“Often, researchers construct a phylogeny using a single gene. This can, however, give an inaccurate picture of the relationship between species — and can incorrectly place them.” So the industrious team studied “used up to 4065 genes from each termite species to construct the phylogeny.” Good for them. But it raises the question, why—in the age of Big Gene—doesn’t everyone do that, instead of loudly proclaiming an evolutionary history based on a handful of genes? One is much less inclined to dismiss the evidence of thousands than a handful.
Genetics
Long stretch of Neanderthal DNA found in a modern population
Apparently, it’s the geneticists’ “worst nightmare.”
One in 2000 people may have two copies of a chromosome from one parent
And none from the other. And they may show no abnormalities. It’s amazing how much the human genome has learned in recent years. 😉
Have we been wrong about DNA bonds all these years?
Researchers: It is not, as is generally believed, hydrogen bonds which bind together the two sides of the DNA structure. Instead, water is the key.
Researchers: Biology’s optimal ‘molecular alphabet’ may be preordained
It sounds as though these researchers want to quietly abandon Darwinian randomness in favour of a structuralist approach to the unfolding of life but — understandably — do not want to hear from an army of Darwinian orcs.
More Salt in the Peppered Moth’s Wounds
The entire history of Kettlewell’s Peppered Moth experiment is littered with problems: doctored photographs, wrong assumptions and slim evidence, followed by genetic analysis revealing that the protein exons coding for color were not changed, but, rather, a transposon (non-random) was inserted in an intron (“junk DNA”). And now there’s this paper. It seems that the […]
Did anyone predict this? Cloned cat looks nothing like the original
Take THAT! genetic determinism and blow it out your ear! The local animal welfare society has tons of live cats people can learn to like (or tolerate 😉 ).
Paper: Sperm cells take up genetic material from outside themselves
If the Weismann barrier is broken, that’s barbarians at the gates of textbook Darwinism, no? It turns out, all sorts of sources can contribute to inheritance.
So the “gay gene” was imaginary?
Why are people so uncomfortable with the idea that they are NOT ruled by their genes?
Ancient pigs’ genome was almost completely replaced. How?
Their cheatin’ hearts, that’s how. Pigs ran wild and look what happened. Funny how a genome can be sort of a river like that. And they’re all still pigs.
Eric Holloway: Are transgenic monkeys – with some human genes – partly human?
Holloway: Of course, the real question is, what is the dividing line between animals and humans? At least, it is not memory or processing speed.
Will setting proteins to music help us understand them?
Re proteins: “They have their own language, and we don’t know how it works,” he says. “We don’t know what makes a silk protein a silk protein or what patterns reflect the functions found in an enzyme. We don’t know the code.”
A single set of genes drives pufferfish spines, mouse hair, and chicken feathers
If so, this set of genes got started a very long time ago and shows an admirable ability to switch from producing, say, lawnmowers to cars to cell phones. Yet it got started back when life was supposed to be simple and primitive, remember? It would seem that something back then was not simple and primitive.
Direct experimental falsification of Darwinism?
Scientists believed that mutations occurring only in germ cells were responsible for any heritable genetic changes. Schumacher and his team now challenge this assertion. (The Selfish Gene was heard to sob uncontrollably in the background.)
Behe vindicated by goldfish? But of course!
We see devolution all the time with unintelligent causes. Animals gnaw a hole in the bottom of a jug of water and they get some water but the rest is wasted. They destroy the feedhouse door trying to get into the feed because they don’t know how to use the doorhandle. They do get fed but the feed is scattered and much is wasted. *That’s what an unintelligent cause is typically like.* Put another way, the animals won’t learn to use the doorhandle or the jug cap. But just to survive and reproduce, they might not need to.