MODEL SUGGESTS HOW LIFE CODE EMERGED FROM PRIMORDIAL SOUP

Dateline:  September 1, 2009 - Physicists have generated the first theoretical model that shows how a coded genetic system can emerge from an ancestral broth of simple molecules.  They found that the properties of the molecules set the concentrations at which the molecules needed to exist for a coded regime to emerge.   At these concentrations, the scientists found that a vetting process began to unfold whereby tRNA and amino acid began to seek... Read more

ENZYMES WITH SPELLCHECKER

Dateline - August 10, 2009   As letters of the alphabet spell out words,  amino acids linked to one another in a particular order “spell out” proteins. Now scientists have examined how an enzyme responsible for adding one amino acid, alanine, to proteins has come to have its own spellchecker.  Read More →

PARASITES MAY HAVE HAD ROLE IN SEX EVOLUTION

Dateline - August 1, 2009   Reproducing without sex—like microbes, some plants and even a few reptiles—would seem like a better way to go.  An article published in the July issue of the American Naturalist suggests that sex may have evolved in part as a defense against parasites, since parasites keep asexual organisms from getting too plentiful.  Read More →

YET ANOTHER “COMMON ANCESTOR” FOUND

Dateline:  July 2, 2009   A new fossil primate from Myanmar suggests that the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, not Africa as many researchers believe. Illustration credit:  Mark A. Klingler/Carnegie Museum of Natural History)  Read More →

ON GOD AND LIFE: HOW CELLS RECONCILE MIXED MESSAGES IN GROWTH DECISIONS

An epithelial cell might be exposed to one signal telling it to divide and, simultaneously, another telling it to stop dividing.  The tug-of-war between these two sets of influences, and the effects they have on tissue growth, are explained and explored in a recently published paper. I believe that the news has metaphysical implications. Image from http://www.mesoblast.com/images/images-mesoblast_cell_division_still.jpg  Read More →

NEW DOUBTS ABOUT DINOSAUR-BIRD LINK

Researchers have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight – and the finding means it’s unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.  Read More →

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY SHAPE HUMAN GENOME

Natural selection may shape the human genome much more slowly than previously thought. Other factors — the movements of humans within and among continents, the expansions and contractions of populations, and the vagaries of genetic chance – have heavily influenced the distribution of genetic variations in populations around the world.   Researchers state  “We don’t think that selection has been strong enough to completely fine-tune... Read more

LARGER POPULATIONS TRIGGERED STONE AGE LEARNING

The flowering of intelligence that brought sophisticated tools, better weapons and art came about because of population density: More people started living in bigger communities. Image from http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/staff/boldtkatherine/images/stoneage.jpg  Read More →

OLDEST KNOWN POTTERY FOUND IN CHINESE CAVE

The pieces - dated late Paleolithic, 14,000 to 21,000 years old, were most likely made and used by early foragers in the Yangzi Basin in the Hunan Province. Image from http://www.bu.edu/asianarc/images/fieldprojects/fp_y08.jpg  Read More →

“JUNK” DNA PLAYS VITAL ROLE

Researchers find that unstable pieces of junk DNA help tuning gene activity and enable organisms to quickly adapt to changes in their environments. Image from http://news.softpedia.com/images/news2/What-039-s-the-Role-of-Junk-DNA-2.jpg  Read More →

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