Microbiology – Page 97

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Scientific Data Can Mislead

May 4, 2009

Some recent stories should remind scientists that data do not exist in a philosophical vacuum. Sometimes empirical measurements can be downright misleading. Pillars of creation: The famous Hubble photo of the Eagle Nebula’s “pillars of creation” seemed to have a straightforward explanation: nearby stars were eroding the pillars with blasts of radiation. Scientists have been […]

Cell Biology

Who Needs Embryonic Stem Cells?

May 3, 2009

Cells can be “reprogrammed” to act just like embryonic stem cells, a Nature stem cell blog called The Niche reported. This eliminates the need to use viruses or inserted DNA to induce the cells to become pluripotent. The resulting cells are “morphologically indistinguishable” from embryonic stem cells, the article said. The prior week, […]

Cell Biology

Evolving Complexity

April 21, 2009

Anyone analyzing a scientific explanation should evaluate whether it explains the phenomenon or explains it away. For instance, to say that bats have sonar because they evolved it provides little in the way of understanding of how or why that happened. Recently, some scientific papers have directly addressed the topic of complex systems in biology. […]

Cell Biology

Is Horizontal Gene Transfer a Force for Evolution?

April 13, 2009

Two more genomes were published last week: the information libraries of two tiny microbes. They are members of Micromonas, green algae less than two microns across. The original paper and summary both bragged about how the genetic information is helping shed light on evolution, but did the data really contain any light? If so, the […]

Cell Biology

Evolutionary Explanations: Substance, Seasoning, or Storytelling?

April 7, 2009

A scientific theory should explain why certain phenomena in nature are the way they are. This layman’s view, though simplistic, expects that a theory should also predict new phenomena before they are observed. In many science reports on evolution, however, one finds evolutionary theory tacked on as an explanation after the fact, when the theory […]

Genetics

Natural Selection Studies Based on Bad Statistics

March 30, 2009

Hundreds of studies claiming to show natural selection may be wrong, say scientists from Penn State and Japan. PhysOrg reported today that “several statistical methods commonly used by biologists to detect natural selection at the molecular level tend to produce incorrect results.” Many studies of human evolution have relied on these flawed methods. If the […]

Cell Biology

Crystal Mysticism Invades Astrobiology

March 20, 2009

Mystical ideas about the life-giving power of crystals usually go with New Age movies and storefronts. Science is above all that, right? Then what is a reader supposed to think of this opening line by Leslie Mullen on Space.com? One of the greatest mysteries about the origin of life is how the necessary ingredients consistently […]

Cell Biology

Shedding Light on the Protein Big Bang Theory

March 13, 2009

The precise three-dimensional structure of a typical protein molecule is so complex, its origin would seem hopeless by chance. What if evolutionary biologists were to discover a whole host of proteins literally exploded into existence at the beginning of complex life? We can find out what they would think by looking at an article on […]

Genetics

More Functional Non-Coding DNA Found

March 12, 2009

Another finding undermines the concept of “junk DNA.” A team of scientists in Massachusetts found over a thousand functional RNA transcripts from intergenic sequences. These RNA transcripts, coming not from genes but from regions earlier thought to be non-functional, take part in diverse functions from stem cell pluripotency to HOX gene developmental processes to cell […]

Cell Biology

Elect Obama, Get Embryonic Stem Cells

March 8, 2009

President Obama is about to fulfill of his campaign promises: lifting restrictions on creating new embryonic stem cell lines (see Fox News). The question now is, are they really needed? They have yet to show any successes, while adult stem cells are enjoying an accelerating boom of amazing discoveries that could provide hope for some […]

Genetics

Darwin Had Genetic Blinders

March 4, 2009

Darwin was a contemporary of Mendel, so why did he get inheritance wrong? That question was addressed on Science Daily by Jonathan Howard of the University of Cologne, Germany. His thesis is that Darwin had philosophical blinders on that prevented him from recognizing the significance of evidence before him. “Why Didn’t Darwin Discover […]

Amazing Facts

Cell Motors Play Together

February 27, 2009

If one molecular machine by itself is a wonder, what would you think of groups of them playing in concert? Recent papers and news articles are claiming that’s what happens in living cells: molecular motors coordinate their efforts. Science Daily led off a story on this by saying, “Even within cells, the left […]

Cell Biology

Adult Stem Cells, +2; Embryonic Stem Cells, -1

February 23, 2009

Two more successes were chalked up for adult stem cell therapies recently. Science Daily said that sufferers from Crohn’s disease may have a new treatment option by getting injections of their own bone marrow stem cells. This “now constitutes a treatment option to cure an intestinal disease that sometimes does not successfully respond to drugs […]

Amazing Facts

Assassins Roam Our Highways

February 22, 2009

Slinking surreptitiously through our blood streams, the assassins prowl about, looking for their targets. These are not terrorists or vigilantes. They have a license to kill. Be glad they are there; they have saved your life many times. They are called natural killer cells. PhysOrg reported on work going on at Howard Hughes […]

Early Man

Language Is Not a Simple Genetic Matter

February 18, 2009

It sounds so simple. The title on an article in PhysOrg announced, in Kipling Just-So Story Format, “How gorilla gestures point to evolution of human language.” Because gorillas have an extensive repertoire of over 100 gestures, human conversation was only a matter of evolutionary time. Is this mere storytelling, or do such explanations have scientific […]

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