Category: Cell biology
At Science: Maybe the transition from single cells to multicellular life wasn’t that hard?
| July 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
From Elizabeth Pennisi at Science: The evolutionary histories of some groups of organisms record repeated transitions from single-celled to multicellular forms, suggesting the hurdles could not have been so high. Genetic comparisons between simple multicellular organisms and their single-celled relatives have revealed that much of the molecular equipment needed for cells to band together and […]
The minimal cell: How is research coming on a simple, self-replicating “artificial” cell?
| July 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
Such acell might shed some light on the origin of life, researchers hope. From Suzan Mazur at Oscillations: Not to be outdone by Dutch, German and other Europeans now officially dabbling in synthetic cell research, America’s National Science Foundation has thrown its hat into the ring on funding synthetic cell development, per its April 18, […]
When a bioengineer cannot avoid evidence for design in nature…
| July 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo: Minority Reporter: A Finnish Bioengineer Touches the Third Rail Randomness and chaos are much easier to market today than order, meaning, and purpose. The songs write themselves. Serious scientists, therefore, can find themselves in conflict with a view that is not so much an argument as an attitude to life, […]
Molecular biologist: Speculation re the last universal common ancestor is not helping science
| June 22, 2018 | Posted by Denyse OLeary under Cell biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Tree of life |
From molecular biologist Mike Klymkowsky at The Scientist There is a pernicious temptation in science to speak authoritatively about topics that are beyond scientific exploration and certainty. This has led some theoretical physicists to advocate for a “post-empirical” form of science. That is the idea that theories need not be judged on their ability to […]
Suzan Mazur on mechanobiology, the next level of understanding of the cell
| June 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Intelligent Design |
Mechanobiology is an engineer’s vision of the cell: How do forces and mechanisms in cells and tissues contribute to cell development, differentiation, function, and deterioration (disease). From Suzan Mazur at Oscillations: The mechanobiology field actually goes by assorted names, among them: soft matter, the new condensed matter physics, morphomechanics, morphometrics, biomechanics, biophysics, mathematical biology (partial […]
Researchers: Adult stem cell in flatworm regenerates an entire organism
| June 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have captured the one cell that is capable of regenerating an entire organism. For over a century, scientists have witnessed the effects of this cellular marvel, which enables creatures such as the planarian flatworm to perform death-defying feats like regrowing a severed head. But until […]
Cells are chock full of information systems, not just DNA
| June 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Embryology, Intelligent Design |
From Jonathan Wells at ENST, looking at a variety of systems, including the bioelectric code: Regional differences in cells and embryos can be specified in other ways besides localization of RNAs in the cortex. Two of those ways have been studied in great detail: the “sugar code” and the “bioelectric code.” Most proteins in living […]
We acquire trillions of new mutations every day, so why are we still alive?
| May 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Medicine |
From Sarah Zhang at the Atlantic: As you read this article, the cells in your body are dividing and the DNA in them is being copied, letter by letter. So long is the human genome—more than 3 billion letters—that even an astonishingly low error rate of one in many million letters could amount to 10 […]
Eugene Koonin on how CRISPR is leading to conceptual shifts in evolutionary biology
| May 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Evolution, Genetics, Intelligent Design |
From Eugene Koonin at Immunoconcept: Abstract: The CRISPR-Cas systems of bacterial and archaeal adaptive immunity have become a household name among biologists and even the general public thanks to the unprecedented success of the new generation of genome editing tools utilizing Cas proteins. However, the fundamental biological features of CRISPR-Cas are of no lesser interest […]
Oxytricha trifallax: A Russian doll set of confounding genetic complexity
| May 7, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Genetics, Intelligent Design, specified complexity |
The eukaryote smashes and rearranges its genome. Our results show that a great diversity of scrambled gene maps are present in the germline genome of O. trifallax. The presence of such highly nested architectures was a surprise and suggests that layers upon layers of MDS and gene translocations constantly alter the genome, while the detection […]
Researcher: Mathematics sheds light on “unfathomably complex” cellular thinking
| May 5, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Plants |
From ScienceDaily: Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher Dr Robyn Araujo has developed new mathematics to solve a longstanding mystery of how the incredibly complex biological networks within cells can adapt and reset themselves after exposure to a new stimulus. … “Proteins form unfathomably complex networks of chemical reactions that allow cells to communicate and […]
Dramatic recent finding: There is a new DNA structure in our cells, beyond the double helix
| May 1, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Genetics, Intelligent Design |
From Peter Dockrill at Science Alert: For the first time, scientists have identified the existence of a new DNA structure never before seen in living cells. The discovery of what’s described as a ‘twisted knot’ of DNA in living cells confirms our complex genetic code is crafted with more intricate symmetry than just the double […]
Are half our bodies not “human”?
| April 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From James Gallagher at BBC: Prof Rob Knight, from University of California San Diego, told the BBC: “You’re more microbe than you are human.” Originally it was thought our cells were outnumbered 10 to one. “That’s been refined much closer to one-to-one, so the current estimate is you’re about 43% human if you’re counting up […]
If viruses can evolve in parallel in related species… ?
| April 14, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Scientists from the universities of Exeter and Cambridge compared viruses that evolved in different species and found “parallel genetic changes” were more likely if two host species were closely related. … “This may explain in part why host shifts tend to occur between related species. However, we sometimes see the same mutations occurring […]
The Axe-ocalypse! It is coming!
| April 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
We told you so! Four horsemen. No waiting. From Brian Miller at ENST: One of the most significant projects for the intelligent design movement was Douglas Axe’s research testing the rarity of protein folds. Axe’s method represented the most accurate approach for addressing the problem to date, but his was actually one in a line […]
RNA molecules recognize each other
| April 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Information, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: In the past decade, scientists have watched protein and RNA molecules condensing into droplets, or membrane-free condensates, in many kinds of cells, from bacterial to human. They have also noted that the same proteins that form liquid droplets in healthy cells can “solidfy” in the context of disease, such as neurodegenerative disorders. But […]
Exploring the frontiers: When biological materials behave like glass
| March 9, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
From Suzan Mazur in a profile of and interview with computational biologist Lisa Manning at Oscillations: A half dozen or so years ago, Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfeld characterized biology as the new condensed matter physics. More recently, Eugene Koonin advised “biology has to become the new condensed matter physics”. It’s an area of scientific […]
Günter Blobel (1936–2018), Nobelist ‘99, found cell zip codes
| February 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Culture, Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From Robert D. McFadden at the New York Times: Günter Blobel, a molecular biologist who was awarded the 1999 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering that proteins in any living cell have virtual ZIP codes that guide them to where they can help regulate body tissues, organs and chemistry, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He […]
Suzan Mazur has some hard questions for NASA “astrovirology” expert Ken Stedman
| February 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
Yes, “astrovirology” is a new term, for the possibility that viruses originated in space. Suzan Mazur wonders at Oscillations: If viruses originated on Earth—which is NASA astrovirology chief Ken Stedman’s “best guess”—just why do we need a new field called astrovirology? That’s a very good question. If viruses originated elsewhere than Earth, the history of […]
Researchers: Horizontal gene transfer may have helped early microbes move out of hot springs
| January 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
The microbes are archaea, not bacteria. From ScienceDaily: The first-ever analysis of DNA of a contemporary heat-loving, ammonia-oxidizing organism, published in open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology, reveals that evolution of the necessary adaptations may have been helped by highly mobile genetic elements and DNA exchange with a variety of other organisms. Most extremophiles are microorganisms […]
