Brief BioI was born and raised in Kalamazoo MI. I earned my bachelors of science in biology from Western Michigan University. I met and fell in love with a big goof of a man named Cliff. I have a fat lazy cat named Kerby and a dog named Bear. |
From Fallbrook Village News, At the International Conference on the Status of Plant and Animal Genome Research, a researcher from Mars Inc. proposed sequencing cacao’s genome. And listed threats that endanger the plant. Fungi have severely limited cacao production in South America and could threaten African production if steps are not taken to breed in disease resistance.
From EurekaAlert.com, this show the subtle way that changes in form can occur. By mucking about with a gene that regulates limb growth, scientists have created mice with long fore limbs.
From Physorg.com, using the genomes from a verity of organisms, researchers have found a link between metabolism and protein mutation. It also seems to indicate that mammals should have a higher mutation rate. Interesting speculation: After the demise of the dinosaurs, the rapid evolution of the mammals could have been to their warm bloodedness? Birds too?
from Physorg.com, the sequencing of a species of fruit fly turned up something quite interesting. The DNA of Wolbachia that had been incorporated into the fruit fly’s DNA. Also this DNA is trans-scribed to make proteins. Now two things have to be considered: One, that bacterial “contamination” maybe part of the organism’s DNA. Two, how does this integrated DNA function in the host’s cell? And how does this influence evolution?
From Physorg.com, that latest data using genetics and skull measurements from at large sample size is the strongest evidence yet that humans originated in Africa. Hopefully this will be the final nail in the multiregional theory.
And this research again demonstrates that humanity is one people and our only real differences are cultural.
So you’ve heard the news about the Creation Museum in KY. Well also this week, at US-Santa Barbra, researchers discovered the origin of the nervous system.
It seems to me that the nuts in KY will never understand a process that takes millions of years, when they are stuck with Seventeenth Century thinking. Also the notion of an inerrant Bible is not compatible with ideas that question the Bible’s accuracy.
Now back to the research…What I find fascinating is that before evolution created animals, the framework for me writing this article was already in existence. And that minor changes were all that were need to form the synaps.
From Forbes.com, In China, they have compared a protein called neuropsin, between humans and other primates. They discovered that it split from other primates about 5 million years ago and is involved in memory and learning.
To think that before Humans were Homo that a major evolutionary change occured that would lead to modern humans. That memories and teaching the young would start the Stone Age. Makes one wonder what were the changes that lead to art.
So the First Freedom First is doing a blogswarm against theocracy. And I saw this piece on PhysOrg.com, and I thought to comment on it.
Studying twins, the link between good behavior and religion is examed. There seems to be a strong link that behavior has a genetic component. So there is a balancing between the environment(nurture) and genetics(nature) that determines how “good” a person is. I think how this relates to religion, is that a person is more likely to be of the same religion as his/her parents. And this relates to goodness by the moral teachings of religion. However, those how have left religion or who were raised without religion are just as influenced by the genetic and environmental factors related to goodness. So that certain moral absoluts are connected to being human and not necessarilty related to religion.
