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Cell Biology

Genome of Diatom Reveals Unanticipated Complexity
October 1, 2004
“Let’s play 20 questions.”: “OK, I’m game.  Animal, vegetable or mineral?” “Yes.” “I give up.” The answer is: a diatom.  Some of the most abundant one-celled organisms in the sea, and essential for regulating the global carbon cycle, diatoms seem to be part animal, vegetable and mineral.  Scientists aren’t sure how to classify them.  They […]
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Terrestrial Zoology

Darwinian Just-So Story Criticized
September 27, 2004
When Young and Brodie & son published their article “How the Horned Lizard Got its Horns,” (see 04/01/2004 headline), they apparently meant it as a bit of April-fool joke, not a real Kipling-style just-so story.  Several respondents in the Sept 24 issue of Science,1 however, either didn’t think it was funny or concluded the story […]
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Dumb Ideas

Big Pieces Missing in Darwin’s Theory, Says USC Scientist
September 27, 2004
A USC professor of gerontology has “explored a new way to look at aging that directly opposes principles set forth by Darwin in his theory of natural selection,” reports EurekAlert   (Emphasis added in all quotes).  Valter Longo’s theory of aging employs group selection instead of individual selection (see 05/31/2004 headline).  He thinks that in […]
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Cell Biology

Cell Exhibits Robust Engineering Design
September 22, 2004
Cells are so good at robustness against perturbations and uncertainty, engineers could well learn from their design principles.
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Dumb Ideas

Can Naturalism Design Anything?
September 22, 2004
Philip Ball in the Sept. 23 issue of Nature1 gave a title to a news feature that might catch a reader off guard and think he is allowing the Intelligent Design Movement to have a voice in a scientific debate: “Enzymes: By chance, or by design?”  Upon further reading, however, it is clear the debate […]
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Uncategorized

Arrow Worms Miss the Mark in Darwin’s Tree
September 17, 2004
Nature this week1 claims that “The origins of the arrow worms have long been obscure, but molecular studies are finally bringing the true evolutionary position of these beautiful marine predators into sharper focus.” (Emphasis added in all quotes.)  Arrow worms, or Chaetognatha, are “strikingly beautiful marine animals.” writes Maximilian J. Telford.  “Their transparent, slender bodies […]
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Terrestrial Zoology

Salamander Genes Give Darwinists a Wake-Up Call
September 13, 2004
A press release from UC Berkeley says that the evolutionary family tree of salamanders, once thought secure, has been turned topsy-turvy by a study of the genes.  The opening paragraph is reminiscent of an irritating alarm clock going off in a comfy bedroom: Biologists take for granted that the limbs and branches of the tree […]
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Cell Biology

Is the Evolution of Bacterial Resistance a Just-So Story?
September 12, 2004
Evolutionists frequently point to the emergence of bacterial resistance to antibiotics as an example of Darwinian evolution occurring right under our noses.  Bruce R. Levin of Emory University, writing in the Sept. 10 issue of Science,1 is not so sure about that.  He points out that cells might just have a built-in mechanism to shut […]
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Uncategorized

Darwin’s Tree of Life Uprooted; Ring of Life Planted in its Place
September 9, 2004
Perhaps no icon of evolution has been more pervasive than Darwin’s “tree of life” (see 06/13/2003 headline).  A drawing of a branching tree was the only illustration in Darwin’s Origin of Species.  145 years later, scientists are saying the metaphor of a tree is wrong; it should be a ring, at least in the family […]
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Fossils

Classifying Eukaryotes Easier than Evolving Them
September 8, 2004
If you like stories with surprise endings, check out an otherwise boring paper by two Canadian evolutionary biologists, Alistair G. B. Simpson and Andrew A. Roger, in the Sept. 7 issue of Current Biology.1  Their subject is the real “kingdoms” of eukaryotes (that’s all creatures with nuclei, including plants, animals, and a host of single-celled […]
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Human Body

Natural Selection Demonstrated in European Heart-Disease Gene?
September 7, 2004
Stephen Wooding (U. of Utah) is elated.  He sees an “exciting trend” in genetic research that might, finally, demonstrate positive natural selection acting on a gene with a clear phenotypic effect (measurable outward benefit).  Writing in the Sept. 7 Current Biology,1 he mentions a few recent papers suggesting this connection, but focuses particularly on one […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Darwin’s Finches: Researchers Tweak the Beak
September 3, 2004
Every once in awhile, a new angle on Darwin’s finches (an icon of evolution) appears in print. Peter and Rosemary Grant, who have devoted their life to studying everything possible about these related species of birds that inhabit the Galápagos Islands – only to find that evolutionary changes are reversible (see 04/26/2002 headline) – have […]
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Origin of Life

Pop Goes the Fatbubble Theory for the Origin of Life
September 3, 2004
This weird theory pops faster than the bubbles it describes as our ancestors.
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Fossils

Genes Fail to Reveal Evolutionary Pattern in European Mammals
August 27, 2004
One would think an examination of DNA from fossils would track the animal’s geographical distribution as they evolved.  However, a study reported in PNAS1 failed to find any correlation in European mammals after the last glaciation.  Hofreiter et al. report: Here, we analyze mtDNA sequences from cave bears, brown bears, cave hyenas, and Neandertals in […]
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Uncategorized

Kin Selection and Group Selection: Survival of the Fictitious
August 26, 2004
Nature1 provided another case where W. D. Hamilton’s kin selection theory, which proposes that “selfish genes can lead to cooperation and altruism,” is wrong.  Kinship does not always lead to cooperation.  David C. Queller comments, “a once-heretical theory [group selection] and an unconventional social organism show that the cooperation-enhancing effect of kinship is sometimes negated.” […]
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