In “Zoologger: Clone army steals genes from other species” (New Scientist, 23 May 2011), Michael Marshall discusses the way clams steal genes from other clams. And how some life forms don’t have sex at all: The poster children for asexuality are bdelloid rotifers, tiny animals that have gone without sex for 80 million years. But Read More…
Genetics
How many fields other than human evolution can cheerfully tolerate the following level of vagueness?
In “Out-of-Africa migration selected novelty-seeking genes” (New Scientist, 06 May 2011), Aria Pearson tells us, “AS HUMANS migrated out of Africa around 50,000 years ago and moved across the planet, evolution may have latched onto a gene linked to risk-taking and adventurousness.” Once treated skeptically, the idea “stands up to rigorous analysis,” due to minor Read More…
Coffee!! Intelligent design found in DNA of a bacterium!
Of course, it was put there by a Canadian poet. Recently we learned that “An original piece of “living poetry” has been created in a lab in Canada.” Christian Bok encoded some of his verse into a DNA strip and got it inserted into an E.coli bacterium: Dr Bok used cryptography to embed his poem Read More…
Genetic studies: Twins chose a spouse like themselves, not like opposite sex parent
From “What Can Twins Tell Us About Mate Choice?” (ScienceDaily, Apr. 26, 2011), we learn: What factors influence our choice of a mate? Is it our genes? Does a man look for someone like his mother and a woman someone her father? None of the above, according to a study of Australian twins. Body size, personality, Read More…
Coffee!! You cannot be naturally selected to win big if you are well-armed against tropical diseases at Earmuff Central
A friend put me onto this human genetic research program (no, no, it all sounds reasonable, keep your shirt on; no one is looking for the missing link andyou are him and the genetic police are waiting outside … wake UP, will you?): Ethnically diverse people are donating DNA to science, and the wealth of genomic Read More…
Epigenetics as forerunner of design?
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our understanding of how evolution can act…on evolution, yielding mechanisms that allow both adaptation and heritability within the course of a lifetime. And such paradigm shifts almost always have societal consequences. Manel Esteller shows that epigenetics also impacts the “dark genome” in a way that Read More…
Thrifty gene is bankrupt science? Or, why you should always be suspicious when you hear …
As Globe & Mail medical reporter Carolyn Abraham tells it (February 25, 2011): Since James Van Gundia Neel proposed it almost 50 years ago, the thrifty-gene hypothesis has reigned as the dominant explanation for soaring rates of obesity and diabetes among many aboriginal groups. Native communities where diabetes didn’t exist in the first half of Read More…
Knockout gene study in mice prompts speculations on human behaviour #3348
Lab mice by Aaron Logan, Lightsource In “Ma’s gene does different things to pa’s copy” Jessica Hamzelou (26 January 2011) reports for New Scientist on a knockout study of mice where researchers knocked out a gene called Grb10 in females and mated them with normal males. (From the report: “Most of our genes are expressed in Read More…