The pythons invading Florida have been found to be Burmese-Indian hybrids, which means that they may be more adaptable than hoped. From ScienceDaily: The study also found that at least a few of the snakes in the invasive South Florida population are not 100 percent Burmese pythons. Instead, the genetic evidence shows at least 13 snakes out of about 400 studied are a cross between two separate species: Burmese pythons, which mostly inhabit wetlands, and Indian pythons, which prefer higher ground. The interbreeding between Burmese and Indian pythons probably took place before the animals became established in the South Florida environment, and may have given them greater adaptability in their new habitats. The South Florida pythons spring from a tangled Read More ›

Transcription is certainly the essential node in the complex network of procedures and regulations that control the many activities of living cells. Understanding how it works is a fascinating adventure in the world of design and engineering. The issue is huge and complex, but I will try to give here a simple (but probably not too brief) outline of its main features, always from a design perspective.   Fig. 1 A simple and effective summary of a gene regulatory network   Introduction: where is the information? One of the greatest mysteries in cell life is how the information stored in the cell itself can dynamically control the many changes that continuosly take place in living cells and in living beings. Read More ›

There were no external injuries. The fossil — discovered in the region of Yakutia — has its skin, hair, hooves and tail preserved. Yakutia is also famous for having found woolly mammoth fossils in the permafrost. Scientists from Russia’s Northeast Federal University, who presented the discovery Thursday, said the foal is estimated to be 30,000 to 40,000 years old. They believe it was about two months old when it died.[name], “Ancient horse found perfectly preserved in permafrost” at CBC News, via Associated Press From Phys.org: Semyon Grigoryev, head of the Mammoth Museum in the regional capital of Yakutsk, was surprised to see the perfect state of the find. He noted it’s the best-preserved ancient foal found to date. More. Soil Read More ›

As we might expect. Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne offers his thoughts on science writer David Quammen’s new book about Carl Woese, The Tangled Tree:A Radical New History of Life: Quammen is right that the horizontal transfer of genetic information does complicate our effort to understand the evolutionary past, but he goes too far in claiming that HGT essentially undermines any and all attempts to reconstruct the evolutionary past: “The tree of life is not a true categorical because the history of life just doesn’t resemble a tree.” Before accepting this radical conclusion, we must answer two questions: How in practice can horizontal genetic transmission occur, and how common is it? … In the end, Quammen provides us with a lucid Read More ›

John Hawks is an anthropologist we’ve often noted here. In his review of palaeobiologist Peter Ward’s LaMarck’s Revenge: How Epigenetics Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Evolution’s Past and Present (“Epigenetics upends natural selection and genetic mutation as the sole engines of evolution, and offers startling insights into our future heritable traits.”), Hawks has this to say about epigenetics: Some scientists have hailed epigenetics as the future of biology, while others denounce it as an empty buzzword. Perhaps no other term inspires so much debate among scientists about how to define it. … But here’s the catch. When it comes to the fossil record, paleontologists have a different idea of “fast” from everyday life. Hundreds of thousands of years is plenty Read More ›

Here’s an entirely too self-satisfied item from The Conversation that, hard on the heels of another well-earned jab at “nutrition science,” captures one of the things that is wrong with science today: unearned self-satisfaction. Molecular biologist Merlin Crossly tells us that we should trust name journals, peer review, and impact factors. Are we to believe that none of the questioned nutrition science passed those tests? If they had all flunked such credibility tests, the question would be: Why was the pattern not noticed earlier? This has all been going on a while… If they passed Dr. Crossly’s tests, then his advice is not going to help us much. He closes with: Can you trust the edifice that is modern science? Read More ›

Alex Berezow sticks another fork in nutrition science, courtesy John Ioannidis: Dr. Ioannidis has gone on to show that the best scientists don’t always get funded, why neuroscience is unreliable, why most clinical research is useless, and that most economics studies are exaggerated. In other words, the process by which we acquire new knowledge is fundamentally flawed and much of what we think we know is wrong. Dr. Ioannidis is not just a bull in a china shop; he’s a bazooka in a china shop. … Here at ACSH, we have been saying for a long time that nutrition research is shoddy and mostly wrong. The reason is inherent to the way research is conducted in the field: Too much Read More ›

There has been some discussion in other threads about the nature of experience and how it relates to what we call the material or physical world.  It is my position that the belief that an actual physical world exists independent of mind is just that – a belief, and that it cannot be (or at least has not been) demonstrated in any way to actually exist.  I agree that there is a lot of empirical evidence that supports the theory that a physical world exists “outside” of the parameters of what we consider our “self”, and that others we experience as separate beings appear to agree with that assessment and provide additional testimonial evidence supporting that theory.  However, there is Read More ›

Peter Atkins, author of Atkins’ Physical Chemistry (11th edition, 2017) and Conjuring the Universe (2018), divides the Big Questions into two classes: One class consists of invented questions that are often based on unwarranted extrapolations of human experience. They typically include questions of purpose and worries about the annihilation of the self, such as Why are we here? and What are the attributes of the soul? They are not real questions, because they are not based on evidence. Thus, as there is no evidence for the Universe having a purpose, there is no point in trying to establish its purpose or to explore the consequences of that purported purpose. As there is no evidence for the existence of a soul (except in a metaphorical Read More ›

Neurosurgeon Michael Egnor  gets mail: Andrew Berry, the Harvard biologist who conducts a Darwin pilgrimage each year for undergraduates to Darwin-related sites in England, responds to my recent post about the cult-like reverence in which many Darwinists hold all things Darwin. Berry: I agree with [Egnor] it is indeed fetishization of All Things Darwin/Wallace (And More) that those of us interested in the history of science indulge in (and my program promotes). This is the reason first editions of The Origin sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. We admire Darwin and his colleagues, and enjoy the opportunity to feel in some way closer to the events and the people that we’re interested in by visiting sites etc associated with them, just Read More ›

 So thinks theistic evolutionist Joshua Swamidass at Biologos. It turns out that evolutionary theory is indispensable to understanding cancer. The link I offered above leverages evolution for just this purpose. … From this body of work, we can see the evolution of new functions (new information!), neutral theory, and the effectiveness of obtuse metrics like Ks/Ka ratios. It would hard to imagine rejecting evolution of species without somehow forgetting everything we have learned about the evolution of cancer. Jonathan Wells thinks otherwise: A rough analogy would be to compare the rusting of steel with the smelting of iron ore. We see the same chemical pattern, namely, the inter-conversion of iron and iron oxide. Rusting converts iron to iron oxide, and Read More ›

Here, Aug. 26 at 8:42 PM EDT on C-SPAN 2 Richard Weikart is the author of The Death of Humanity And the Case for Life and Hitler’s Religion: The twisted beliefs that drove the Reich See also: Richard Weikart on the anti-Semitic burst in evolutionary psychology Richard Weikart on Why social science does not need evolutionary theory From a review of Weikart’s Death of Humanity: One stunning factoid Weikart vs Darwin on the value of human life Video: Richard Weikart on his book, The Death of Humanity, and Darwinism Weikart on how Darwinism helped fascist agendas

Consider this item on the recent find of the remains of a girl from 90,000 years ago: The discovery of the first-known offspring of parents from two different hominin species took scientists by surprise. While evidence has been pointing to interbreeding among the ancestor species of modern humans, the direct link is being hailed as a significant finding.Kevin Kelleher, “A Neanderthal Mom and a Denisovan Dad: 90,000-Year-Old Bone Fragment Reveals Startling Human Hybrid” at Fortune “Species” “hybrid” “interbreeding”? What kind of talk is this about humans getting together? Yet it is everywhere. A reader wrote to ask, I’m not an expert on how ancient human species were defined, but I would assume that the authors aren’t using the biological species Read More ›

Here’s a definition of exaptation: a trait, feature, or structure of an organism or taxonomic group that takes on a function when none previously existed or that differs from its original function which had been derived by evolution. – Merriam-Webster In other words, a feature that once served one purpose now serves another. How is that not intelligent? The earliest ancestors of turtles likely evolved shells not for protection, but to serve as platforms for burrowing underground. Legs seem neatly adapted for locomotion on land, but leg-like limbs were present in a 375-million-year-old fish known as Tiktaalik, and were likely used for propping the fish up in shallow water. There are exaptations in genes, too. A gene called Distal-less controls coloration on Read More ›