Biology

Recently, Mark Frank and I had a brief dialogue in the OP,“Didn’t everyone already know this about dogs?” I’ve decided to clean it up a bit and re-post it because after my last question, I received no responses. At the outset, I would like to say that I place no blame about lack of responses on Mark Frank or anyone else in the last OP (as my post was rather quickly buried.) Having said that, in this OP I would like somebody to address the question. After one go around where I’d suggested that “success” should be counted as an increase in genetic information, Mark Frank corrected me, writing: In biology success is breeding in the available environment. As a Read More ›

I’ve been saying the OP’s title for years now. And, every day, I read review articles in the like of Phys.Org (they usually get out the articles first!) and, sure enough, there’s an article undermining Darwinian orthodoxy and the neo-Darwinian mechanisms that underpin it. Here’s today’s latest. It involves the insect genome and proteins once considered indispensible, hence ‘conserved’, throughout all eukaryotic lineages: Cell division, the process that ensures equal transmission of genetic information to daughter cells, has been fundamentally conserved for over a billion years of evolution. Considering its ubiquity and essentiality, it is expected that proteins that carry out cell division would also be highly conserved. Challenging this assumption, scientists from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found Read More ›

Are you what you eat? Or what’s eating you?
Novel virus discovered in half the world’s population

A new study led by researchers at San Diego State University has found that more than half the world’s population is host to a newly described virus, named crAssphage, which infects one of the most common types of gut bacteria, Bacteroidetes. This phylum of bacteria is thought to be connected with obesity, diabetes and other gut-related diseases. . . .It’s unknown how the virus is transmitted, but the fact that it was not found in very young infants’ fecal samples suggests that it is not passed along maternally, but acquired during childhood. The makeup of the viral DNA suggests that it’s circular in structure. Further laboratory work has confirmed that the viral DNA is a singular entity, but it’s proven difficult to isolate. . . .
Some of the proteins in crAssphage’s DNA are similar to those found in other well-described viruses. That allowed Edwards’ team to determine that their novel virus is one known as a bacteriophage, which infects and replicates inside bacteria—and using innovative bioinformatic techniques, they predicted that this particular bacteriophage proliferates by infecting a common phylum of gut bacteria known as Bacteriodetes.
Gut punch
Bacteriodetes bacteria live toward the end of the intestinal tract, and they are suspected to play a major role in the link between gut bacteria and obesity. What role crAssphage plays in this process will be a target of future research.. . .

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Our longtime commenter Jerry several months ago asked a question about DNA (regarding complementary strands). I presume he got an answer by now. At the time, I wanted to respond to his question with this video, but I just never got around to it! But the video would still be incredibly valuable to all our readers. If I showed this video to ID sympathizers, it’s rather easy to persuade them of ID. It’s only about 13 minutes long, but you’ll learn a lot about DNA, chemistry, and ID (indirectly if you know what I mean), and the history of Rosalind Franklin’s contribution. I love the narrator’s fast talking. Slow talking puts me to sleep! [youtube 8kK2zwjRV0M]

I previously mentioned an upcoming “Emergence of Life” course that folks here might be interested in.  Details here. The course has now been scheduled and starts this Monday, July 14, 2014, at Coursera.  You can find the course here. If you decide to take the course, I encourage professionalism and civility in any forum interactions with other students and staff, in what can potentially be a controversial subject. As I stated before: Will the course have some holes?  No doubt.  Will it answer some of the key issues that have been raised about the cause of the Cambrian Explosion, the infusion of information necessary for the emergence of different forms, how complex functional structures can arise via natural processes?  Unlikely.  Yet Read More ›

One of the wonderful things about the internet is the jaw-dropping amount of information available – literally at our fingertips.  Never before in history has the common individual had so much knowledge and experience and expertise available for the learning.  To be sure, there is plenty on the internet that is incomplete, wrong, or downright deceptive, but today I want to celebrate the positive side of the information explosion. Among the interesting developments to come out of all this is the availability of university-level courses online. For free. Many universities now offer free online courses, including some of the most prestigious institutions around.  While it is true that upper-level and graduate-level courses, particularly those with lab requirements, may be difficult Read More ›