The study shows how comb jellies evolved from ancestors with an organic skeleton.
Author: PaV
Viruses Devolve
The main thesis of Behe’s new book, Darwin Devolves, surrounds what Behe calls “poison-pill” mutations, which gives an organism a quick fix, but which can run the risk of being rendered incapable of utilizing future needed adaptations. IOW, breaking and blunting genes to adapt to new environments become changes that get locked in due to Read More…
What’s Left of Darwinism?
In a previous post, I indicated that Dr. Frances Arnold’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry points out that Artificial Selection is more powerful a force than Natural Selection. In a new paper, the authors show that the idea of the ‘gradual’ evolution of foraminifera turns out to be wrong and that what actually happens is an Read More…
One Nobel Reason for Believing that Artificial Selection is more Powerful than Natural Selection
There’s been quite a lot of conversation about our three newest recepients of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, partially, if not principally, because one of the three was a woman, Dr. Francis Arnold. We’ve also read that Dr. Arnold, having gotten nowhere using “rational design” then turned to “evolution,” and with this switch in methodology Read More…
Scutoids: a New Geometric Shape found in Epithelial Cells
Here’s a new paper form Nature Communications describing a discovery of a new geometric shape that is apparently found only in curved epithelial cells. I find it intriguing that this shape is entirely new, not found elsewhere in nature, but now coined “scutoids” by the authors, and is proposed as making “possible the minimization of Read More…
Chromatin Topology: the New (and Latest) Functional Complexity
There’s a paper out in Nature Genetics discussing “chromatin topology.” Here’s the abstract: A long-standing question in gene regulation is how remote enhancers communicate with their target promoters, and specifically how chromatin topology dynamically relates to gene activation. Here, we combine genome editing and multi-color live imaging to simultaneously visualize physical enhancer–promoter interaction and transcription Read More…
Startling Result–90% of Animals Less than 200 kya
From PhysOrg this morning, in a study using “DNA bar-codes” (mitochondrial DNA, using a specific gene COI) and conducted around the world, here’s the verdict: The study’s most startling result, perhaps, is that nine out of 10 species on Earth today, including humans, came into being 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. “This conclusion is very Read More…
Can Climate Scientist Do Climate Science?
Here’s a recent paper dealing with the deadly and devastating hurricane Harvey which hit the Gulf last year. I haven’t looked at very much of the paper; however, their basic take on it is that the ferocious effects of Harvey can be explained by the OHC (Ocean Heat Content) of the Gulf’s surface waters. And, Read More…
Hidden Code of the Future
At Phys.Org there’s a press release that talks about how “information” can be “hidden” in plain text. They use some kind of ‘perturbation’ method, which, I suspect is linked to some kind of set of statistics. Here’s what they say: Computer scientists at Columbia Engineering have invented FontCode, a new way to embed hidden information Read More…
Pop Quiz for Climatistas
I wonder what you make of this “Keeling Curve.” I especially wonder what you make of the inset–which can be seen to oscillate on the actual graph of this ‘curve’ below the inset. This might be a very teachable moment. I await your brilliant responses.
Evolution is a Fact; So is Climate Change
For those of us who have been critiquing evolutionary theory for a long time, and hence, long-time observers of the kind of reasoning evolutionists/Darwinists employ, you can’t help but see the absolute parallel that exists between evolutionary theory and the “science” behind “global warming.” [N.B. If you have to change the name of the ‘science’ Read More…
530-million-year-old Fossil Has Look of World’s Oldest Eye
A compound eye from the Cambrian Period showed up in a fossil. Here’s what the PR has to say: Professor Euan Clarkson, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, said: “This exceptional fossil shows us how early animals saw the world around them hundreds of millions of years ago. Remarkably, it also reveals that Read More…
Evolution as a Ralph’s Supermarket Store
Over at the The Skeptical Zone there’s a reference to a post from Larry Moran’s blogsite. The question of irreducible complexity is revisited, and, torn to shreds in the eyes of evolutionary thinkers. For them it seems sufficient to simply announce the “presence” of some needed ingredient of the putative IC system of proteins in Read More…
Evolutionary Predictions of Protein Structure Is “Iffy”
Here’s the abstract of a new PNAS article: There’s a new article in PNAS that illustrates the fact that thermodynamics determines the effects of future changes made to a protein molecule. Any one mutation changes the thermodynamic/statistical mechanics of the protein molecule. And these changes in the thermodynamic properties swims around in a giant ocean Read More…
Transcription Factors Play “Football”
This just in from PhysOrg: We had no idea that we would discover that transcription factors operated in this clustered way. The textbooks all suggested that single molecules were used to switch genes on and off, not these crazy nano footballs that we observed.” The team believe the clustering process is due to an ingenious Read More…