Genetics

Those of us who have been involved with the discussion and debate surrounding ID/evolution for any significant length of time will be quite aquainted with the most fashionable neo-Darwinian model for the origin of novel biological information: Gene duplication and divergence. Gene duplications normally arise from a phenomenon known as “unequal cross-over”, which occurs during cell division. This process results in the deletion of a sequence in one strand, and its replacement with a duplication from its homologous chromosome (meiosis) or its sister chromatid (mitosis). The model of gene duplication and divergence essentially maintains that, following a gene duplication, while one copy of the gene retains its original function, the other copy is freed from selective constraint and is thus Read More ›

From “Preventing Dangerous Nonsense in Human Gene Expression” (ScienceDaily, Oct. 14, 2011), we learn: Human genes are preferentially encoded by codons that are less likely to be mistranscribed (or “misread”) into a STOP codon. This finding by Brian Cusack and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and the CNRS in Lyon and Paris is published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. In biological systems, mistakes are made because the cellular machinery is complex and error prone. The errors made in copying DNA for transmission to offspring (genetic mutations) have so far been the primary focus of molecular evolution. But errors are much more frequent in the day-to-day task of gene expression, for example in the Read More ›