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?
Biology
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…
Reference: Fertilisation and Implantation
Thanks to Wikipedia, a summary illustration: For reference. END
2018 saw mechanobiology, including biophysics, come to the fore
The mechanome, “the body of knowledge about mechanical forces at work in the molecular, cellular, anatomical, and physiological processes that contribute to the architecture of living structures and their physical properties,” became more prominent this year in discussions of biology (though one story on the physics of biology late last year garnered 354 comments). For Read More…
Junk DNA can actually change genitalia
From at ScienceDaily: Mammals will develop ovaries and become females unless the early sex organs have enough of a protein called SOX9 at a key stage in their development. SOX9 causes these organs to become testes, which then direct the rest of the embryo to become male. The amount of SOX9 produced is controlled initially Read More…
At Quillette: Who will the Evergreen mob (targeted biology teacher recently) target next?
Readers may remember Ask Bret Weinstein who, with his also-biologist wife Heather Heyng, was driven from Evergreen State in Washington during a campus war on science (a side-skirmish in a bigger culture war*). From Debra Soh at Quillette: It’s been almost a year since violent student protests erupted at Evergreen State College—enough time for the Read More…