Cells getting them right is important in preventing disease. But all that stuff just sort of clumped together a long time ago and happened to work, right? Just like traffic signals.
Cell biology
What happens when DNA snaps?
At Evolution News: “When both DNA strands break (the “double-stranded break” crisis, or DSB), a cell can die. Molecular machines fly into action as the strands flail about, threatening genomic catastrophe. The repair crew has an additional problem: unlike the bridge cable, the DNA strand is made up of a sequence of code that needs to match what was there before the DSB. In a process called homologous recombination, the machinery searches for a template to rebuild the broken sequence.”
Paper on bacterial mobility (motility) doesn’t invoke “evolution”
Which raises a question: How much outgassing about “evolution” is intended to stifle curiosity and make it sound like we know things we don’t?
New find: Cell growth processes are coupled
So the cell grows in a co-ordinated manner.
At Quanta: “The molecular signaling systems of complex cells are nothing like simple electronic circuits.”
Actually, the best way to understand the systems would be that they are somewhat like a great novel. To someone with no understanding of the language, it might seem like a “riot” or “mess” of meaningless characters. To someone who does understand the language and has a mature appreciation of literature and life, it seems like “a sophisticated signal-processing system that can extract information reliably and efficiently from complicated cocktails of” life.
A vid on cell division that should make Darwinians wince
A reader comments: Veritasium says reasonable things until the last 10 seconds when we hear “We will create nanobots able to work better than the natural ones to make molecular repairs to your body.” Honestly, how likely is that. Would anyone prefer an artificial leg to a real one?
Asked at the Journal of Theoretical Biology: Is the cell REALLY a machine?
Daniel J. Nicholson: “… the recent introduction of novel experimental techniques capable of tracking individual molecules within cells in real time is leading to the rapid accumulation of data that are inconsistent with an engineering view of the cell. This paper examines four major domains of current research in which the challenges to the machine conception of the cell are particularly pronounced”
Another Biology Big Bang: Pervasive proteins demonstrate intelligent design
Researchers: “The historical record of a big bang describing the evolutionary patchwork of proteins provides new tools to understand protein makeup. “
Ten (or so) Anti-Intelligent Design Books You Should Read
I have posted the second video in my two part book recommendation series on the YouTube channel. In the previous video I highlighted many books that argue for intelligent design. My view is that proponents of design should face the strongest criticisms possible, and not be afraid of doing so. In line with this philosophy, Read More…
Ten (or so) Pro-Intelligent Design Books You Should Read
On the Design Disquisitions YouTube channel, I’ve posted a new video where I recommend several books of interest, specifically pro-ID literature. Most of the suggestions may be familiar to you, but hopefully there are a few that you’ve not read before. I also give a brief summary of the content of each book. I don’t Read More…
Cells compared across species — expected to be similar — prove strikingly different
At SciTechDaily: “I was struck by how stark the differences are between them,” said Tarashansky, who was lead author of the paper and is a Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Fellow. “We thought that they should have similar cell types, but when we try analyzing them using standard techniques, the method doesn’t recognize them as being similar.”
How exactly do one-celled life forms learn?
Where do they store memories? New thinking is, changes in the state of the life form, resulting in changed behavior — which amounts to learning — need not “be someplace” or weigh something, for the same reasons as a full USB stick doesn’t weigh any more than an empty one.
Forget what you thought you knew about eukaryote evolution…
The last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) seems to have been pretty complex. So when and where does all that random assembly of vital equipment for life from free-floating chemicals actually happen?
Researchers: The last bacterial common ancestor had a flagellum
Question: If the last common ancestor of the bacterium had a flagellum, what do we really know about the evolution of the flagellum? Isn’t that a bit like finding a stone laptop in a Neanderthal cave? That said, it’s nice to see horizontal gene transfer getting proper recognition.
Researchers report strange life form from a billion years ago
At Gizmodo: “it now seems possible that more than one evolutionary pathway led to the first multicellular lifeforms.” That’s dangerously close to saying that all life didn’t begin with a single cell. But weren’t we all ordered to believe that because the origin of life is so fantastically unlikely that it could only have happened once?