At Nautilus: Although it seems like evolutionary determinism, there’s some weight to the idea that cells are constrained to a certain evolutionary path, no matter the environment they appear in.
Biology
Is biology “hiding its deepest mysteries”?
Physics was “hiding its deepest mysteries” thousands of years ago too before anyone uncovered laws for how it works. There are still mysteries in physics, of course, but they are now more basic. The laws are now known. Let’s hope the same proves true for biology.
Did cosmic rays cause right-handed DNA?
At Quanta: Many researchers believe the selection to be random: Those right-handed genetic strands just happened to pop up first, or in slightly greater numbers. But for more than a century, some have pondered whether biology’s innate handedness has deeper roots.
At BBC: In case you wondered, what if all viruses disappeared?
We really do not know anything like what we should know about viruses before we just shut down our economies in a panic and so forth.
Discussion of fine-tuning at Journal of Theoretical Biology
It would be nice to continue a civilized discussion of what fine-tuning means and implies in biology. Would incorporating an expectation of fine-tuning into biology hypotheses lead to quicker advances sooner? How will we test this—assuming that the village Darwin mob doesn’t storm the place, demanding that we shut down the discussion?
Jerry Coyne takes a stand: Sex is binary
Jerry may well be brought down by this. Increasingly, “wokeness” rather than correct factual description, will confer academic esteem in science—thanks principally due to the progressivism (that Jerry has always supported) taking hold.
The wholly accidental world of the placenta…
… in which we encounter the remarkable phenomenon of microchimerism (“These cells find their way into mother’s tissue and start acting like the tissue in which they find themselves. This process is known as feto-maternal microchimerism”)
New Brit video examines biology after Darwin
There’s lots going on in Britain that isn’t covered by Times Higher. Look at this item, flagged by a kind reader, from IAI: Philosophy for Our Times.
Theoretical biologist quit over growing panpsychism, it turns out
In 2012, Italian theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri resigned as editor of the journal Biosemiotics because he felt that research in this area had become unscientific.
You didn’t learn in Biology 101 why animals are NOT nearly perfect spheres?
Don’t miss this opportunity to enlighten yourself, courtesy Rollin’ France.
Natural biomolecule measured while acting like a quantum wave
From the Abstract: The successful realization of quantum optics with this polypeptide as a prototypical biomolecule paves the way for quantum-assisted molecule metrology and in particular the optical spectroscopy of a large class of biologically relevant molecules.
Will quantum biology help solve some of life’s greatest mysteries?
Quantum mechanics can solve mysteries but only if they are mysteries of certain sort. The temptation is to try to shoehorn a mystery – they mentioned human consciousness – into that mold in order that quantum theory might solve it. But we haven’t yet established the role of quantum processes in much more basic biology so they might want to wait on that fuzzier stuff.
Have 99% of All Species Gone Extinct?
Dear readers, It has been far too long since my last post, occasioned by the fact that I have entirely too many irons in the fire. I hope you will forgive this brief “drive-by” post, with a request for some help and information. One of the common refrains that comes up regarding the fossil record, Read More…
Is today’s biology missing a Big Idea?
Talbott: Every organism is an entity in which certain ideas and intentions are manifest — observably expressed and realized. We have to be willing to say, as everyone does say, “This cell is preparing to divide.” We would never say (as I mentioned earlier), “This planet is preparing to make another circuit of the sun.”
Why do some biologists hate theism more than physicists do?
British physicist John Polkinghorne thinks that biologists see a more disorderly universe: I think two effects produce this hostility. One is that biologists see a much more perplexing, disorderly, and painful view of reality than is presented by the austere and beautiful order of fundamental physics. . . . There is, however, a second effect Read More…