Swarmbots: Apparently, it takes ingenuity to get a life form to fail, but the trick may come in handy. From Duke University: Duke University bioengineers design cells that die if they leave the confines of their capsule Duke University researchers have engineered microbes that can’t run away from home; those that do will quickly die […]
Month: February 2016
Quantum Darwinism = Darwinism as woo-woo?
From science writer Neel S. Patel at Inverse: “Survival of the fittest” is bigger than just evolutionary biology. You bet. The selfish gene even gives us medical advice. The word Darwinism has become a synecdoche for all the mechanisms implied by the Malthusian concept of “survival of the fittest” — the notion that the strongest […]
The selfish gene: Stay in bed if you have a cold
If you have a cold. From ScienceDaily: Research suggests that our selfish genes are behind the aches, fever The symptoms that accompany illness appear to negatively affect one’s chance of survival and reproduction. So why would this phenomenon persist? Symptoms, say the scientists, are not an adaptation that works on the level of the individual. […]
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)? No, brain works better in winter, researchers say
From stalwart of science New York Mag: But scientists are coming to realize that this might not be quite right. A pair of new studies challenge many of the popular assumptions about the psychological effects of wintertime, suggesting that we should look at the season in a new, brighter light. The weather might be gray […]
FYI-FTR: On Ehrlich’s unified overview of numbers great and small (HT: DS)
Over the past month in response to a suggestion on an infinite temporal past (and the counter argument that such is dubious), there has been quite an exchange on numbers. In that context, it is worth headlining FYI/FTR, HT DS, a unification with continuum — oops, link — based on surreals discussed by Ehrlich: where […]
Feet to the fire: A response to Dr. Stacy Trasancos
Stacy Trasancos, a homeschooling mother of seven with a Ph.D. in chemistry and an M.A. in Dogmatic Theology who is an Adjunct Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, has penned a thoughtful essay over at the Catholic One Faith blog titled, Does Science Prove God Exists? Her answer, in a nutshell, is that while […]
Moralistic gods explain growth of human society?
Abstract from Nature: Moralistic gods, supernatural punishment and the expansion of human sociality Since the origins of agriculture, the scale of human cooperation and societal complexity has dramatically expanded. This fact challenges standard evolutionary explanations of prosociality because well-studied mechanisms of cooperation based on genetic relatedness, reciprocity and partner choice falter as people increasingly engage […]
Information jumps again: some more facts, and thoughts, about Prickle 1 and taxonomically restricted genes.
My previous post about information jumps, based on the example of the Prickle 1 protein, has generated a very interesting discussion, still ongoing. I add here some more thoughts about an aspect which has not been really analyzed in the first post, and which can probably contribute to the discussion. I will give here […]
Can ID be an argument for religion?
This is philosopher and photographer Laszlo Bencze’s view: I have just finished my fifth reading of Robert J. Spitzer’s book, New Proofs for the Existence of God. In this book Spitzer set himself the task of exploring how far natural theology can take us towards understanding God. The first part of the book deals purely […]
A guide to the Meyer Marshall debate, with notes
From Sean Pitman (2016): Late last year there was an interesting debate on Premier Christian Radio, “Unbelievable” with Justin Brierley between Stephen Meyer and Charles Marshall over Meyer’s latest book,Darwin’s Doubt. Marshall, a UC Berkeley paleontologist, had published a review of the book in the journal Science a few months earlier and this was Meyer’s […]
Excerpt from A Brief History of Creation features Carl Woese
“One of the world’s most important biological thinkers.” From Scientific American: Excerpted from A Brief History of Creation by Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves III. Copyright © 2016 by Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves III. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. The year is 3,500,000,000 […]
Dan Graur’s 12 principles of Evolutionary Truth
An earlier story here today mentioned Dan Graur: Plagiarism in science texts, not just journals? (Maybe, with enough publicity, a public explanation will be forthcoming…) From Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True blog, we learn the twelve truths of Darwinian evolutionary biology, and some other stuff as well: Dan Graur, who is Professor of Biology […]
Natural selection has limits? Who knew?
From Trends in Genetics: Evolutionary theory predicts that factors such as a small population size or low recombination rate can limit the action of natural selection. The emerging field of comparative population genomics offers an opportunity to evaluate these hypotheses. However, classical theoretical predictions assume that populations are at demographic equilibrium. This assumption is likely […]
Plagiarism in science text, not just journals?
From David Morrison at Phylonetworks: Some of you may have noticed the recent publication of the following book: Dan Graur (2016) Molecular and Genome Evolution. Sinauer Associates. Chapter 6 is of interest to the readers of this blog, being entitled “Reticulate evolution and phylogenetic networks”. Unfortunately, as originally published, not all of the figures in […]
New at MercatorNet
From O’Leary for News’ other blog, Connecting… Apple vs. FBI: Free internet is at stake. Few analysts agree with the FBI that it would end with just this one case. It can’t. Online medical information: Help, hype, or harm? A new coinage, “cyberchondria,” refers to the worry some people experience from overdosing on medical information […]