welcome to the friends of geomys pinetis society - mind sweepers division

[eyeshaveit]

The gentleman scientist wonders, how we have carnivorous sponges, crabs, bedbugs, turtles, toads, owls, giraffes and human beings all arising from a single cell 'kick-start' with no outside force or design plan ?

your question was not genuine. you actually have no interest in an answer.

given that, you don't need me, so i'll leave you to your wondering.

no hard feelings.

[eyeshaveit]

The stunning eye-popping evolution of flowers in real time :

[eyeshaveit]

"Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes (typically described as changes in allele frequencies) within a species or population." - Wikipedia.

Has macroevolution ever been proven ?
Do the similarities between earth's creatures prove macroevolution ?
Or do these similarities prove only that these creatures share the same planet, air, food and water, etc. ?

[kevin]

eyes, you began this thread with a partial post quoting me, but you did not include the entire post:

The "evolution" of peppered moth, pocket gopher, or border collie colors holds the same interest for me as learning to tie my shoes: no need; not interested; please move on.

eyes, the man who asks a question but won't listen to the answer has only himself to blame for his lack of understanding.

The gentleman scientist wonders, how we have carnivorous sponges, crabs, bedbugs, turtles, toads, owls, giraffes and human beings all arising from a single cell 'kick-start' with no outside force or design plan ?

your question was not genuine. you actually have no interest in an answer.

given that, you don't need me, so i'll leave you to your wondering.

no hard feelings.

your incomplete quotation was misleading at best, and dishonest at worst. because you did not include the post to which i was responding, you have manufactured an inaccurate conversation in which your disinterest in the answers to your questions is concealed:

The "evolution" of peppered moth, pocket gopher, or border collie colors holds the same interest for me as learning to tie my shoes: no need; not interested; please move on.

[eyeshaveit]

"If evolution is true, should there not be a smattering of evidence to prove it"?
Anonymous - 4th grader - Buckeye Trail Elementary School.

[eyeshaveit]

15 minutes of audio (below), promoting the new Jonathan Wells' new book,  Zombie Science.
Among the takeaways :

1- "There are two dozen definitions of the word, species", and
2 - "Variation and selection have never been observed."   

https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2017/05/jonathan-wells-and-john-west-field-questions-at-the-zombie-science-book-launch/

Jonathan Wells is a molecular biologist and a staunch advocate for intelligent design.

[Goombah]

From James Tour - Rice University:


The world?s best synthetic chemists, biochemists, and evolutionary biologists have combined forces to form a team ? a dream team in two quite distinct senses of the word. Money is no object. They have at their disposal the most advanced analytical facilities, the complete scientific literature, synthetic and natural coupling agents, and all the reagents their hearts might desire. Carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, and nucleic acids are stored in their laboratories in a state of 100% enantiomeric purity.

Would the dream team ? please ? assemble a living system?

Take your time, folks, take a few billion years.

Nothing? Well, well, well.

Let us assume that all the building blocks of life, and not just their precursors, have been made to a high degrees of purity, including homochirality where applicable ? the carbohydrates, the amino acids, the nucleic acids, and the lipids. They are stored in cool caves, away from sunlight, and away from oxygen. These molecules are indifferent to environmental degradation.

And let us further assume that they are all stored in one comfortable corner of the earth, not separated by thousands of kilometers or on different planets.

And that they all exist not just in the same square kilometer, but in neighboring pools where they can conveniently and somehow selectively mix with each other as needed.

Now what? How does the dream team assemble them without enzymes?

Very well. Give the dream team polymerized forms: polypeptides, all the enzymes they desire, the polysaccharides, DNA and RNA in any sequence, cleanly assembled.

Ready now?

Apparently not.

[eyeshaveit]

"Many different sex-determining mechanisms prevail among insects. Flies in particular are well suited for examining the evolution of this variety. The wide-spread housefly (Musca domestica) is very unusual in this regard: Depending on where they live, they use different methods for sex determination. In northern latitudes, females have X chromosomes, while males have an X and a Y chromosome. Here, as well, the Y chromosome carries a gene that determines maleness. In southern latitudes, on the other hand, houseflies do not have a Y chromosome. The male-determining gene lies on one of the other five chromosomes." - Science Daily - May 2017:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170523095021.htm

[eyeshaveit]

"The blue whale grows up to 110 feet in length. Its heart is the size of a small car. Its major artery is big enough that you could wedge a small child into it (although you probably shouldn?t). It?s an avatar of hugeness. And its size is evident if you ever get to see one up close. From the surface, I couldn?t make out the entire animal?just the top of its head as it exposed its blowhole and took a breath. But then, it dove. As its head tilted downwards, its arching back broke the surface of the water in a graceful roll. And it just kept going, and going, and going. By the time the huge tail finally broke the surface, an unreasonable amount of time had elapsed.

"For scientists who study whales?and especially the sieve-mouthed baleen whales like the blue, fin, and humpback?it?s hard to escape the question of size. ?They are big!? says Nick Pyenson at the Smithsonian Institution. ?As an evolutionary biologist, you always have to wonder why.?

"The bigger that baleen whales get, the more efficient lunge-feeding becomes. A blue whale, for example, can engulf 120 tons of water and around half a million calories of krill in a single mouthful. So by becoming as big as possible, the baleen whales managed to monopolize the newfound bounties of freeze-thaw planet. That?s why they survived and their smaller peers died off .... this hypothesis is a step in the right direction,? says Annalisa Berta from San Diego State University, ?and it leads to an interesting speculation about the future.? Today, the oceans are becoming more acidic and starved of oxygen. Their productivity?the amount of food they harbor?is going down.  ?So what will happen to the baleen whales if there is less food available?? asks Berta. ?Will they adapt fast enough? It took millions of years for them to reach large size. Can they shrink in 100 years??" - The Atlantic - May 2017:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/why-did-the-biggest-whales-get-so-big/527874/

[eyeshaveit]

Planet of the Vapes:

[eyeshaveit]

Scientist discovers snakes that hunt in packs

"A scientist from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville has discovered that a species of snake, the Cuban boa, hunts in groups, and through teamwork improve their chances of catching prey.

"After sunset and before dawn, some of the boas entered the passage that connected the roosting chamber with the entrance chamber, and hunted by suspending themselves from the ceiling and grabbing passing bats."

"Valdimir Dinets, an Assistant Research Professor in the university's Department of Psychology, observed the positions that each boa took up each morning and evening when they arrived at the hunting site and ascertained that they would pick places that would help block the bats' path in and out of the cave, improving the hunt's effectiveness.

"He says that the behavior represents a sophistication that previously had gone unnoticed in reptiles. "Coordinated hunting requires higher behavioral complexity because each animal has to take other hunters' actions into account." He said that previous studies had shown that cooperative hunting didn't necessarily increase food intake for all the participants, but instead might have a social function.

"Other instances of snakes hunting together have been observed, he concludes, including ... Galapagos racers hunting a baby iguana, but it's far from certain that there is any coordination between individual animals. Dinets' research is the first time that the phenomenon has been scientifically recorded."

CNN - May 26, 2017.

[eyeshaveit]

Monkey mafia steal stuff, then sell it back

"Long-tailed macaques living near an Indonesian temple have figured out how to run a ransom racket on visiting tourists. The monkeys grab valuables, such as glasses, hats, cameras or, in one case, a wad of cash from the ticket booth, then wait for temple staff to offer them food before dropping their ill-gotten gains and dashing off with the tasty prize (see video below).

"Although this behavior has been reported anecdotally at Uluwatu Temple on the island of Bali for years, it had never been studied scientifically in the wild. So Fany Brotcorne, a primatologist at the University of Li?ge in Belgium, and her colleagues set out to discover how and why it has spread through the monkey population.

?It?s a unique behavior. The Uluwatu Temple is the only place in Bali where it?s found,? she says, which suggests it is a learned behavior rather than an innate ability. Brotcorne wanted to determine whether it was indeed cultural, which could help us better understand the monkey?s cognitive abilities, and even human evolution.

"She spent four months observing four different groups of monkeys that live near the temple. The two groups that spent the most time around tourists had the highest rates of robbing and bartering, supporting the idea that they were learning the behavior by watching each other. Groups with more young males, who are more prone to risky behavior, also had higher rates than other groups.

"Although this study is based on only a small sample, Brotcorne believes her team has found the first preliminary evidence that the behavior is a cultural one, transmitted across generations by monkeys learning from each other

"Serge Wich, a primatologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, says Brotcorne?s work provides ?a novel and quite spectacular example of flexibility in primate behavior in response to environmental changes?.

"It is particularly interesting, he adds, because the same behavior isn?t seen in other places where it could occur. ?This indicates that it can indeed be a new behavioral tradition in primates and one that teaches us that new traditions can involve robbing and bartering with a different species,? he says."

Brian Owens - Daily News - May 25, 2017.
25 May 2017

[eyeshaveit]

"There are significant gaps in our knowledge on the evolution of sex, according to a research review on sex chromosomes from Lund University in Sweden. Even after more than a century of study, researchers do not know enough about the evolution of sex chromosomes to understand how males and females emerge.

"Greater focus on ecological aspects would increase this knowledge, according to evolutionary biologists at Lund University, who have reviewed a lot of the research conducted in this field in the last 100 years.

"Female and male bodies work differently, even though they have the same genome. One example is reproduction.

"There is a form of genetic conflict between the sexes - a conflict in the genome itself - which we know little about", says professor Bengt Hansson at Lund University". - phys.org - May 26, 2017

[eyeshaveit]

3.3 million-year-old toddler is a window into human evolution

"The fossilized piece of a cheek bone was spotted in a chunk of sandstone sticking out of the dirt in the scorching badlands of northeastern Ethiopia. Zeresenay Alemseged knew almost immediately that he had stumbled upon something momentous. The cheekbone led to a jaw, portions of a skull and eventually collar bones, shoulder blades, ribs and ? perhaps most important ? the most complete spinal column of any early human relative ever found.

"Nearly 17 years later, the 3.3-million-year-old fossilized skeleton known as the ?Dikika Baby? remains one of the most important discoveries in archaeological history, one that is filling in the timeline of human evolution. ?When you put all the bones together, you have over 60 percent of a skeleton of a child dating back to 3.3 million years ago, which is more complete than the famous australopithecine fossil known as 'Lucy,' "

"Alemseged, a 47-year-old professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, told The Washington Post. ?We never had the chance to recover the face of Lucy, but the Dikika child is an almost complete skeleton, which gives you an impression of how children looked 3.3 million years ago.?

"The fossil, also called  ?Selam? ? ?peace? in the Ethiopian Amharic language ? has revealed numerous insights into our early human relatives. But Alemseged said one of the most startling findings comes from the toddler's spine, which had an adaptation for walking upright that had not been seen in such an old skeleton. The result, he said, is a creature whose upper body was apelike, but whose pelvis, legs and feet had familiar, humanlike adaptations. ?If you had a time machine and saw a group of these early human relatives, what you would have said right away is, 'What is that chimpanzee doing walking on two legs?' " Alemseged said ...

"The scans revealed that the child possessed the thoracic-to-lumbar joint transition found in other fossil human relatives, but they also showed that Selam had a smaller number of vertebrae and ribs than most apes have. For researchers, the skeleton is a window into the transition between rib-bearing vertebrae and lower back vertebrae, which allowed our early human ancestors to extend at the waist and begin moving upright, eventually becoming highly efficient walkers and runners."

Peter Holley - Washington Post - May 26, 2017

[eyeshaveit]

"There appears to be a tendency to consider evolution as a separate and distinct subject and so teach it in isolation. In some cases we found teachers rather marginalize it, teach it last and prefer not to give it much attention. This seemed very odd to me. To my mind microevolution is simply a branch of genetics. If you understand DNA, you can understand mutation and the concept of the allele. It is then a very small leap to understanding that alleles change frequency and, bingo, you have arrived into population and evolutionary genetics." - Laurence Hurst - Professor of Evolutionary Genetics - University of Bath (UK)

[eyeshaveit]

Evolution in the Fast Lane -- Stop Floundering

"A research group at the University of Helsinki discovered the fastest event of speciation in any marine vertebrate when studying flounders in an international research collaboration project. This finding has an important implication on how we understand evolution in the sea. The researchers found out the pace at which two groups of flounders in the Baltic Sea became distinct species had been extraordinarily fast, approximately 2400 generations. This is by far the fastest event of speciation in any marine vertebrate to date.

"This is possibly one of the best examples of ecological speciation, that is the process by which selection generates new species, in the marine environment because the species evolved by adapting to different ecological niches, rather than by being separated by geographic barriers for a very long time," says Paolo Momigliano, post-doctoral researcher from the Ecological Genetics Research Unit.

"What makes this finding important is that in the marine environment barriers to dispersal are rarely absolute, in other words currents can move larvae around and adult fish swim around. Hence, models of speciation which can act in the absence of complete geographical isolation, such as ecological speciation, have likely played an important role in the evolution of marine biodiversity. Yet, to date, evidence of ecological speciation in the sea is scarce.

"Our study has important implications on how we understand evolution in the sea," confirms Momigliano. There are new interesting questions for the researchers to solve, such as how are species arising, in some cases at a speed that once would have been thought to be unimaginably fast.

"The answer may lay in so called magic traits, meaning traits that are under selection which at the same time cause reproductive isolation as a byproduct. In theory, selection on such traits could play a central role in rapid speciation events. The mating strategies and reproductive traits of the two flounder species could act as magic traits," clarifies Momigliano.

"As the study confirms that there are two species of flounders instead of one, how can you distinguish them from each other? "They are morphologically nearly indistinguishable but have different spawning behaviors and adaptations. Both species winter in deeper waters and feed in shallow coastal waters in the summer. In spring, however, one species spawns pelagic eggs in deep water basins, where salinity is high enough and eggs can become neutrally buoyant. The second species spawns smaller, but tougher, eggs in shallow coastal waters. These differences have been known for some time, but only now we realize that flounders with different spawning behaviors are two species with distinct evolutionary histories," describes Momigliano.

"The flounders are economically important for fishing and their numbers have declined markedly on the Finnish coast. Today, the percentage of pelagic flounders is very small on the Finnish coast, but an ongoing research suggests that in the 1970s and 1980s they made up the majority of the population. The pelagic flounders could not have spawned successfully on the Finnish coast because they require higher salinity. They were probably spawned in the south when conditions were more suitable, and transported to the Finnish coast by the currents. I.e. the Finnish coast was a sink population for the southern type of flounders, much as was the case for cods during the same period. Today we almost exclusively get the demersal species."

phys.org - May 30, 2017.

[eyeshaveit]

Gene-Editing Technology (CRISPR) Not So Precise

"The revolutionary gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 is often described as ?molecular scissors? for its ability to turn previously improbable feats of genetic engineering into exercises in cutting and pasting. But while over the last few years CRISPR has become so commonplace that even middle school students are now using it, a study out this week in the journal Nature Methods reminds us that it?s still a nascent technology with a long way to go before we can freely cut and paste human DNA at will.

"When correcting blindness in mice, researchers at Columbia University found that though CRISPR did manage to successfully edit the particular gene responsible for blindness, it also caused mutations to more than a thousand other unintended genes. The off-target effects of CRISPR have long been known, but this new research highlights just how extensive they can be ...

"... it?s unlikely CRISPR will find much success outside of a research lab ... experts worried that the technology is far too premature for human use ... 1,500 unintended mutations, as well as more than 100 deletions and insertions of genes researchers did not aim to affect. None of those changes had been predicted by their computer algorithm ... Unwanted mutations to genes are always potentially harmful?genetic diseases like the blindness they were trying to cure is, after all, one such mutation.

?This finding warns that CRISPR technology must be further tailored, particularly before it is used for human gene therapy,? the researchers wrote. While every medical treatment has side effects, this new research underscores that whole genome sequencing will be crucial to understand just what kinds of side effects might occur as we begin to use CRISPR more frequently. In the meantime, though, it seems like all of those research dollars being funneled into perfecting CRISPR may be money well spent."

Kristen V. Brown - Gizmodo - May 30, 2017.

[eyeshaveit]

Living fossil challenges thinking on brain evolution

"An ancient sea creature, discovered off the coast of Scotland in 2011, has shed new light on how evolution formed the modern brain.

"An international team involving researchers at the University of St Andrews have examined the amphioxus, also known as the Lancelet, which was thought to be a brainless, faceless fish. Instead, they found it has a very complex brain which confounds previous understanding of how vertebrate brains evolved.

"The latest research, carried out by the Universities of St Andrews, Murcia and Barcelona and the Centre for Genomic Regulation, published in PLoS Biology, compared the amphioxus brain with current models of brain development in vertebrates, such as chicks and fish.

"The new research casts doubt on the current textbook idea that the complex vertebrate brain evolved from a simple three-part brain composed of forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain. Rather, the new research suggests that the vertebrate brain must originally have formed from two parts.

"Dr Ildiko Somorjai of the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews, co-author of the study, said: "Amphioxus is an amazing creature that can tell us a lot about how we have evolved. Humans have enormous brains with a large number of anatomical subdivisions to allow processing of complex information from the environment, as well as behavioural and motor control and language.

"Research in amphioxus tells us that even an outwardly simple brain may have complex regionalisation. It also strengthens the position of amphioxus as an important non-vertebrate model for understanding vertebrate evolution and development, with clear implications for biomedical research."

"Described as a "brainless, faceless fish", amphioxus was found off the coast of Orkney during a marine survey in 2011, and is thought to be among the first animals to have evolved a structure similar to a backbone, the notochord.

"Despite its appearance, amphioxus is not a fish. It has a primitive spinal cord which runs down its back, but no clearly defined face, no bones or jaws and a small brain with a single light-sensing "frontal eye". It has changed so little for hundreds of millions of years that it has been described as a "living fossil".

"As the best living proxy for the vertebrate ancestor, amphioxus gives important insight into what humanity's distant ancestor looked like, and how it might have behaved.

phys.org - May 31, 2017

[eyeshaveit]

Did Dinosaurs Evolve Into Birds ?

"Evolutionary biologists have suspected that anatomical differences within and between species are caused by cis-regulatory elements (CREs). CREs are regions of genome DNA that do not code for proteins, and control morphology and other traits by regulating genes.

"The international group of researchers analyzed the genomes of 48 avian species that represent the evolutionary history of modern birds and compared them to many other vertebrates to find DNA sequences specific to avians.

"They identified millions of genomic regions named 'avian-specific highly conserved elements' (ASHCEs) that appeared to function as CREs. They found certain modifications in histones associated with the ASHCEs; histone modifications are known to indicate active and repressed states of corresponding DNA regions.

"They also analyzed the ASHCEs sequences and found they are very similar. This means the emergence of ASHCEs can possibly be traced back all the way to the era of dinosaurs.

"ASHCEs also appear to be linked with evolution and development of bird-specific traits. For example, the researchers showed that a gene known as Sim1, which contains an ASHCE, may be associated with the evolution of flight feathers. The ASHCE functions as an enhancer that regulates Sim1 gene expression in an avian-specific manner.

"Because the ASHCEs in genes such as Sim1 were highly conserved and therefore largely unchanged by evolution since the dinosaur era, this suggests CREs such as ASHCEs were vital in developing bird-specific traits and may have driven the transition of dinosaurs to birds.

Science Daily - May 29, 2017.
Complete article:  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170529142232.htm

[eyeshaveit]

How Cormorants - Those Icons of Evolution - Lost Their Flight

"In 1835, the Galapagos Islands shaped the thoughts of a young British naturalist named Charles Darwin, and helped inspire his world-shaking theory of evolution. For that reason, the islands have become something of a Mecca for biologists, who travel there to see the same odd creatures that enthused Darwin.

?I like seeing wildlife in general, but some of these creatures have become iconic in evolutionary biology,? says Leonid Kruglyak from the University of California, Los Angeles, who visited the Galapagos in 2012. The famous finches, with their well-adapted and variously shaped beaks, are especially famous, but Kruglyak found them underwhelming. He was more drawn to the flightless cormorants.

"There are around 40 species of these birds in the world, and all but one of them can fly. The sole exception lives on the Galapagos, and can be seen on the coasts of the Isabela and Fernandina islands, drying its shriveled and tatty wings in the sun. Compared to other cormorants, this one is about 60 percent bigger. Its wings are smaller and its feathers shorter. Its breast muscles, which would normally power a flapping stroke, are smaller, and the part of the breastbone that anchors those muscles is stubbier.

"Kruglyak wanted to know why this bird couldn?t take to the skies. Specifically, as a geneticist, he wanted to know what genetic changes had grounded it. When he got back to his lab, he reached out to a research team that had collected blood samples from 223 flightless cormorants?almost a quarter of the total endangered population. He and his own team used these samples to sequence the cormorant?s genome, then compared its DNA to that of three other cormorant species, looking for mutations that are unique to the flightless one, and that are likely to alter its genes in important ways.

"They found a long list of affected genes. Many of these, when mutated in humans, distort the growth of limbs, resulting in extra fingers, missing digits, and other similar conditions. Some of them are also responsible for a group of rare inherited disorders called ciliopathies, where cilia?small hair-like structures on the surface of cells?don?t develop correctly. Cells use cilia to exchange signals and coordinate their growth. If these hairs don?t form correctly, many body parts don?t develop in the usual way. In particular, some people with ciliopathies grow up with short limbs and small ribcages?a striking parallel with the stunted wings and small breastbone of the flightless cormorant.

"All of this is circumstantial. It suggests, but doesn?t confirm, that the cormorant?s flightless wings might result of a kind of benign ciliopathy. To make a stronger case, Alejandro Burga, a member of Kruglyak?s team, focused his attention on a couple of genes. One of them?IFT122?controls the development of cilia across the animal kingdom. The Galapagos cormorant has a single mutation in a part of the gene that is always the same in other species.

"The ideal experiment would be to alter the same gene in another species of cormorant, to see if they develop shorter wings. But cormorants aren?t exactly easy to work with in a lab, so Burga turned to a more amenable animal: the tiny roundworm, C. elegans. He used the gene-editing technique called CRISPR to change the worm?s version of IFT122 to match the cormorant?s. And sure enough, its cilia stopped working correctly.

"Burga also focused on another gene called CUX1, which controls the activity of many other cilia-building genes. It?s especially active in the cartilage-making cells that lay the foundations for our skeletons. And here too, the cormorant has an unusual change?it?s missing a 12-letter stretch of DNA that?s present in almost all other back-boned animals. And when Burga deleted this same stretch from the mouse version of CUX1, the cartilage-making cells divide more slowly. 

"All of these experiments paint a consistent picture. By building up mutations in several genes, the ancestors of the Galapagos cormorant changed the workings of its cilia and so altered the growth of the cells that form its skeleton. The result: shorter wings, smaller breastbones, and the loss of flight. Still, there are plenty of missing details. As Kimberly Cooper, from the University of California, San Diego, notes in a piece that was published Kruglyak?s results, cilia play important roles all over the body, and humans with ciliopathies have problems with their kidneys, vision, and nervous system. How has the Galapagos cormorant escaped this fate? Do its mutations specifically affect the cilia in its limbs? Or has it evolved safeguards in other organs? Or ?maybe they?re just weaker mutations, that tweak the function of the genes but don?t disrupt them to the same extent as in human ciliopathies,? says Kruglyak.

?I?d love to see similar studies in other lineages of flightless birds, because I imagine there are many different pathways to the loss of flight,? says Natalie Wright from the University of Montana, who studies the evolution of flightlessness. She notes that cormorants dive for their food, and shorter wings make them less buoyant and more streamlined underwater. Most species can only shrink their wings so far without disrupting their ability to fly. But when cormorants landed on the Galapagos, they found a paradise with year-round food and zero predators. They didn?t need to flee or migrate, so they could fully adapt to a diving life by shrinking their wings.

"But other island birds that have become flightless, like rails, pigeons, parrots, owls, and songbirds, aren?t divers, and wouldn?t benefit from shorter wings. Wright suspects that they lost their flight for reasons of efficiency: It takes less energy to grow small flight muscles. ?Perhaps different genes are involved,? she suggests.

"A decade ago, it would have seemed implausible to ever test if Wright is right. But Kruglyak?s work show just how powerful genetics has become, and how quickly today?s scientists can uncover the evolutionary secrets of intriguing animals. ?In five years, I went from seeing this unusual creature in the wild to doing its genome to getting a lot of good clues about what happened [to its wings],? he says.

Ed Young - The Atlantic - June 1, 2017.

[eyeshaveit]

Lamarckian Inheritance - Three Questions

Question 1:
Imagine there exists an animal that has a new generation every year. Every normal individual has an average of 1.6 surviving offspring in a normal year, which can be defined as the animal?s fitness (let?s call it f), after which the animal dies. During a famine year, f falls to 1.3. Now suppose there are a bunch of smaller individuals whose f values are 1.5 in normal years but 1.35 in famine years: Their smaller food requirement helps them survive famines better. How long would a famine have to last for the small individuals to do better than normal ones? How many famine years before small individuals make up 90 percent of the population?

Question 2:
Suppose there exists an initially normal mutant group of individuals called Epi2s, whose germ cells are affected by a year of famine in such a way that their progeny changes to the small type for two generations before they revert back to normal in the third generation, through epigenetic mechanisms. Consider a 13-year period that starts and ends with normal years but has a one-year famine, two two-year famines and a three-year famine in between. Which of the three groups (normals, smalls, Epi2s) will be most successful? Are there famine patterns in which Epi2s overwhelm the other two groups over the very long term?

Question 3:
Let?s add another type of animal to the above: the Epi1s, which like the Epi2s switch to small progeny after a famine, but in this case the progeny revert back to normal after just one generation. Over a period of 20 years, can you come up with a ?famine-year schedule? such that all four types of animals (normals, smalls, Epi1s and Epi2s) exist in virtual equilibrium over this time period?

Article with answers:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/puzzle-solution-darwinian-evolution-explains-lamarckism-20170602/

[eyeshaveit]

The Rapper's Guide to Evolution     

"The lights go down. The room fills with music ? a pulsating hip-hop rhythm. And then, over the music, you hear the voice of Richard Dawkins reading a passage from ?On the Origin of Species? by Charles Darwin: ?Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction. For only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.?

"So begins one of the most astonishing, and brilliant, lectures on evolution I?ve ever seen: ?The Rap Guide to Evolution,? by Baba Brinkman.

"Brinkman, a burly Canadian from Vancouver, is a latter-day wandering minstrel, a self-styled ?rap troubadour,? with a master?s degree in English and a history of tree-planting (according to his Web site, he has personally planted more than one million trees). His guide to evolution grew out of a correspondence with Mark Pallen, an evolutionary biologist and rap enthusiast at the University of Birmingham, in Britain; the result, as Brinkman tells us, is ?the only hip-hop show to have been peer-reviewed.?

"It is also, I suspect, the only hip-hop show to talk of mitochondria, genetic drift, sexual selection or memes. For Brinkman has taken Darwin?s exhortation seriously. He is a man on a mission to spread the word about evolution ? how it works, what it means for our view of the world, and why it is something to be celebrated rather than feared.

"To this end, he has concocted a set of mini-lectures disguised as rap songs. When he comes to human evolution, for example, he has the audience sing along in call-response fashion to ?I?m a African? ? a riff on an earlier song of that name by the radical, pan-Africanist hip-hop duo Dead Prez. The point of Brinkman?s version is that because humans evolved in Africa, we are all Africans: pan-Africanism meets population genetics. A few moments later, he?s showing a video of individuals of the social slime mold Dictyostelium discoidium streaming together while rapping about how cooperation evolves.

"(Dictyostelium is notorious, in some circles, for its strange life-style. Usually, an individual Dictyostelium lives alone as a single cell. But when food is scarce, the single cells come together and form a being known as ?the slug?; this crawls off in search of better conditions. When it finds them, the slug develops into a stalked fruiting body, and releases spores. But here?s the mystery: not all members of the slug get to make spores ? and thereby contribute to the next generation ? so why do they cooperate?)

"It?s surreal stuff. But the clever part is that the show works at different levels. If you are up on evolution you will be amused by the in-jokes and amazed by the erudition. If you know nothing about evolution, you will certainly be entertained, and you may even learn something. (The delivery is so fast, and the material so broad, that it?s hard to tell how much will stick on one hearing; but for enthusiasts, there?s a CD. It?s good; I?ve been listening to it all afternoon.)

"The lyrics are, for the most part, witty, sophisticated and scientifically accurate; and they lack the earnest defensiveness that sometimes haunts lectures on evolution. I spotted one or two small slips ? a confusion of the praying mantis with the Australian redback spider (oh no!) ? and there are a few moments of poetic license that a po-faced pedant might object to. Otherwise, it?s pretty rigorous.

"Brinkman can?t resist taking a few pot-shots at creationists (?Darwin got it going on / Creationism is . . . dead wrong . . .?), and he devotes one rap to refutations of creationist arguments. But by and large, he proselytizes about evolution not by attacking its deniers, but by revealing the subject?s scope, from natural selection to the evolution of human culture and language. At the same time, he teases the audience, sends up post-modernism, mocks himself and satirizes the genre of hip-hop, all with fizzing energy and spell-binding charisma. Like I said, astonishing.I saw ?The Rap Guide to Evolution? last week in Barnstaple, a small town in the west of England. But this week, Darwin got it going on for a few days at the Bleecker Street Theatre, off Broadway. If you are in New York ? go."

Olivia Judson - New York Times - May 4, 2010

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Evolution & Creation: Belief Systems and Original Spin

"Whether evolution is being labeled a belief system, a worldview, or an exercise in blind faith, it?s a pretty transparent attempt to level the playing field. Almost as if some religious folk know a purely faith-based, non-falsifiable position is not the greatest position to have in a debate. Almost.

"For a basic understanding of evolution I recommend taking a free edx.org* course (you even get a certificate at the end) or follow Hank Green?s CrashCourse** series on YouTube. And keep reading.

J. Burrello - Patheos - June 5, 2017.

* https://www.edx.org/

** https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX6b17PVsYBQ0ip5gyeme-Q

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Racist University of Maryland student murders a Bowie State College black student - May 20, 2017.

David Whitney of the (Christian) Institute on the Constitution naturally blames the killing on evolution:

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"We humans are pretty special: we completely dominate the planet, and we?ve even moved beyond the Earth?s boundaries to explore, and possibly colonize, space. How have we been able to do so much? In order to find out we must go back to the start, to the evolution of our human species.

"Humans first appeared about 2.5 million years ago in East Africa, evolving from a genus of great apes known as Australopithecus. These early humans, such as Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, eventually migrated, abandoning East Africa for more promising environments. Adaptation to these new habitats led them to evolve into even more forms of Homo, including Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Asia.

"It wasn?t until 300,000 years ago that modern humans, Homo sapiens, first appeared. This new species of human were not particularly special. Sure, they had large brains, walked upright, used tools and were highly social, but so did the other species of human. For example, Neanderthals hunted large game and used fire long before the emergence of Homo sapiens.

"And yet, despite there being nothing particularly special about Homo sapiens, they prospered and overspread the globe; all the other human species died out. Why? There are two theories to explain this: The Interbreeding Theory suggests that Homo sapiens began mating with the other species of humans ? most notably Homo neanderthalensis ? and that this resulted in the species gradually merging together. There is evidence to back this theory up: the DNA of modern Europeans contains between 1 and 4 percent of Neanderthal DNA, as well as some DNA from other earlier human species.

"The Replacement Theory, on the other hand, suggests that Homo sapiens, thanks to their slightly superior skills and technology, pushed other human species toward extinction ? either by taking away their food sources or by violently killing them off. So which of the theories is most likely to be correct? Well, both are likely to be partially correct: Homo sapiens probably drove the other species toward annihilation and simultaneously interbred with them."

Blinkist review of Sapiens - A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

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Newly discovered DNA sequences may have implications for aging research

"Rotifers are tough, microscopic organisms highly resistant to radiation and repeated cycles of dehydration and rehydration. Now Irina Arkhipova, Irina Yushenova, and Fernando Rodriguez of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have discovered another protective mechanism of this hardy organism: the Terminons. Their findings, which can have implications for research on aging and genome evolution, are published this week in Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Terminons are a type of retrotransposon, DNA sequences that can copy themselves from RNA and relocate within the genome. While most transposons insert between DNA sequences, Terminons are unusual in that they attach at the end of chromosomes. Arkhipova first came across transposable elements that insert at chromosome ends in 2007 but only now has the size of these transposons been determined.

"Chromosomes in eukaryotic cells (which make up all multicellular organisms) are capped with DNA sequences called telomeres, which protect the ends from degradation. By attaching to telomeres, Terminons provide even more buffer against chromosome degradation, which has been associated with aging. The discovery of Terminons could have substantial impact for research on the mechanisms of aging.

The Terminon is a giant transposon, approximately six times the size of the typical retrotransposon. Terminons reach this giant size because they seem to pick up additional genes, either from viral or cellular origins, Arkhipova says. While Terminons may be involved in capturing foreign genes -- a highly unusual property of bdelloid rotifers discovered in Arkhipova's lab -- it is unclear how this happens. Depending on what genes they acquire, some retrotransposons have evolved into viruses. So could Terminons evolve into viruses?

"That would be a very interesting question we hope to address, but these would be totally new types of viruses that haven't been described before," Arkhipova says. Absent from all other life forms, Terminons are found in only the bdelloid rotifers. Members of this rotifer class span tens of millions of years of evolutionary history, suggesting this protective mechanism for their chromosomes is ancient. With so many undiscovered organisms occupying every niche of our globe, it is possible there are other unknown types of transposable elements that have potential for tremendous impacts on their hosts.

"Several MBL scientists are actively developing the rotifer as a model system to study transposable elements in the genome, the mechanisms of aging, DNA repair strategies, and evolution without sexual reproduction."

Science News - June 5, 2017.

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"Mars Colony May Lead To Evolution Of New Human Species !" - Tech Times.

Article & video - http://www.techtimes.com/articles/209475/20170608/mars-colony-may-lead-to-evolution-of-new-human-species.htm

[eyeshaveit]

Trailer teaser for Jonathan Wells' new book, Zombie Science:

https://iconsofevolution.com/

[eyeshaveit]

How thirsty early humans might have left Africa

"About 1 to 2 million years ago, early humans in East Africa periodically faced very dry conditions, with little or no water in sight. But they likely had access to hundreds of springs that lingered despite long dry spells, allowing our ancestors to head north and out of Africa, according to a new study. The findings suggest that climate may not play such a primary role in human evolution as is commonly asserted.

?This has very important implications for human evolution,? says Gail M. Ashley, a professor in the department of Earth and planetary sciences at Rutgers University. ?We?re not saying anything about why early humans left Africa. We?re only saying it was possible to leave Africa by going from one spring to the next and they could travel during dry periods.?

Todd Bates - Futurity - June 8, 2017.

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"We figure the genetic lineage of our species is placed in Africa, with dates that vary depending on which set of loci/chromosomes/geographic group/SNP vs. [whole genome sequence] gets assayed. The rough estimate of the split between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens is placed at 500-600,000 years ago. So this site should have hominins on the Homo sapiens side, roughly half way down to modern. Most evolutionary biologists would say: "OK that's lots of variation over space/time, so expect transitional forms." What do I see? Transitions. It's a nothingburger." - Rebecca Cann - University of Hawaii, geneticist.

             
"You have very early skulls from Spain, some people call them Homo antecessor, that have some of the facial features of modern humans over 700,000 years ago. Maybe that early population is connected to the common ancestors of humans and Neanderthals. If that were the case, it?s not too surprising to see some similar facial features in a later African population. It might be closer to modern humans, but it might also represent a different offshoot of that early ancestral population." - John Hawks - University of Wisconsin, anthropologist.

Ars Technica - June 11, 2017.
Complete article:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/06/300000-year-old-early-homo-sapiens-sparks-debate-over-evolution/