In reading the following excerpt from a Cal Berkeley newsletter, ask yourself what contribution, if any, conventional evolutionary theory is making to the study of these biochemical systems. As an acceptable answer, try NIL. In recent years Oster and his colleagues created a groundbreaking model of ATP synthase, an enzyme that synthesizes ATP, the universal fuel molecule that powers all cells. ATP synthase is essentially a factory built around two rotary motors. One of the motors forces the other to rotate as a generator that cranks out ATP. Oster’s contribution was in showing how the two motors generate their torque from very different fuel sources. The first motor is essentially electric. It’s powered, Oster explains, by a transmembrane electro-chemical potential Read More ›

Elaborated Tunnel Architectures in Enzyme Systems point to a designed setup https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2062-proteins-how-they-provide-striking-evidence-of-design#9672 RNA and DNA belong to the four basic building blocks of life. They are complex macromolecules made of three constituents: the base, the backbone, which is the ribose five-carbon sugar, and phosphate, the moiety which permits DNA polymerization and catenation of monomers, to become polymers. The nucleobases are divided into pyrimidine and purines. These bases must be made in complex biosynthesis pathways in the cell, requiring several molecular machines, and enzymes, that perform the gradual, stepwise operations to yield the nucleobases, which, in the end, are handed over for further processing. Pyrimidines, one of the two classes, require 7 enzymes, of which Carbamoyl phosphate synthase II is the first in Read More ›

From Fuz Rana at Poached Egg: Generally speaking, the reaction to my book The Cell’s Design has been positive. But there have been a few reviews that were less than stellar. Perhaps the most critical of all was a review written by microbiologist Frank Steiner for the Reports of the National Center for Science Education. After careful reflection, I have come to conclude that many of the issues Steiner has with The Cell’s Design are unsubstantial and largely unfounded. Nevertheless, one point he raised has some merit. Fortunately, a recent discovery by researchers from Germany about the structure of the enzyme F1-F0-ATPase helps address Steiner’s point—and in doing so, actually strengthens my argument for the intelligent design of biochemical systems. Read More ›

From Detecting Design: Now, it is true that mitochondrial organelles are quite unique and very interesting. Unlike any other organelle, except for chloroplasts, mitochondria appear to originate only from other mitochondria. They contain some of their own DNA, which is usually, but not always, circular – like circular bacterial DNA (there are also many organisms that have linear mitochondrial chromosomes with eukaryotic-style telomeres). Mitochondria also have their own transcriptional and translational machinery to decode DNA and messenger RNA and produce proteins. Also, mitochondrial ribosomes and transfer RNA molecules are similar to those found in bacteria, as are some of the components of their membranes. In 1970, these and other similar observations led Dr. Lynn Margulis to propose an extracellular origin Read More ›