Microbiology – Page 93

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Life Crams Stuff on the Long Road

March 7, 2010

This quote from UC Berkeley wins Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: In the long evolutionary road from bacteria to humans, a major milestone occurred some 1.5 billion years ago when microbes started building closets for all their stuff, storing DNA inside a nucleus, for example, or cramming all the energy machinery inside mitochondria. Any […]

Biomimetics

Life Leads the Way to Invention

February 26, 2010

Here’s a factoid for the party: a cell is 10,000 times more energy-efficient than a transistor. PhysOrg tells us that “ In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.” This and other amazing facts lead to an […]

Darwin and Evolution

Hopeful Monsters and Other Tales: Evolutionists Challenge Darwin

February 24, 2010

Two recent articles show that Darwin is not invincible. On one side he is being attacked by hopeful monsters. On the other, he is being attacked by an atheist truth-seeker. Neither of these attacks are coming from creationists. Return of the hopeful monster: Tanguy Chouard raised eyebrows in Nature News with a headline that sounds […]

Bible and Theology

Evolutionary Inferences: Are They Incontrovertible?

February 23, 2010

No matter what is found in plants or animals, it finds its way into an evolutionary explanation eventually. Are these explanations driven by the data, or forced into a belief system? Are other explanations possible? Some recent reports might inform these questions. Your inner plant: Get in touch with your inner plant with a report […]

Amazing Facts

Molecular Highway Motor Comes into Focus

February 19, 2010

A beautiful new image of kinesin, a molecular machine that carries cargo on cellular highways, has been produced in greater detail than ever by a team at Berkeley and Brandeis Universities. Science Daily published a picture and description of how kinesin works. “Life’s smallest motor – a protein that shuttles cargo within cells and helps […]

Amazing Facts

Life Is Smarter Than We Know

February 15, 2010

How can toads calculate? How can cells without a brain or central nervous system figure out a balanced diet? How can bugs navigate the wind for optimum flight time? These are some of the questions that can arise from observations of the living world. The more we learn about life, the more we find unexpected […]

Genetics

Is Your Bod Flawed by God?

February 14, 2010

Are your body’s imperfections reasons for you to reject intelligent design and embrace evolution? Professor John Avise (UC Irvine) thinks so. His new book Inside the Human Genome was given good press by PhysOrg: “Distinguished Professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UC Irvine, Avise also makes the case that overwhelming scientific evidence of genomic […]

Darwin and Evolution

For His Birthday, Darwin Gets a Scrambled Arthropod Tree

February 12, 2010

If Darwin lost his tree last year (01/22/2009), it would seem any corrections or rearrangements would be academic. Nevertheless, eight evolutionary biologists at Duke University tried rearranging one of the biggest branches on Darwin’s tree of common ancestry – the highly diverse group known as arthropods (animals with jointed appendages). Arthropods comprise the largest number […]

Darwin and Evolution

More Surprises for Darwin

February 11, 2010

It’s not uncommon for theories to have to deal with anomalies, but Darwinism sure seems to get more than its share. Here are some recent examples. Fossils lie: Fossils preserve unmistakable clues about past life, right? Not so fast. Nature reported that “Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation.”1 The way early […]

Amazing Facts

Life Masters Physics

February 10, 2010

Living things, especially cells, have mastered the forces of advanced physics in ingenious ways. This ingenuity sometimes inspires physicists to try to copy it. Here are some recent examples: Photosynthesis and quantum mechanics: Nature reported that plants take advantage of quantum mechanics in photosynthesis.1 “The photosynthetic apparatus of cryptophyte algae is odd – its pigments […]

Amazing Facts

Building a Cell: Staggering Complexity

February 2, 2010

“The living cell is a self-organizing, self-replicating, environmentally responsive machine of staggering complexity.” Thus began a special section on “Building a Cell” in Nature last week.1 The section with five papers explores what is known about gene regulation, cell organization and signalling. It’s an opportunity, as well, to see what scientists think about what they […]

Darwin and Evolution

Woese Slays Darwin

January 28, 2010

The king is dead! Long live the king! Such were the oxymoronic cries of olden times when royal succession took place. Has Charles Darwin been dethroned? One would think so, after reading Mark Buchanan’s article, “Horizontal and vertical: the evolution of evolution” in New Scientist. Buchanan sets the stage: Just suppose that Darwin’s ideas were […]

Darwin and Evolution

Convergence: Explanation or Rescue Device?

January 26, 2010

The news media are telling us that bats and dolphins both hit on the same genetic pathway to evolve echolocation – even though they are on vastly different evolutionary lineages and use echolocation differently (one in air, one in water). Since it is inconceivable that a putative shrew-like common ancestor of these very different animals […]

Amazing Facts

Molecular Machines Use Moving Parts

January 19, 2010

Research papers into the processes of molecular machines continue to reveal moving parts: “fingers” that open and close, ratchets that lock into place, and feet that move along tracks. Here are a few samples from the voluminous literature that continues to pour from biophysics labs. DNA Polymerase I: Scientific papers tend to be reserved in […]

Cell Biology

Stem Cell News: Cancer Cures Coming?

January 18, 2010

Stem cell research has not been as prominent in the popular media lately, but researchers continue to make impressive strides – mostly with adult stem cells. Science Daily reported the first success treating leukemia with stem cells from umbilical cord blood. A researcher at the Hutchinson Center said, “The real ground-breaking aspect of this research […]

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