2015

From ScienceDaily: Scientists have long speculated about the nature of the dark proteome, the area of proteins that are completely unknown, but a recent study by CSIRO has mapped the boundaries of these dark regions, bringing us one step closer to discovering the complete structure and function of all proteins. … As knowledge of three-dimensional protein structures continues to expand, we can identify regions within each protein that are different to any region where structure has been determined experimentally, coined the ‘dark proteome’. “These dark regions are unlike any known structure, so they cannot be predicted,” Dr O’Donoghue said. … The research has yielded some surprising results, including that nearly half of the proteome in eukaryotes is dark and has Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Researchers have found that a close cousin of the jellyfish has evolved over time into a microscopic parasite. The finding represents the first case of extreme evolutionary degeneration of an animal body. … Despite the radical changes in its body structure and genome over millions of years, the myxozoa have retained some of the basic characteristics of the jellyfish, including the essential genes to produce the jellyfish stinger. “The myxozoa are microscopic — only a few cells measuring 10 to 20 microns across — and therefore biologists assumed that they were single-celled organisms,” said Prof. Huchon. “But when we sequenced their DNA, we discovered the genome of an extremely strange macroscopic marine animal.” More. It mayn’t turn out Read More ›

As late as several decades ago, brain tissue was assumed not to regenerate, with catastrophic consequences for stroke victims, who had largely to heal on their own if they ever did. Now it is widely recognized that the brain, like any other organ, always tries to heal. But that was not without controversy. See, for example, “A Christmas tale: Neuroscientist discovers hope for stroke victims – and science establishment’s hostility” Today, however, the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society has put out a special open access issue on the subject (Volume 21 / Special Issue 10 / November 2015), focusing on the importance of continued physical activity. Comes at a good time, as increased longevity means that more people struggle Read More ›

Astoundingly, some of our Darwinist friends continue to insist that Darwin had no problem with the fossil record, that he thought it was in complete agreement with this theory.  This is nuts.  He spent major portions of his book explaining why we should accept his theory even though the fossil record does not support it.  Here is a summary of what Darwin said: 1. My theory predicts that natural selection is working everywhere all the time to effect tiny morphological changes that accumulate over time and result in new species appearing. 2. The result is an extremely gradual process in which new species arise from prior species over eons of time though slow practically imperceptible changes. 3. If that is Read More ›

Readers may recall that in a recent post I quoted molecular biologist wd400 undermining Theodosius Dobzhansky’s silly maxim that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution” when he asserted that a lot of molecular biologists, including world-famous leader of the human genome project Francis Collins, “don’t understand much about evolution.” I noted that it follows as a matter of simple logic that Dobzhansky was wrong if one of the world’s leading biologists can do his job perfectly well without even understanding evolution, far less depending on it to make sense of everything. Today wd400 doubled down when he asserted that not only does Collins not understand evolution, but in fact he is dead wrong about key aspects Read More ›

Further to Barry Arrington’s post, “Zachriel goes into insane denial mode,” which has garnered so far 170 comments, and doubtless counting: The biggest problem for Darwin’s supporters (paleo, neo, extended, whatever) today has nothing to do with Uncommon Descent or with any design hypothesis. The problem is genome mapping. Blame people like Francis Collins and Craig Venter. Darwinian evolution was always a theory, by which Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutation generates huge levels of information, not noise) . It was the single greatest idea anyone ever had, and could be believed without evidence because “Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life.” (p. 287, Blind Watchmaker, 1986) And it has Read More ›

A half billion years ago. This helps us understand why most of the information in a life form cannot be in its genes. From ScienceDaily: Scientists have analyzed the genomes of two acorn worm species and found that approximately two-thirds of human genes have counterparts in the ancestors of these marine animals. These ancient genes, and their organization within the genome, were already in place in the common ancestor of humans and acorn worms that lived over half a billion years ago. … Around 550 million years ago, a great variety of animals burst onto the world in an event known as the Cambrian explosion. This evolutionary radiation revealed several new animal body plans, and changed life on Earth forever, Read More ›

From Nautilus: We want to believe that a thing is somehow more than the sum of its parts. That if we removed an electron’s charge, its mass, its spin, there would be something leftover, a bald electron, a haecceity, as the philosophers say, a primitive thisness. We want to believe that there is something that it means to be this electron rather than that, even if no observation, experiment, or statistic could ever reveal it. We want to believe in a primitive thisness because we want to believe in a primitive ourness—that should we one day meet our double, a perfect clone down to every detail, every dream, utterly indistinguishable to even the most discerning observer, that still there would Read More ›

Interesting, because 300 million years ago, harvestmen (like spiders) were much the same as today. Said one researcher, “It is absolutely remarkable how little harvestmen have changed in appearance since before the dinosaurs.” Yet changes do happen. From ScienceDaily: Called after Tolkien’s character from the “Lord of the Rings” series, a new eyeless harvestman species was found to crawl in a humid cave in southeastern Brazil. Never getting out of its subterranean home, the new daddy longlegs species is the most highly modified representative among its close relatives and only the second one with no eyes living in Brazil. While there are cave dwellers that can easily survive above the ground and even regularly go out in order to feed Read More ›

From Nature: What we know about alien worlds — and what’s coming next. The tally of known extrasolar planets now stands at 1,978, with nearly 4,700 more candidates waiting to be confirmed. On 29 November, exoplanet researchers will gather in Hawaii to review these extreme solar systems — and map out a path for the next two decades. Free infographic here. Here’s an interesting new find from May 2014: Goldilocks may not like exoplanets. Maybe that’s because of stuff like this? Radiation nixes most Earth-like planet for life? Researchers: Atmosphere of Kepler-438b would be stripped away. See also: Don’t let Mars fool you. Those exoplanets teem with life! Follow UD News at Twitter!

We are not talking about journals that got in trouble for publishing Incorrect information that is most likely correct. Or information that, whether correct or not, happens to be controversial. Those types are soon dealt with. Nor are we talking about the usual parade of dodges and citation/review scams, or the sinkhole of manufacturing studies to “prove” what is already believed on poor evidence. No, we mean Up the Jolly Roger! This from From Science: According to a tip sent to Science, fraudsters are snatching entire Web addresses, known as Internet domains, right out from under academic publishers, erecting fake versions of their sites, and hijacking their journals, along with their Web traffic. Website spoofing has been around since the Read More ›

From Warwick U: The most Earth-like planet could have been made uninhabitable by vast quantities of radiation, new research led by the University of Warwick has found. The atmosphere of the planet, Kepler-438b, is thought to have been stripped away as a result of radiation emitted from a superflaring Red Dwarf star, Kepler-438. Regularly occurring every few hundred days, the superflares are approximately ten times more powerful than those ever recorded on the Sun and equivalent to the same energy as 100 billion megatons of TNT.More. The find raises a question about how we determine whether a planet is Earth-like. Most Earth-like planet uninhabitable due to radiation, new research suggests C/NET laments, Farewell to hope of life on Kepler-438b, adding Read More ›

Matthew Cobb is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester and a regular contributor over at Why Evolution Is True. Recently, while critiquing a cartoon from xkcd (shown above), he argued that our DNA is the mindless product of a series of historical accidents. But then he let the cat out of the bag, at the end of his post: On a final note, in some cases, within this amazing noise, there are also astonishing examples of complexity which do indeed appear to be the result of optimisation – and they would boggle the mind of anyone, not just a cocky computer scientist in a hat. In Drosophila there is a gene called Dscam, which is involved in Read More ›

But how different is that from being closer than ever to squaring the circle? So says Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong, here: This week’s string theory hype comes to us from USC physicists Clifford Johnson and Nick Warner, courtesy of the USC press office (see here and here). It’s garden variety hype of this kind, exactly the same claims about strings and extra dimensions that were being made thirty years ago. There’s no acknowledgement these haven’t gone anywhere, instead we’re “closer than ever to an answer”. When the question of testability comes up, the multiverse is not invoked as an excuse. Instead, it seems that dark matter is going to provide the test: … Well, dark matter could provide Read More ›

From xkcd: Try out other “physicist-driven” cartoons here. Follow UD News at Twitter!