laodan's favorite genetics pages, page 1

Last login: 10 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a guy from Milford, Pennsylvania, USA.; Likes 1,599 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 228 fans • Received 65 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia: Aug 28, 2007 4:00pm 3 reviews complex-systems, genetics, microbiology, life, complexity
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070827-frozen-dna.html; Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia in National Geographic by Mason Inman
Bacteria can survive in deep freeze for hundreds of thousands of years by staying just alive enough to keep their DNA in good repair, a new study says. Frozen Bacteria Repair Own DNA for Millennia Speaking about resilience... The principle of life seems to be hard wired for resisting extreme conditions. Advanced forms of life such as the human specie, for example, do not benefit from the same kind of resilience. It seems to me that the more advanced the level of development of a specie (the more diverse its components and the more complex their interactions) the less resilient that specie becomes. If this is correct it would mean that complexity engenders higher levels of fragility. Each new component engenders a flow of interactions with the other components. And a single interaction among that flow has the potential to destabilize the whole flux of interactions... There is a deep lesson of philosophy hidden in this mechanism of complexification - fragilization. I bet that the study of that mechanism shall gradually impose itself on a humanity discovering that it is at risk...

Genetics finding hailed as major breakthrough | Science Blog: Nov 23, 2006 3:46pm 1 review biology, genetics, science
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genetics-finding-hailed-as-major-breakthrough-...; Genetics finding hailed as major breakthrough in Science Blog, Nature and The Independant
We always knew that we each had our own, individual copy of The Book of Life, where the spellings of our genetic code differed ever so slightly. But a series of scientific studies published today show that it's not only single letters but sentences, paragraphs, and even whole pages that can be missing or duplicated. In the leading publication in Nature, an international team has produced a map of such changes among 270 copies of the human genetic code that is already revealing new routes for finding genes involved in disease. Genetics finding hailed as major breakthrough Human genome more variable than previously thought Genetic breakthrough that reveals the differences between humans The Dark Side of DNA in American Scientist

I like the introductory description given in Science Blog: "The Book of Life... the spellings of our genetic code... not only single letters but sentences, paragraphs, and even whole pages that can be missing or duplicated"

When Genes Evolve, a Staccato Rhythm -- Pennisi 2006 (1005): 2 -- ScienceNOW: Oct 5, 2006 6:46pm 1 review evolution, genetics, science
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/1005/2?rss=1; When Genes Evolve, a Staccato Rhythm in Science by Elizabeth Pennisi For some biologists, "punctuated equilibrium" is a radical idea. The term was coined in the 1970s to describe an uneven pace of evolution in the fossil record. But because it posits that evolution happens in bursts, punctuated equilibrium goes against the notion that evolution inches forward in tiny steps guided by natural selection. Now evolutionary biologists have shown that evolution in the genome also has fast and slow speeds, and that natural selection isn't always governing genetic change. URL: When Genes Evolve, a Staccato Rhythm URL: On punctuated equilibrium

There are no straight lines in nature and evolution being the ultimate characteristic of change it should come as no surprise that the line of evolution is not a straight line either. But those studies seem to give credence to this idea that musical rhythms and harmonics as well as the idea of beauty in visual arts are related to the rhythms and evolutionary outcomes in nature...

The Loom : A Switch is Born: Aug 27, 2006 11:16pm 1 review genetics, science, visualization
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2006/08/25/a_switch_is_born.php; A Switch towards emergence is born. in The Loom by Carl Zimmer The language of DNA is written in a four-letter alphabet. The four different chemical units of DNA (called nucleotides) create an incomprehenisbly vast range of possibility codes. Consider a short sequence of 41 nucleotides. There are over 4.8 trillion trillion possible sequences it could take. In this vast universe of possibilities, how can natural selection hit on new DNA sequences that help life survive?
URL: A Switch is Born

A good article about the way life emerges...

Scotsman.com News - Scotland - Doomed to failure by poverty gene: May 27, 2006 1:40pm 2 reviews genetics
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=753652006; Doomed to failure by 'poverty gene' This makes sense to me. But now that we know that poverty generates particular genetic dispositions will we act to help the poor out of their misery which, in turn, provokes the perpetual reinforcing of genetic traits favoring poverty behaviors or will we simply let them survive as poor? I'm afraid that it will be business as usual. Capital does not care about that and the others do not have the means to be effective. in The New Scotsman by RICHARD GRAY """ Research in Glasgow has established that deprivation can lead to an overactive immune system which quickly uses up the body's supply of spare cells needed to keep ageing at bay. It means a typical 55-year-old from the city's East End might have a "biological age" closer to 70. Centuries of natural selection among poor communities mean those with highly active immune systems are more likely to pass their genes on, condemning the next generation to grow old before their time. Most astonishing of all, it is suspected that a hyperactive immune system floods the brain with a cocktail of chemicals which suppress the natural desire for self-advancement. """ URL: Doomed to failure by 'poverty gene'

Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere: May 18, 2006 7:27am 3 reviews genetics
http://loom.corante.com/archives/2006/05/17/grandma_manimal.php; Grandma Manimal A photograph of reality is merely a snapshot within a non-ending process of change. Our black and white logic that we inherited from our Judeo-Christian long worldview blinds us to that basic fact of reality... in The Loom by Carl Zimmer """ Nothing gets the blood boiling like a manimal. For many people, the idea of breaching the human species barrier--to mingle our biology with that of an animal--seems like a supreme affront to the moral order. In his January state of the union address, President Bush called for a ban on "creating human-animal hybrids." These so-called chimeras, according to their opponents, devalue humanity by breaching our species barrier. Integrity is not essential to a species. It emerges gradually over time, through evolutionary change. And when a new species starts to emerge, its integrity is not a foregone conclusion. """ URL: Grandma Manimal

EDGE: THE SELFISH GENE: THIRTY YEARS ON: Apr 12, 2006 3:03pm 2 reviews genetics
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/selfish06/selfish06_index.html; The selfish gene thirty years on.
in Edge, The third culture, by John Brockman:
""" Social-constructionist 'intellectuals,' and perhaps even the 'radical ism-ists' culture warriors of The New York Times Book Review might counter that science itself is but one more 'superstition.' But as Sir John Krebs points out below, Dawkins won't have any of this cultural relativism. Krebs quotes one of his favorite passages, not out of The Selfish Gene but from the book "River Out of Eden" : "Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I'll show you a hypocrite. Airplanes are built according to scientific principles and they work. They stay aloft and they get you to a chosen destination. Airplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications such as the dummy planes of the Cargo cults in jungle clearings or the bees-waxed wings of Icarus don't. " URL: THE SELFISH GENE: THIRTY YEARS ON