Epigenetics Comes of Age

On may 14, 2010, a group of researchers from Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland and Universität Heidelberg, Germany reported that in response to light, as well as in response to synaptic stimulation in hippocampal and cortical neurons, retinal neurons upregulate synthesis of the miR-183/96/182 cluster, miR-204, and miR211. This is another experimental example of the neural control of gene expression. These results add to the abundant volume of empirical evidence on the role of the nervous system in regulating gene expression. and in response to synaptic stimulation in hippocampal and cortical neurons. Read the rest of this entry »

There is an unmistakable correlation between the evolution of the nervous system (differentiation of the nerve cell implied) and the evolution of eumetazoan life during the Cambrian explosion. But does it mean that the correlation is a manifestation of a causal relationship between them? Read the rest of this entry »

Evolutionary Changes Involve no Changes in Genes

The crux of the process of evolution is how the novel evolutionary change occurs. The conventional explanation given is by specific changes in genes, gene mutations. Although this is taken for granted and self-evident no one has ever shown either in theory (in concrete causal terms) or illustrated with concrete examples how a change in a particular gene brought about an evolutionary change. Read the rest of this entry »

Ask a biology student on what determined evolutionary transitions from a body plan to another or even from a species to a closely related species and he unhesitantly will tell you that it is a natural result of changes in existing genes and the evolution of new genes under the action of natural selection. A more advanced student, from a neo-genetic standpoint, will tell you that changes in regulatory sequences of genes may be all that is needed for the evolution of living forms. Read the rest of this entry »

In an extremely intriguing book, “Decoding Reality” (Oxford University Press, 2010) V. Vedral, among other things, compares living systems with the von Neumann’s machine consisting, in his description, of four basic components:- the protein synthesizing machine, M,- the biological nano-engine (akin to Xerox copier), X- enzymes which act as controllers switching the nano-engine on and off, C- the DNA information set.  Read the rest of this entry »

Craig’s Group’s New Breakthrough

On May 20 the J.Craig Venter Institute issued the following press release: Read the rest of this entry »

Dangers of Preamture Extrapolation in Biology (Part 2)

The Dogma of Genetic Sex Determination   For more than a century conventional textbook knowledge has been that sex is genetically determined by sex chromosomes. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dogma of the Genetic Program

Half a century ago we learned genes contain information for protein biosynthesis and that information is encoded in the form of the triplet code, according to which specific sequences of three nucleotides code for a specific amino acid. This is verified in thousands of organisms and by extrapolation we believe (or consider highly probable) that this is a universal code in the living world. Read the rest of this entry »

Which came first: the nervous system or the increased animal morphology? 

More than half billion years ago, during an evolutionarily very short period of time, an extremely rapid diversification of animal morphology took place that led to formation of all the extant and more extinct phyla that, for this reason, biologists call it Cambrian explosion. The New Synthesis has been unable to rationally explain the driving forces of the phenomenon, thus facilitating creationist attacks on the theory of evolution. Read the rest of this entry »