Let’s read the Nature abstract: Nature (2019) Article | Published: 15 May 2019 Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome Julius Fredens, Kaihang Wang, Daniel de la Torre, Louise F. H. Funke, Wesley E. Robertson, Yonka Christova, Tiongsun Chia, Wolfgang H. Schmied, Daniel L. Dunkelmann, Václav Beránek, Chayasith Uttamapinant, Andres Gonzalez Llamazares, Thomas […]
Cell biology
At Nature: Carl Woese’s archaea are “shaking up the tree of life”
If the most complex cells descended from the least complex ones (which is what it looks like), that’s not really something many researchers want to hear.
Altruism? In viruses?
How can viruses have altruism if they are not alive? Let’s assume that this is not an argument for panpsychism (You are conscious, sure, but so is your coffee mug.) It seems to be an argument that viruses behave as life forms do.
Researchers: Rare ocean life forms breathe arsenic in low oxygen environments
What’s amazing is the way life, once started, exploits every avenue, and yet how DOES it get started?
Can the giant Medusa virus help explain the evolution of complex life?
As described, the authors’ explanation doesn’t follow. The Medusavirus substituting its own DNA for that of the host is no different from the cuckoo substituting its own offspring for another bird’s in a nest. The fact that the strategy works does not necessarily demonstrate a hereditary relationship between the two species.
How, exactly, do damaged or diseased cells “commit suicide” to protect the body?
Why this matters: Cancer cells avoid destruction by inhibiting a process (which is called necroptosis). And necroptosis happening when it shouldn’t “is linked to the damage from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and tissue injury from blood flow loss.” Targeting these processes could be an avenue for treatment.
DNA as a “master of resource recycling”
The researchers say that their results “challenge the notion that DNA replication is uniform and consistent”
The amazing energy efficiency of cells
A science writer compares the cell to human inventions and finds that it is indeed amazingly energy-efficient.
In addition to DNA, our cells have an instruction language written in sugar
Of course it all just tumbled into existence and “natural selection” somehow organized everything. As if.
Motor nerves turn out to need “expert guidance”
And it all happens without intelligence of any kind? “Expert guidance” without experts?
At Quanta: Cells find “optimal” solutions, not just good ones
What then becomes of “bad design” arguments, like those of Nathan Lents? In a transient world, any solution can only be optimal for a given life, as it must be factored against other lives.
Reset! Different segs of virus genome can exist in different cells but work together
Researchers: It has long been believed that all of the genome segments must move together from cell to cell to cause an infection. But the new study shows this is not the case.
In Nature: Cells have “secret conversations”
We say this a lot: That’s a lot of information to have simply come into being by natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism). It’s getting not only ridiculous but obviously ridiculous.
Researchers: Helpful gut microbes send messages to their hosts’ immune systems
If the bacterial strategy is clearly identified, they should look for non-helpful microbes that have found a way to copy it (horizontal gene transfer?)
Oops. “Functionless vestige” of evolution turns out to be better strategy
For centuries, researchers knew that Euglenids, a diversified family of aquatic unicellular organisms, could reshape their bodies in any number of elegant ways but no one knew why they did it. Some researchers think they now know: “Amongst biophysicists, metaboly was thought to be a way to swim in a fluid, where these cells live,” […]