Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Cell biology

Kirk Durston on “God and Science – Is there a Conflict?” . . . food for thought

I think we need to watch a video by Friend of UD, Kirk Durston. But first, a loop-back note: I have been rather busy elsewhere with issues like AS-AD, Kondratiev waves, Hayek’s investment triangle, SD and Schumpeterian creative destruction.(Pardon the resulting absence.) BTW, this line of thought leads me to hold that the oh- so- dominant . . . and too often, domineering . . . evolutionary materialism of the past few generations has run its course and is about to be overtaken by ideational creative destruction in an information age.  A patently superior idea — we live in an obviously designed world, and we and other living creatures show further compelling signs of design — is going to prevail, Read More ›

sRNA for Quorum Sensing: Evidence for CSI?

Bacteria demonstrate intra-species communication that is species specific using a partner with a communication molecule. Bacteria are also “multilingual” with a generic trade language for interspecies communication. Bacteria control tasks by signal producing and receiving receptors with a signal carrier. The tasks bacteria conduct depend on the concentration they sense of self bacteria versus generic species concentration. e.g. Bacteria control pathogenicity with quorum sensing. The detailed (small) sRNA required for these control mechanisms is now beginning to be desciphered. See below. Question:
Did bacteria “invent” their communication and control methods via evolutionary stochastic processes?
Or do these constitute Complex Specified Information and thus evidence design? Read More ›

2013 Nobel Prize for intracellular transport networks

Just heard on the Caribbean’s traditional 7:00 am BBC morning news, award of a Nobel Prize to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells The Nobel press release remarks: The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular Read More ›

The traffic rules of gene transcription

"The longer the gene, the greater the risk that it has molecular "bumps" that can create traffic jams, derailing transcription. Therefore, transcription enzymes riding along such genes at a lower rate can do their job more efficiently ... " Read More ›