Randomly. We kid you not: The origins of life likely required the cooperation among a set of molecular species interacting in a network. If so, then the earliest modes of evolutionary change would have been governed by the manners and mechanisms by which networks change their compositions over time. For molecular events, especially those in a pre-biological setting, these mechanisms have rarely been considered. We are only recently learning to apply the results of mathematical analyses of network dynamics to prebiotic events. Here, we attempt to forge connections between such analyses and the current state of knowledge in prebiotic chemistry. Of the many possible influences that could direct primordial network, six parameters emerge as the most influential when one considers Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: In 2014, scientists discovered a bizarre fossil–a crocodile-sized sea-dwelling reptile that lived 242 million years ago in what today is southern China. Its head was poorly preserved, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like beak. But in a paper published today in Science Advances, paleontologists reveal what was really going on–that “beak” is actually part of a hammerhead-shaped jaw apparatus, which it used to feed on plants on the ocean floor. It’s the earliest known example of an herbivorous marine reptile. … “It’s a very strange animal,” says Olivier Rieppel, Rowe Family Curator of Evolutionary Biology at The Field Museum in Chicago. “It’s got a hammerhead, which is unique, it’s the first time we’ve seen a reptile like Read More ›

As exemplified in Sean Carroll’s new book, The Big Picture, From Columbia mathematician Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: The last chapter of the book begins with a description of Carroll’s early experiences in the Episcopal church, which he was quite fond of. I also had such experiences (I was an altar boy for several years at an Episcopal church, the American Cathedral in Paris). Unlike Carroll, I was never a believer, but just figured this was one of quite a few mystifying things that adults got up to, and that it seemed I had to go along with it until I got older. Thinking back to those days, I was struck by the realization that I recognized the tone Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Researchers have found humans have a higher metabolism rate than closely related primates, which enabled humans to evolve larger brains. The study found that, adjusted for body size, on a daily basis humans consume 400 more calories than chimpanzees and bonobos (closely related to chimps), 635 more calories than gorillas and 820 more calories than orangutans. … The study confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis that humans evolved a faster metabolism and larger energy budget to accommodate larger brains, which consume more calories. The higher metabolism also supports having more offspring and a longer lifespan. More. Paper. (paywall) – Herman Pontzer, Mary H. Brown, David A. Raichlen, Holly Dunsworth, Brian Hare, Kara Walker, Amy Luke, Lara R. Dugas, Ramon Durazo-Arvizu, Read More ›

I once had a rare and valuable baseball card I wanted to sell. I placed an ad and was shortly contacted by a collector. But to my dismay he wasn’t interested. He had probably looked at hundreds of baseball cards and it only required one look for him to know that my treasured card held no value for him. He did not attempt any negotiating tricks, just a polite “thank you” and off he went. I would have felt better about the encounter if he had tried to haggle down the price. For I would have had the comfort of knowing my card held at least some value. Instead, there was no price discovery—apparently the card was worthless.  Read more

Some starving hack got it in the neck. From Nature News: Researcher under fire for New Yorker epigenetics article A story about epigenetics in the 2 May issue of The New Yorker has been sharply criticized for inaccurately describing how genes are regulated. The article by Siddhartha Mukherjee — a physician, cancer researcher and award-winning author at Columbia University in New York — examines how environmental factors can change the activity of genes without altering the DNA sequence. Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, posted two widely discussed blog posts calling the piece “superficial and misleading”, largely because it ignored key aspects of gene regulation. Other researchers quoted in the blog posts called the Read More ›

From the BBC, a slide show of observed or hypothesized changes, “The Simple Steps That Made Us Human,” none of which is in the least bit simple. The slide show ends with: “Because big questions need answering.” Yes, but one could be a bit more particular about the depth of the answers. These answers seem addressed to people who have no serious questions. Someone should study the cultural reasons that there is a market for this sort of stuff and why—like unsupported nutrition claims—it gets branded as “science.” Note: If a religious group did this, I would put them on cult watch. Yet it’s Brit government-funded. – O’Leary for News See also: Human origins: The war of trivial explanations and Human Read More ›

Yes, yet another “throw enough theories at the origin of life and one of them will stick. This just in from ScienceDaily: In a paper just published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, the team proposes that large meteorite and comet impacts into the sea created structures that provided conditions favourable for life. Water then interacted with impact-heated rock to enable synthesis of complex organic molecules, and the enclosed crater itself was a microhabitat within which life could flourish. It has long been suggested that the meteoritic and cometary material that bombarded the early Earth delivered the raw materials — complex organic molecules, such as glycine, ß-alanine, ?-amino-n-butyric acid, and water — and the energy that was required for synthesis. The Read More ›

A friend sends this gem from the literature;, it sounds totally oblivious of the information requirement for life: It is now generally accepted that the emergence of increasingly complex eukaryotic life forms was accompanied by a corresponding increase in genome complexity, entailing both an expansion in gene number and more elaborate gene regulation.(22–24) Only DNA recombination in the form of gene or segmental duplications, exon shuffling, insertions, deletions, and chromosomal rearrangements can adequately account for this massive increase in gene number and the complexity of their regulation.(22–24). – Oliver, Keith R. & Wayne K. Greene (2009) Transposable elements: powerful facilitators of evolution BioEssays 31:703–714. Kirk Durston, picking on the theme, offers a translation from the Darwinspeak: The authors are blowing Read More ›

From Washington Post: These ancient Asian primate fossils might be the missing pieces of a major evolutionary puzzle In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Beard and his colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing report on an “incredible cache” of fossils from 10 previously unknown species uncovered in China’s Yunnan province. These fossils help illuminate a new story of our evolution: one in which our primate ancestors evolved in Asia, sailed across a narrow sea to Africa, then were pushed to extinction on their home continent because of drastic climate change. Some of the only primates that survived were the ones whose fossils were just uncovered — primitive creatures that were closer to lemurs than Read More ›

Biochemist Dr. Michael Behe speaks to the Apologetics Academy about the biochemical evidence for design. Behe is author of Darwin’s Black Box and Edge of Evolution Follow UD News at Twitter!

Closing our religion coverage for the week (a bit late again), from Biosemiosis at Discourse at BioLogos: It is well known that Biologos has objections to the concept of design in biology (aka ID). I post the following short article as a conversation piece for those who agree with that assessment, or those who question it: … What JCVI has done, and is doing, is experimentally quantifying those requirements in terms of discrete function and numbers of base pairs. And this leads me to a couple of questions for those who profess (against massive physical evidence to the contrary) that this all came into being by naught (or whatever word you’d like to use). Considering the list of functions that Read More ›

From Nicholas Kristof: WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren’t conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We’re fine with people who don’t look like us, as long as they think like us. O.K., that’s a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. “Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black,” he told me. “But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close.”More. Reality check: First, progressives are not liberals. They are totalitarians sapping Read More ›

From “Intelligent Design: a Theological and Philosophical Analysis” by Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen the Journal of Analytic Theology Abstract: “The “God of the gaps” critique is one of the most common arguments against design arguments in biology, but is also increasingly used as a critique of other natural theological arguments. In this paper, I analyze four different critiques of God of the gaps arguments and explore the relationship between gaps arguments and similar limit arguments. I conclude that the critique of the God of the gaps is substantially weaker than is commonly assumed, and dismissing ID́s biological arguments should rather be based on criticizing the premises of these arguments.” Full text. Good luck with that. The main purpose of God Read More ›

From Jonathan Webb at BBC News: A new study reveals how crocodiles’ eyes are fine-tuned for lurking at the water surface to watch for prey. The “fovea”, a patch of tightly packed receptors that delivers sharp vision, forms a horizontal streak instead of the usual circular spot. This allows the animal to scan the shoreline without moving its head, according to Australian researchers. They also found differences in the cone cells, which sense colours, between saltwater and freshwater crocs. … This is because light conditions are different in salt and freshwater habitats, but only underwater – and the crocodiles’ eyes show corresponding tweaks. … This arrangement reflects the predator’s iconic ability to lurk with just its eyes above the water, Read More ›