his true motives.” But even if Professor Moran’s characterization of the motives of ID proponents were entirely correct, it would be utterly irrelevant. The reason is that science is Read More ›

 We asked them, and we learned a lot, including: Common ancestry was at one time mainly a religious dispute. Everyone thinks they know what happened at the iconic Scopes “Monkey” Trial (they don’t, actually). But now, since genome mapping became routine, the unthinkable has happened: Actual genomes do not demonstrate the Tree of Life in the neat and orderly way that underlies Darwinian accounts of evolution. They could hardly be expected to do so, given the creativity many life forms exhibit with their own genes via natural genetic engineering, horizontal gene transfer, epigenetics, and a crowd of other mechanisms. The Tree of Life has become a bush or a circle of life. Finally, when we add up all the demonstrable Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: One of biology’s long-standing puzzles is how so many similar species can co-exist in nature. Do they really all fulfill a different role? Massive data on beetles now provide strong evidence for the idea that evolution can drive species into groups of look-a-likes that are functionally similar. What does it mean to say that “evolution can drive species into” … Isn’t evolution just the sum total of what happens? For whatever reason, the article doesn’t use the term convergent evolution, though that is clearly what it is discussing: While it is clear that species fulfill many different roles in ecosystems, it has also been suggested that numerous species might actually share the same function in a near neutral Read More ›