In 2008, Xinjiang Cai of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, discovered that M. brevicollis has the same calcium channels in its cells as those used by neurons (Molecular Biology and Evolution, DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msn077). Then, in 2010, it emerged that M. brevicollis also has several proteins that neurons use to process signals from their neighbours (BMC Evolutionary Biology, DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-10-34).

And this year, Harold Zakon of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues discovered that M. brevicollis has the same sodium channels that neurons use to pass electrical signals along their length (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1106363108).

here

Is Systems Biology a "Rabbit-Centric" approach?

Can the teleological approach offer any insight into biology?

Should "purpose" be purposely ignored?

Let's hear from Systems Biologist Arthur D. Lander.

"What distinguishes systems biology from earlier traditions is the tendency to define importance less in operational terms (e.g., necessary or sufficient to produce a behavior) than in terms of relevance to the goals of a system. In making this leap, systems biology inextricably binds itself to teleology. Indeed, without the presupposition of goals or purposes, the very notion of “system” itself is hollow." -from "Morpheus Unbound: Reimagining the Morphogen Gradient"

For example, they found a gene in Capsaspora that's nearly identical to the animal gene brachyury. In humans and many other animal species, brachyury is essential for embryos to develop, marking a layer of cells that will become the skeleton and muscles. Ruiz-Trillo and his colleagues have no idea what Capsaspora is doing with a brachyury gene. They're now doing experiments to find out; in the meantime, Ruiz-Trillo speculates that single-celled relatives of animals use the brachyury gene, along with other transcription factors, to switch genes on for other tasks.

Studies by other scientists point to the same conclusion: a lot of the genes once thought to be unique to the animal kingdom were present in the single-celled ancestors of animals. "The origin of animals depended on genes that were already in place," King said. In the transition to full-blown animals , King argues, these genes were co-opted for controlling a multicellular body. Old genes began to take on new functions, like producing the glue for sticking cells together and guarding against runaway cells that could become tumors.

here

Back in 2004, Robert Wright had an interesting interview with a well-known philosopher. What made the talk very interesting, though, was that Wright apparently caught this philosopher in the act of admitting that evolution – not the mere products of evolution, but evolution itself – did have some appearances of being a purposeful process. Maybe even a designed process. And that this appearance of design was owing to some evident directionality in evolution.

A familiar theme in some corners of the internet.

Naturally, this led to controversy immediately. The philosopher insisted he didn't really mean that there was evidence for design in evolution – lest, I suppose, he be placed with the Intelligent Design camp – while Wright stood by his story and thought the protests were unreasonable in light of the interview, and there was a small blogstorm for a while.

So who was this philosopher who stood accused of ID sympathies? Some theistic evolutionist, stumbling while trying to walk the line between ID and mainstream evolutionary theory? Maybe a creationist who was afraid the flock would think he was suddenly going soft on the evolutionists?

Read the rest of this entry »

[poll id="5"]

here and open thread and interesting debate

and SRP

Since I'm almost done writing my extremely belated review of The Design Matrix , I thought I'd share a tool I wrote for myself for use in future discussions in case anyone else found it useful. Basically it's what I call "D-matrix Analysis Online Calculator" or DAOC. The computation itself isn't very intensive but what I like about it is that it dynamically generates a histogram of your calculation. You can then print this out and save it for your records. As more information becomes available or as you continue to do it for more and more systems (or what have you), you can then compare and contrast and do an overall analysis.

Maybe in the future I'll make it so people can log in and save their calculations online. I would appreciate any feedback/suggestions.

You can find it here.

open thread

[poll id="2"]

He obeys my every command.

I'm excited to do my part to help conserve energy.

Anyone wanna ride in my new wheels?

This bunny needs a caption.