David Tyler

Scientists with an interest in developing design concepts and principles found in the natural world are not instinctively attracted by exhortations to expel design from Biology. However, developing a coherent academic framework that does justice to the design principles being studied has not attracted the attention it deserves. Consequently, many scholars in this field have absorbed views developed by people with a rather different agenda for design. McIntosh recognises there is a problem here, and sets out to provide an alternative perspective. “Many have taken the view that design is only an illusion in living systems, arguing that such ‘apparent design’ and accompanying complexity can be explained by the neo-Darwinian paradigm. [. . .] However, [. . .] the inference Read More ›

Anyone attempting to swat a fly will become aware of its remarkable aerodynamic capabilities. Its speed of response and ability to change direction abruptly far exceed our own powers as pursuers. The flight of insects has received considerable attention from researchers and some recent work was stimulated by the recognition of a gap in knowledge. The scientists realized that the previously-studied flight control system involving vision cannot be the explanation for how flies maintain stability in the face of unpredictable short disturbances. “Corrective behavior often takes advantage of vision. For fruit flies, however, reaction time to visual stimuli is at least 10 wingbeats, so these insects must employ faster sensory circuits to recover from short time-scale disturbances and instabilities.” [. Read More ›

The mollusc, known as the scaly-foot gastropod, has been known for about a decade. It was discovered living in the deep sea near the Kairei Indian hydrothermal vent field on the Central Indian Ridge. The natural environment for the animal is harsh. There are extremes of temperatures, high pressures and high acidity levels that can easily damage shells of calcium carbonate. Brachyuran crabs live in the vicinity and these “are known to compress gastropod mollusc shells between their chela” with loads of up to 60N. “To understand how the valiant gastropod holds up to these trials, Christine Ortiz of MIT and her colleagues used nanoscale experiments and computer simulations to dig in to the shell’s structure. Many other species’ shells Read More ›

Spider silk has been an active area for biomimetics research for several years. Spinoff companies have been launched in anticipation of commercial gains. However, despite the enthusiasm and commitment of research staff, the prizes are still elusive. Whilst the main goal is to produce fibres that are as strong and as flexible as spider silk, there are other aspects of the natural material that have attracted the interest of researchers. One of these concerns the ability of webs to be a site for dew collection. “When Lei Jiang first observed the phenomenon, he was intrigued. “How does that happen?” he wondered. After all, he says, “if you took a human hair, water would not stick to it like that”. His Read More ›

Two research psychologists have contributed an Opinion paper based on the empirical finding “that individuals presented with unfamiliar moral dilemmas show no difference in their responses if they have a religious background or not”. The data used was obtained from an online web questionnaire which is open to any volunteer participants (including myself). Findings are reported elsewhere and in their Opinion paper the authors provide only a summary: “These studies, carried out using the web-based Moral Sense Test (http://moral.wjh.harvard.edu/), recruit thousands of male and female subjects, with educational levels that range from elementary school to graduate degrees, with political affiliations that range from liberal to conservative, and religious backgrounds that range from devout to atheist. In each of these studies, Read More ›

It is well known that Darwin speculated on what might happen in “some warm little pond”. But it was not until 1929 that J.B.S. Haldane developed a testable hypothesis involving a “prebiotic broth, or primordial soup”. He proposed that organic compounds were made when methane, ammonia and water reacted as a result of energy supplied by ultraviolet radiation. The reaction products were suggested to have accumulated in a “hot dilute soup” in the primeval earth. In this scenario, further reactions led to macromolecules, protocells and then life. “Backed up by Stanley Miller’s (1953) inorganic synthesis of organic molecules in the laboratory, it seemed to generations of scientists that Haldane’s narrative was basically right, and all that was left was to Read More ›

Two years ago, “the most primitive bat known” was reported in Nature. It was not primitive in its wings and body, but “the morphology of the ear region suggests that it could not echolocate, making it a possible intermediate link between bats and their non-flying, non-echolocating mammalian ancestors”. At the time, the find was suggested to settle the question as to which came first: flight or echolocation? The answer was a definite flight first. “The problem of understanding bat evolution dates back at least to Charles Darwin, who in The Origin of Species enumerated a list of difficulties he saw with the theory of evolution by natural selection. The example often discussed is the origin of the eye. But Darwin Read More ›

Professor Steve Fuller is known as a prolific author whose analysis of the scientific enterprise is iconoclastic. He was famously involved as a defense witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005) trial, for which he has received a great deal of flak. The essay cited below provides an explanation of his involvement and a challenge for other qualified people to ensure that their voices are heard. “I believe that tenured historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science – when presented with the opportunity – have a professional obligation to get involved in public controversies over what should count as science. I stress ‘tenured’ because the involved academics need to be materially protected from the consequences of their involvement, Read More ›

Over the years, there has been much interest in the design of running shoes, with product designers building in protection against impacts and other perceived hazards. However, continuing reports of repetitive strain injuries warrant further research and product re-design. The topic has come to the surface recently with a comparison of the forces experienced by feet of habitually shod versus habitually barefoot runners. It emerges that barefoot runners make contact with the ground in a way that avoids impact-related discomfort and injury. As a matter of observation, most habitually shod runners first contact the ground with their heel. This is referred to as heel-striking or rear-foot strike. Modern running shoes have been designed to reduce the impact forces with the Read More ›

The first species to have its genome decoded by ‘next-generation-sequencing’ (NGS) machines is the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). The individual animal was known previously to the world as the mascot of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Scientists have been excited by the report because the NGS approach is significantly cheaper and faster than other methods. [. . .] The estimated size of the giant panda genome is said to be 2.40 Gb (compared with 2.45 Gb for the dog genome and 3.0 Gb for humans) making up about 21,000 genes (similar to humans). “Overall, we found that the quality of the predicted panda genes was comparable to that of other well-annotated mammalian genes.” Although the panda eats only bamboo leaves, Read More ›

The claim that Rubisco is poorly designed or unintelligently designed was appearing in textbooks in the 1990s. The idea has been picked up recently in a News & Views piece by John Ellis. He writes that Rubisco “is a relic of a bygone age” and his essay has the title: “Tackling unintelligent design”. “Rubisco is the most important enyzme on the planet – virtually all the organic carbon in the biosphere derives ultimately from the carbon dioxide that this enzyme fixes from the atmosphere. But Rubisco is also one of the most inefficient enzymes on the planet. It evolved when the atmospheric composition was different from that of today, and its failure to adapt significantly to the modern atmosphere limits Read More ›

“It seems we have all been guilty of defaming Neanderthal man” declared a recent Editorial in The Guardian. This comment was triggered by a report documenting evidence for the use of pigments and decorative shells by Neanderthals. This is claimed to have occurred many years before any direct contact with modern humans, thereby undermining any thought that the artefacts did not really represent Neanderthal culture. Personal adornment, using a variety of colours, implies an aesthetic sense and an appreciation of symbolism. Since Neanderthals have often been presented as lacking these “modern” traits, the new research demands a reappraisal. For an overview of the finds plus reaction, go here. Here’s the take-home message: We have had a long-sustained exposure to the Read More ›

A year ago, Nature published an educational booklet with the title 15 Evolutionary gems (as a resource for the Darwin Bicentennial). Number 2 gem is Tiktaalik a well-preserved fish that has been widely acclaimed as documenting the transition from fish to tetrapod. Tiktaalik was an elpistostegalian fish: a large, shallow-water dwelling carnivore with tetrapod affinities yet possessing fins. Unfortunately, until Tiktaalik, most elpistostegids remains were poorly preserved fragments. “In 2006, Edward Daeschler and his colleagues described spectacularly well preserved fossils of an elpistostegid known as Tiktaalik that allow us to build up a good picture of an aquatic predator with distinct similarities to tetrapods – from its flexible neck, to its very limb-like fin structure. The discovery and painstaking analysis Read More ›

As a young man aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin was fascinated by erratic boulders. After completing his voyage, he wrote several papers about their origin. Tierra del Fuego was of particular interest, for he found boulder trains at different elevations at a place known as Bahia San Sebastian, which faces the Atlantic Ocean. Darwin actually delayed the survey work of HMS Beagle so he could gather more extensive information. On returning to the UK, he made the boulders the focus of two geological papers published in 1841. The route by which Darwin reached his conclusions is instructive for all of us involved in research today. [Details omitted of how Darwin interpreted the boulders and of the recently published revised interpretation Read More ›