Murderer with 'aggression genes' gets sentence cut - life - 03 November 2009 - New Scientist

Murderer with 'aggression genes' gets sentence cut - life - 03 November 2009 - New Scientist: "In 2007, Abdelmalek Bayout admitted to stabbing and killing a man and received a sentenced of 9 years and 2 months. Last week, Nature reported that Pier Valerio Reinotti, an appeal court judge in Trieste, Italy, cut Bayout's sentence by a year after finding out he has gene variants linked to aggression. Leaving aside the question of whether this link is well enough understood to justify Reinotti's decision, should genes ever be considered a legitimate defence?"

BBC NEWS | Health | Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'

BBC NEWS | Health | Curry spice 'kills cancer cells': "The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab."

Good day in the fight against cancer.

Scientists Discover Gene that 'Cancer-Proofs' Rodent's Cells : University of Rochester News

Scientists Discover Gene that 'Cancer-Proofs' Rodent's Cells : University of Rochester News: "Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumors of any kind—and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why.

The findings, presented in today's issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the mole rat's cells express a gene called p16 that makes the cells 'claustrophobic,' stopping the cells' proliferation when too many of them crowd together, cutting off runaway growth before it can start. The effect of p16 is so pronounced that when researchers mutated the cells to induce a tumor, the cells' growth barely changed, whereas regular mouse cells became fully cancerous."

If it proves to be the key to defeating cancer, this may one day win the Nobel prize.

Human Evolution: Are Humans Still Evolving? - Yahoo! News

Human Evolution: Are Humans Still Evolving? - Yahoo! News: "A team of scientists led by Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns suggests that if the natural selection of fitter traits is no longer driven by survival, perhaps it owes to differences in women's fertility. 'Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection,' Stearns says. That is, women who have more children are more likely to pass on certain traits to their progeny. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)"

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Lowly females pick mediocre mates

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Lowly females pick mediocre mates: ".

'It also raises the intriguing possibility that the environment in which individuals are reared strongly influences their mating preferences as adults.'"

Mind - How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect - NYTimes.com

Mind - How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect - NYTimes.com: "Now a study suggests that, paradoxically, this same sensation may prime the brain to sense patterns it would otherwise miss — in mathematical equations, in language, in the world at large."

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | We're all mutants, say scientists

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | We're all mutants, say scientists: "However, next generation sequencing technology has enabled the scientists to produce a far more direct and reliable estimate.

They looked at thousands of genes in the Y chromosomes of two Chinese men. They knew the men were distantly related, having shared a common ancestor who was born in 1805.

By looking at the number of differences between the two men, and the size of the human genome, they were able to come up with an estimate of between 100 and 200 new mutations per person."

Observatory - Three Genes Determine the Nature of a Dog’s Coat - NYTimes.com

Observatory - Three Genes Determine the Nature of a Dog’s Coat - NYTimes.com: "The researchers then used that information to look at a large dataset of genetic information from about 900 dogs representing 80 breeds. They were able to identify mutations at specific points, or loci, on three genes linked to fur length, curliness and growth pattern (bushy eyebrows, beards and other features that dog breeders refer to as furnishings)."

BBC - Earth News - Mouse set to be 'evolution icon'

BBC - Earth News - Mouse set to be 'evolution icon': "Linnen and colleagues at Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley have now worked out exactly how the mice evolved so quickly.

They have published the details in the journal Science.

They discovered that the light coat colour is coded by a single gene, dubbed Agouti. This is expressed at a higher amount, and for longer, than the genes that code for dark hair.

Most animals known to quickly evolve new features do so by expressing a variation of a gene that already exists, rather than evolving a new type of gene altogether.

But the researchers found that the Agouti gene only appeared among wild deer mice in Sand Hills around 4,000 years ago, just a few thousand years after dark mice colonised their new home. That means it first evolved 8000 generations of mice ago."

Sperm Travels Faster Toward Attractive Females: Discovery News

Sperm Travels Faster Toward Attractive Females: Discovery News: "The study, conducted on red junglefowl, a director ancestor of chickens, adds to the growing body of evidence that males throughout many promiscuous species in the animal kingdom, including humans, can mate with many females, but chances of fertilization are greater when the female is deemed to be attractive."

Byte Size Biology � From predator to plant in one gulp

Byte Size Biology � From predator to plant in one gulp: "Two researchers have shown a striking example of�� endosymbiosis forming� now:� in 2005 Noriko Okamoto an� Isao Inouye reported on a unicellular organism called Hatena. Hatena (”enigma” in Japanese) leads a curious life cycle. Hatena is a single-cell organism, swimming around in the water, using a little feeding apparatus to eat cells and organic material smaller than itself.� At some point, it would feed on another unicellular algae, the Nephroselmis. Once Hatena swallows Nephroselmis, it does not digest it. Rather, Nephrosolmis makes a rather comfortable home inside Hatena. Actually, the algae starts growing inside Hatena: it grows to about 10 times its original size, filling up most of Hatena. The alga also seems to lose most of its own organelles, except for the chloroplast. The chloroplast actually grows bigger."

BBC - Earth News - Spider builds life-sized decoys

BBC - Earth News - Spider builds life-sized decoys: "There is a species of spider that builds models of itself, which it uses as decoys to distract predators.
The spider may be the first example of an animal building a life-size replica of its own body."

BBC NEWS | Health | Daily sex 'best for good sperm'

BBC NEWS | Health | Daily sex 'best for good sperm': "Having sex every day improves sperm quality and could boost the chances of getting pregnant, research suggests.

In a study of men with fertility problems, daily ejaculation for a week cut the amount of DNA damage seen in sperm samples.

Speaking at a fertility conference, the Australian researcher said general advice for couples had been to have sex every two or three days."

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Evolution faster when it's warmer

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Evolution faster when it's warmer: "Climate could have a direct effect on the speed of 'molecular evolution' in mammals, according to a study.

Researchers have found that, among pairs of mammals of the same species, the DNA of those living in warmer climates changes at a faster rate."

Basics - Brainy Echidna Proves Looks Aren’t Everything - NYTimes.com

Basics - Brainy Echidna Proves Looks Aren’t Everything - NYTimes.com: "Monotreme sex determination also holds its allure. In most mammals, a single set of XX chromosomes signifies a girl, a set of XY specifies a boy. For reasons that remain mysterious, monotremes have multiple sets of sex chromosomes, four or more parading pairs of XXs and XYs, or something else altogether: a few of those extra sex chromosomes look suspiciously birdlike. Another avianlike feature is the cloaca, the single orifice through which an echidna or platypus voids waste, has sex and lays eggs, and by which the group gets its name. Yet through that uni-perforation, a male echnida can extrude a four-headed penis."

BBC - Earth News - Chimps mentally map fruit trees

BBC - Earth News - Chimps mentally map fruit trees: "Chimpanzees remember the exact location of all their favourite fruit trees.

Their spatial memory is so precise that they can find a single tree among more than 12,000 others within a patch of forest, primatologists have found.

More than that, the chimps also recall how productive each tree is, and decide to travel further to eat from those they know will yield the most fruit."

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Climate link to mockingbird songs

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Climate link to mockingbird songs: "Unpredictable weather seems to stimulate chatter among birds - as well as humans - according to researchers.

A team of US scientists has found that mockingbirds living in variable climates sing more elaborate songs.

Complex tunes, sung by males to impress females, are likely to signal the birds' intelligence.

Published in Current Biology, the findings suggest that females seek mates with superior singing skills - smart enough to survive harsh climes."

Op-Ed Columnist - In Praise of Dullness - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - In Praise of Dullness - NYTimes.com: "The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours."

Very interesting.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Scientists hail stunning fossil

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Scientists hail stunning fossil: "The beautifully preserved remains of a 47-million-year-old, lemur-like creature have been unveiled in the US.

The preservation is so good, it is possible to see the outline of its fur and even traces of its last meal.

The fossil, nicknamed Ida, is claimed to be a 'missing link' between today's higher primates - monkeys, apes and humans - and more distant relatives."

Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life - NYTimes.com

Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life - NYTimes.com: "An English chemist has found the hidden gateway to the RNA world, the chemical milieu from which the first forms of life are thought to have emerged on earth some 3.8 billion years ago.

He has solved a problem that for 20 years has thwarted researchers trying to understand the origin of life — how the building blocks of RNA, called nucleotides, could have spontaneously assembled themselves in the conditions of the primitive earth. The discovery, if correct, should set researchers on the right track to solving many other mysteries about the origin of life. It will also mean that for the first time a plausible explanation exists for how an information-carrying biological molecule could have emerged through natural processes from chemicals on the primitive earth."

Evolution is slowing snails down

BBC - Earth News: "Natural selection is favouring snails with reduced metabolic rates, researchers in Chile have discovered.

It is the first time that evolution has been shown to select for this trait in individuals of any species.

Snails with lower metabolisms are at an advantage because they have more energy to spend on other activities such as growth or reproduction, the researchers say in the journal Evolution."

Gives new meaning to the term "snail's pace".

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Spider sex violent but effective

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Spider sex violent but effective: "A violent but evolutionarily effective mating strategy has been spotted in spiders from Israel.

Males of the aptly-named Harpactea sadistica species pierce the abdomen of females, fertilising their eggs directly in the ovaries.

The so-called traumatic insemination gives the first male to inseminate a reproductive advantage by bypassing structures in the females' genitalia."

Brown Fat Identified as Heat-Yielding Cells in Humans - NYTimes.com

Brown Fat Identified as Heat-Yielding Cells in Humans - NYTimes.com: "For more than 30 years, scientists have been intrigued by brown fat, a cell that acts like a furnace, consuming calories and generating heat. Rodents, unable to shiver effectively to keep warm, use brown fat instead. So do human infants, who do not shiver very well. But it was generally believed that humans lose brown fat after infancy, no longer needing it once the shivering response kicks in.

That belief, three groups of researchers report, is wrong.

Their papers, appearing Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicate that nearly every adult has little blobs of brown fat that can burn huge numbers of calories when activated by the cold, as when sitting in a chilly room that is between 61 and 66 degrees."

Science News Examiner: New discovery may end transplant rejection

Science News Examiner: New discovery may end transplant rejection: "Professor Jonathan Sprent and Dr Kylie Webster from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research focused on a different type of T cells – known as regulatory T cells (Treg) – in this study. Tregs are capable of quieting the immune system, stopping the killer T cells from seeking out and attacking foreign objects. Usually, these cells live in basic equilibrium, allowing the killer T cells to destroy what needs to be destroyed, but stopping them once the infection is over. The idea was to boost the number of Tregs in the system, quieting the killer T cells for a period of time sufficient for the body to accept the new tissue. After that point, the immune system would return to normal activity.

Using a complex that contained a molecule known as interleukin-2, a molecule that promotes T cell proliferation, the researchers radically increased the number of Tregs in healthy mice before performing the transplants, effectively quieting the killer T cells. Webster explained what followed after the transplant: 'The numbers of T regulatory cells dropped over time, and the immune systems returned to normal in about two weeks. By that time 80% of the mice had accepted the grafts of insulin producing cells as their own. This acceptance rate is very high for transplantation, with mice normally rejecting grafts within 2-3 weeks. A graft is considered accepted if it's tolerated after 100 days. We took some mice out to 200-300 days, and not one of them rejected.' [EurekAlert]"

PLoS Biology - A Computational Framework for Ultrastructural Mapping of Neural Circuitry

PLoS Biology - A Computational Framework for Ultrastructural Mapping of Neural Circuitry: "Building an accurate neural network diagram of the vertebrate nervous system is a major challenge in neuroscience. Diverse groups of neurons that function together form complex patterns of connections often spanning large regions of brain tissue, with uncertain borders. Although serial-section transmission electron microscopy remains the optimal tool for fine anatomical analyses, the time and cost of the undertaking has been prohibitive. We have assembled a complete framework for ultrastructural mapping using conventional transmission electron microscopy that tremendously accelerates image analysis."

Op-Ed Columnist - The End of Philosophy - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - The End of Philosophy - NYTimes.com: "The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition. People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.

The second nice thing is that it entails a warmer view of human nature. Evolution is always about competition, but for humans, as Darwin speculated, competition among groups has turned us into pretty cooperative, empathetic and altruistic creatures — at least within our families, groups and sometimes nations.

The third nice thing is that it explains the haphazard way most of us lead our lives without destroying dignity and choice. Moral intuitions have primacy, Haidt argues, but they are not dictators. There are times, often the most important moments in our lives, when in fact we do use reason to override moral intuitions, and often those reasons — along with new intuitions — come from our friends."

Extravagant Results of Nature’s Arms Race - NYTimes.com

Extravagant Results of Nature’s Arms Race - NYTimes.com: "Sexual selection was Darwin’s solution to a problem posed by the cumbersome weapons sported by many species, and the baroque ornaments developed by others. They seemed positive handicaps in the struggle for survival, and therefore contrary to his theory of natural selection. To account for these extravagances, Darwin proposed that both armaments and ornaments must have been shaped by competition for mates."

New Particle Throws Monkeywrench in Particle Physics | Universe Today

New Particle Throws Monkeywrench in Particle Physics | Universe Today: "Now, scientists have detected a new, completely untheorized particle that challenges what physicists thought they knew about how quarks combine to form matter. They're calling it Y(4140), reflecting its measured mass of 4140 Mega-electron volts."

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Finches choose sex of offspring

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Finches choose sex of offspring: "Colourful Gouldian finches can judge if a mate is genetically compatible just by looking at its head.

A female that mates with a male with the same colouring lays eggs that hatch much healthier chicks.

This new study has found that, when the female finches mate with a male that has a different head colour, they select the sex of their offspring - giving their chicks a better chance of survival."

Two interesting questions arise -- how much "compatibility" information is encoded in a peacock's feathers? How many other traits can animals explicitly select for?

From One Genome, Many Types of Cells. But How? - NYTimes.com

From One Genome, Many Types of Cells. But How? - NYTimes.com: "The answer, researchers are finding, is that a second layer of information is embedded in the special proteins that package the DNA of the genome. This second layer, known as the epigenome, controls access to the genes, allowing each cell type to activate its own special genes but blocking off most of the rest. A person has one genome but many epigenomes. And the epigenome is involved not just in defining what genes are accessible in each type of cell, but also in controlling when the accessible genes may be activated."

Technology Review: A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution?

Technology Review: A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution?: "A Comeback for Lamarckian Evolution?

"Two new studies show that the effects of a mother's early environment can be passed on to the next generation.

"The effects of an animal's environment during adolescence can be passed down to future offspring, according to two new studies. If applicable to humans, the research, done on rodents, suggests that the impact of both childhood education and early abuse could span generations. The findings provide support for a 200-year-old theory of evolution that has been largely dismissed: Lamarckian evolution, which states that acquired characteristics can be passed on to offspring.

"'The results are extremely surprising and unexpected,' says Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist at MIT who was not involved in the research. Indeed, one of the studies found that a boost in the brain's ability to rewire itself and a corresponding improvement in memory could be passed on. 'This study is probably the first study to show there are transgenerational effects not only on behavior but on brain plasticity.'

"In recent years, scientists have discovered that epigenetic changes--heritable changes that do not alter the sequence of DNA itself--play a major role in development, allowing genetically identical cells to develop different characteristics; epigenetic changes also play a role in cancer and other diseases. (The definition of epigenetics is somewhat variable, with some scientists limiting the term to refer to specific molecular mechanisms that alter gene expression.) Most epigenetic studies have been limited to a cellular context or have looked at the epigenetic effects of drugs or diet in utero. These two new studies are unique in that the environmental change that triggers the effect--enrichment or early abuse--occurs before pregnancy. 'Give mothers chemicals, and it can affect offspring and the next generation,' says Larry Feig, a neuroscientist at Tufts University School of Medicine, in Boston, who oversaw part of the research. 'In this case, [the environmental change] happened way before the mice were even fertile.'"

Sounds a lot like a mechanism in support of Darwin's pangenesis theory.

Darwin, Prescient with ‘Origin,’ Is Still Influential - NYTimes.com

Darwin, Prescient with ‘Origin,’ Is Still Influential - NYTimes.com: "Biologists quickly accepted the idea of evolution, but for decades they rejected natural selection, the mechanism Darwin proposed for the evolutionary process. Until the mid-20th century they largely ignored sexual selection, a special aspect of natural selection that Darwin proposed to account for male ornaments like the peacock’s tail.

And biologists are still arguing about group-level selection, the idea that natural selection can operate at the level of groups as well as on individuals. Darwin proposed group selection — or something like it; scholars differ as to what he meant — to account for castes in ant societies and morality in people."

Essay - Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live - NYTimes.com

Essay - Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live - NYTimes.com: "Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution. Such as: Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity (which gave Darwin’s idea of natural selection a mechanism — genetics — by which it could work); the discovery of DNA (which gave genetics a mechanism and lets us see evolutionary lineages); developmental biology (which gives DNA a mechanism); studies documenting evolution in nature (which converted the hypothetical to observable fact); evolution’s role in medicine and disease (bringing immediate relevance to the topic); and more."

Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins - NYTimes.com

Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins - NYTimes.com

"On Friday, Daven Presgraves, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Rochester, and colleagues published a paper in the journal Science identifying the latest such gene to be discovered. It is the second one that the team has found in fruit flies. The newly discovered gene, Nup 160, like its predecessor, Nup 96, causes reproductive isolation between the species Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans.

"Unexpectedly, the genes both produce proteins that are part of a large piece of cellular machinery known as the nuclear pore complex, a gateway that controls what molecules move into and out of the nucleus. It is still unclear why, in what Dr. Presgraves describes as a blind search for genes that cause problems in hybrids, his team twice pulled out genes involved in the nuclear pore complex or why the complex might be particularly important in the evolution of reproductive isolation.

"“The question is,” said Douglas Futuyma, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, “what the hell does this have to do with hybrid sterility?”"

Interesting...

High Pressure Yields Novel Single-element Boron 'Compound'

High Pressure Yields Novel Single-element Boron 'Compound': "Scientists have found the first case of an ionic crystal consisting of just one chemical element – boron. This is the densest and hardest known phase of this element. The new phase turned out to be a key to understanding the phase diagram of boron – the only element for which the phase diagram was unknown since its discovery 200 years ago."

One element in two forms creates a new crystal compound. I guess pure chemistry hasn't completely given way to applied chemistry.

Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution - NYTimes.com

Research Ties Human Acts to Harmful Rates of Species Evolution - NYTimes.com: "The new findings are more sweeping. Based on an analysis of earlier studies of 29 species — mostly fish, but also a few animals and plants like bighorn sheep and ginseng — researchers from several Canadian and American universities found that rates of evolutionary change were three times higher in species subject to “harvest selection” than in other species."

Sports May Be Child’s Play, but Genetic Testing Is Not - NYTimes.com

Sports May Be Child’s Play, but Genetic Testing Is Not - NYTimes.com: "When Donna Campiglia learned recently that a genetic test might be able to determine which sports suit the talents of her 2-year-old son, Noah, she instantly said, Where can I get it and how much does it cost?"

Real-life GATACA. To some extent, I think this is inevitable, but a little frightening ethically. I like to believe that people should be encouraged to follow their passion as passion can overcome huge genetic obstacles.

Princeton University - Evolution's new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective

Princeton University - Evolution's new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective: "'The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'?' said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton. 'Our new theory extends Darwin's model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness.'"

We may find this extends Darwin's evolutionary ideas, or we may find this is a mechanism in support of Darwin's broader pangenesis theory.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Political views 'all in the mind'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Political views 'all in the mind': "Scientists studying voters in the US say our political views may be an integral part of our physical makeup.

Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.

Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Taxi drivers 'have brain sat-nav'

Cool!

Brain Cells Observed Summoning a Memory - NYTimes.com

Brain Cells Observed Summoning a Memory - NYTimes.com: "Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but also, in part, how the brain is able to recreate it.

The recordings, taken from the brains of epilepsy patients being prepared for surgery, demonstrate that these spontaneous memories reside in some of the very same neurons that fired most furiously when the recalled event was first experienced. Researchers had long theorized as much but until now had only indirect evidence."

Cool!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Rat-brain robot aids memory study

BBC NEWS | Technology | Rat-brain robot aids memory study: "The project marries 300,000 rat neurons to a robot that navigates via sonar.

The neurons are now being taught to steer the robot around obstacles and avoid the walls of the small pen in which it is kept."

Viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself - Telegraph

Viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself - Telegraph

Interesting -- viruses stuffing DNA into other viruses.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tumours 'alter devils' sex lives'

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tumours 'alter devils' sex lives': "Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) has led to the animals mating at an unusually young age and females having just one litter, say scientists."

An example of the sexual process changing in response to an environmental factor that could potentially lead to more rapid evolution.

Scientist at Work - Edward O. Wilson - E.O Wilson Takes Cue From Ants in His Views on Human Social Evolution - NYTimes.com

Scientist at Work - Edward O. Wilson - E.O Wilson Takes Cue From Ants in His Views on Human Social Evolution - NYTimes.com: "Dr. Wilson, changing his mind because of new data about the genetics of ant colonies, now believes that natural selection operates at many levels, including at the level of a social group."

Not only does selection operate at many levels, but selection operates on the selection process itself leading to the type of exponential change that can account for the speed at which evolution occurs.

Bad guys really do get the most girls - sex - 18 June 2008 - New Scientist

Bad guys really do get the most girls - sex - 18 June 2008 - New Scientist: "Christopher von Rueden of the University of California at Santa Barbara says that the studies are important because they confirm that personality variation has direct fitness consequences."

In general, there's a selection criteria here -- why are females of this particular species selecting for this behavioral trait when it is likely to create a higher cost burden for them? It would seem that instead of directly selecting a mate based on a mate who can most directly contributed to high offspring survival, the mate selection seems to be selecting for a mate who's genetics will contribute most to offspring reproductive success. If an offspring has a high chance of survival to reproductive age, then the more important fitness criteria is the offspring's reproductive success rate.

It would be interesting to observe cultural implications more closely to see if even very subtle shifts in reproductive success do occur based on different cultural norms, which could in turn lead to slight changes in selected traits.

Synapses Found to Be More Complex Up the Evolutionary Scale - NYTimes.com

Synapses Found to Be More Complex Up the Evolutionary Scale - NYTimes.com: "But in fact the synapses get considerably more complex going up the evolutionary scale, Dr. Grant and colleagues reported online Sunday in Nature Neuroscience. In worms and flies, the synapses mediate simple forms of learning, but in higher animals they are built from a much richer array of protein components and conduct complex learning and pattern recognition, Dr. Grant said."

This focuses just on the synapses, but the complexity of the chemical pathways may be similarly interesting.

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab - life - 09 June 2008 - New Scientist

Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab - life - 09 June 2008 - New Scientist: "But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use."

This could be Nobel-worthy work. What's interesting is that it took 31,500 generations to adapt (and unclear from this article how many reproduction events that was). For complex organisms, 31,500 generations is far too slow to adapt to changes in the natural environment. Evolutionary processes presumably have evolved to work respond faster to environmental change in higher-level organisms.

Plants Found to Show Preferences for Their Relatives - NYTimes.com

Plants Found to Show Preferences for Their Relatives - NYTimes.com

Another example of how evolutionary processes themselves evolve.

Mind - Optical Illusions Show How Brain Anticipates the Future to ‘See’ the Present - NYTimes.com

Mind - Optical Illusions Show How Brain Anticipates the Future to ‘See’ the Present - NYTimes.com: "Scientists argue that the brain has evolved to see a split second into the future when it perceives motion. Because it takes the brain at least a tenth of a second to model visual information, it is working with old information. By modeling the future during movement, it is “seeing” the present."

Brain as anticipation engine is the central thesis of Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence".

Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better - New York Times

Lots of Animals Learn, but Smarter Isn’t Better - New York Times: "Dr. Kawecki suspects that each species evolves until it reaches an equilibrium between the costs and benefits of learning. His experiments demonstrate that flies have the genetic potential to become significantly smarter in the wild. But only under his lab conditions does evolution actually move in that direction. In nature, any improvement in learning would cost too much."

Intriguing article.

"Junk" RNA May Have Played Role in Vertebrate Evolution: Scientific American

"Junk" RNA May Have Played Role in Vertebrate Evolution: Scientific American: "Evidence has been building since 1993, however, that microRNA is anything but genetic bric-a-brac. Quite the contrary, scientists say that it actually plays a crucial role in switching protein-coding genes on or off and regulating the amount of protein those genes produce."

Another article highlighting the potential importance of microRNA in evolution and organism definition.

Kluge - Gary Marcus - Book Review - New York Times

Kluge - Gary Marcus - Book Review - New York Times: "Evolution “kluges” its solutions because it has only the crudest tools at its disposal: genetic mutations and millions of years. Natural selection can select only from what genetic accidents have made available, and the features it chooses may remain in place not because they are optimal, Marcus writes, but “because evolution just didn’t find a better way.”"

At a 30,000ft level, this is true, but in the same way primitive tools give way to more advanced tools in societies, the primitive tools of evolution have themselves evolved to be much more complex and faster to respond as organisms have evolved.

'Suspended Animation' Induced In Mice With Sewer Gas: Effects Are Reversible

'Suspended Animation' Induced In Mice With Sewer Gas: Effects Are Reversible: "'Hydrogen sulfide is the stinky gas that can kill workers who encounter it in sewers; but when adminstered to mice in small, controlled doses, within minutes it produces what appears to be totally reversible metabolic suppression,' says Warren Zapol, MD, chief of Anesthesia and Critical Care at MGH and senior author of the Anesthesiology study."

Temporary life suspension could radically alter and improve the survival rate of numerous medical procedures. True persistent life suspension will change society in more profound ways than birth control has. Another puzzle piece is coming into view with this study.

I suspect researchers are or will shortly be investigating whether introducing Hydrogen Sulfide into an oxygen-depleted organ would allow for reintroduction of oxygen without causing reperfusion (cell death)[1] which would allow for the treatment of drowning and potentially further pave the way to persistent life suspension.

Docs Change the Way They Think About Death | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com

Research finds birdsong trigger

BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh, East and Fife | Research finds birdsong trigger: "Birds know to sing in the spring because of hormones triggered by longer days, researchers have found."

Chemical pathways for communication between cells and subsystems have evolved for billions of years before electrically-induced neural networks arose. Understanding the chemical pathways in the brain will prove at least as important, if not more important, than understanding the electrical pathways.

Docs Change the Way They Think About Death | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com

Docs Change the Way They Think About Death | Newsweek Health | Newsweek.com: "Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death—not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by 'reperfusion,' the resumption of oxygen supply. The research takes them deep into the machinery of the cell, to the tiny membrane-enclosed structures known as mitochondria where cellular fuel is oxidized to provide energy. Mitochondria control the process known as apoptosis, the programmed death of abnormal cells that is the body's primary defense against cancer. 'It looks to us,' says Becker, 'as if the cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with oxygen. Something throws the switch that makes the cell die.'"

Intriguing article on cell death after the reintroduction of oxygen.

St. Jude researchers find key step in programmed cell death (news release)

St. Jude researchers find key step in programmed cell death (news release): "Apoptosis rids the body of faulty or unneeded cells. However, molecular malfunctions that trigger apoptosis may cause some diseases, including Parkinson’s disease. Understanding the biochemical interactions that control the extent of programmed cell death could lead to new treatments."

As discussed previously, in the lack of oxygen doesn't seem to kill cells, but reintroduction of oxygen after a period of oxygen deficit leads to mass apoptosis -- programmed cell death. This study shows progress in understanding how apoptosis works and how cells stave off cell death.

Craving the High That Risky Trading Can Bring - New York Times

Craving the High That Risky Trading Can Bring - New York Times: "“The more you think you can gain from the risk, the more you take the risk and the more activation in the circuitry,” Mr. Knutson said."

In my opinion, this "high" really defines the VC culture in Silicon Valley. Pitching to a VC is less about pitching a stable business model and much more about tapping into that desire to take the big risk and reap the big gain. The crazier your idea, the riskier it is, the more money you want, the more prestigious the team, the more you can amp up the valuation and amp down the percentage. The desire to invest in the more espensive, riskiest startup is akin to the desire to buy a $1M Bugatti Veyron. A beautiful thing for the entrepreneur.

New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random: "When the researchers measured changes in 40 defined characteristics of the nematodes’ sexual organs (including cell division patterns and the formation of specific cells), they found that most were uniform in direction, with the main mechanism for the development favoring a natural selection of successful traits, the researchers said.

'Since random development would not create such unifying trends, we concluded that the observed development was deterministic, not random,' said Professor Benjamin Podbilewicz from the Technion Faculty of Biology."

This article seems hard to validate not having seen the whole article.

The idea of random mutation naturally leads to the conclusions that there should be an uniform chance of productive and non-productive change as a species evolves. 50% have shorter tentacles (positive) and 50% have longer tentacles per generation (negative). The productive change is selected for and the non-productive change is selected against. However, if the genetic offspring show that productive change is more common than non-productive change (70% have longer tentacles and 30% have shorter tentacles before natural selection has a chance to act), then that suggests a mechanism or selection criteria is working much before natural selection.

Environment Directly Affects Reptile Gender

I understand that in the case of reptiles, gender is determined by temperature. How does this work with respect to X and Y chromosomes? Does temperature change Xs to Ys and/or vice versa?: Scientific American: "In temperature-dependent sex determination, however, it is the environmental temperature during a critical period of embryonic development that determines whether an egg develops as male or female. This thermosensitive period occurs after the egg has been laid, so sex determination in these reptiles is at the mercy of the ambient conditions affecting egg clutches in nests. For example, in many turtle species, eggs from cooler nests hatch as all males, and eggs from warmer nests hatch as all females. In crocodilian species—the most studied of which is the American alligator—both low and high temperatures result in females and intermediate temperatures select for males."

Radiation Causes Evolution of New Plants

Science Journal Spring 2007 | Feature Story | Genetically Modified Foods: "Another way to make seedless fruits is by using radiation to cause mutations. The Rio Red, a popular red grapefruit, was created by exposing grapefruit buds to thermal neutron radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1968. Other notable successes of mutation breeding include Creso, the most popular variety of durum wheat used for making pasta in Italy; Calrose 76, a high-yielding California rice; Golden Promise barley, a fine-quality malt used in specialty beers; and some 200 varieties of bread wheat grown around the world."

Radiation has been used to increase this rate of mutation in crops. The interesting question is -- are the mutations introduced by radiation truly "random" or are there structures and mechanisms that have evolved to control how radiation affects rate and type of mutation? If those structures do exist, then changes in the environment can directly change the rate of "stable" mutation. Mutation may not be entirely "random" after all, but instead a response to environmental change by an intricately evolved mechanism.

More Evidence of Environmental Factors Influencing Evolution

Air pollution causes sperm mutations

"The mice, reared in cages kept in a shed downwind of two steel mills and a busy highway in a Canadian city, showed a host of genetic changes compared to similarly housed mice breathing filtered air. DNA in the sperm of the mice in the polluted area contained 60% more mutations, had more strand breaks, and had more bases that had been chemically modified via the addition of a methyl group. That modification, called DNA methylation, can affect whether a gene is expressed."

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080113/full/news.2008.439.html

ScienceDaily: Do Migratory Birds 'See' The Magnetic Field?

ScienceDaily: Do Migratory Birds 'See' The Magnetic Field?: "These findings strongly support the hypothesis that migratory birds use their visual system to perceive the reference compass direction of the geomagnetic field and that migratory birds are thus likely to 'see' the geomagnetic field."

I bet they can see thermals too.

Genetic Code-Dependent: DNA Structure Also Crucial to Genomic Variation: Scientific American

Genetic Code-Dependent: DNA Structure Also Crucial to Genomic Variation: Scientific American: "Until recently, genetic variation between people, accounting for everything from differences in hair color to predisposition to illness were attributed to flaws in genetic coding known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). But a new study argues that a genetic material's arrangement—along with changes in that DNA construct, such as insertion, deletion or rearrangement of segments of code within the genome—plays a more important role."

The Science of Lasting Happiness: Scientific American

I have personally found two different types of happiness. Immediate and persistent. Immediate comes from being relaxed and excited and immersing yourself in something that you enjoy... golfing, canoeing, going to a rock concert, flying RC airplanes, etc.

Persistent happiness seems to arise out of being in resonance with your intrinsic needs. If you need personal space and can't find it, if you need fresh air and are cooped up, if you need financial stability and are financially struggling, if you need companionship and don't have it, if you need quiet time and can't get it, if you need the energy of being out with a group and are stuck inside... all those things erode your happiness.

The Science of Lasting Happiness: Scientific American

How to Make—or Break—Memory: Scientific American

Worth a deeper read...

How to Make—or Break—Memory: Scientific American: "New evidence has been mounting to the contrary, however, since 1987 when an enzyme that carries out methylation was found in the neurons of adults. A study in this week's Neuron provides key evidence that DNA methylation—also known to occur as cancerous cells divide, when tumor suppressor genes are silenced—occurs in adult brains and can be triggered by environmental cues. Study co-author David Sweatt, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, says the finding could provide new targets for treating mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and the autism-spectrum disorder Rett, conditions in which improper methylation switches off certain genes during development."

Case in Point -- NHL slaps Simon with 25-game suspension - Yahoo! News

NHL slaps Simon with 25-game suspension - Yahoo! News: "'I know what type of guy Chris is, and he's an honest guy. I saw the hit he took, and he lost control a little bit too much, and that's what it's all about,' Brashear, now with the
Washington Capitals, said after Saturday night's 5-2 loss to the Islanders. 'That's where it gets dangerous.

'A guy loses control, and you don't know what's going to happen. We try to stay away from those, and I'm sure after it happened, he looked at himself and said, 'What the hell am I doing?' It looked like he meant to do something else. Sometimes, guys have to pay the price, and I guess he's going to be one of them.'"

Was Chris Simon's action a deliberate act or revenge, or simply an overpowering urge to retaliate? A primal instinct that overpowered any sense of better judgment?

The question is less whether the punishment fits, but whether threat of punishment affects that type of decision-making. Hopefully along with a better understanding of neuroscience will be a better way to educate the subconscious mind on how to evaluate potential consequences.

Right from Wrong in the Justice System

Neuroscience - Law - The Brain on the Stand - Jeffrey Rosen - New York Times: "American law holds people criminally responsible unless they act under duress (with a gun pointed at the head, for example) or if they suffer from a serious defect in rationality — like not being able to tell right from wrong. But if you suffer from such a serious defect, the law generally doesn’t care why — whether it’s an unhappy childhood or an arachnoid cyst or both. To suggest that criminals could be excused because their brains made them do it seems to imply that anyone whose brain isn’t functioning properly could be absolved of responsibility. "

As we begin to understand the brain better, we will begin to understand that our actions are not entirely under conscious control. How do we determine what we can control and what we can't? Can a brain cyst or a chemical dependency which overpowers our decision-making processes be used to absolve us of responsibility?

Well said!

A Toast to Evolvability and Its Promise of Surprise - New York Times: "As scientists see it, these and others of nature’s fancy feats forward are clearly the result of large-scale evolutionary forces, but the precise mechanisms behind any given innovation remain piquantly opaque. For some researchers, the conventional gradualist narrative, in which organisms evolve over time through the steady accretion of many mincing genetic mutations, feels unsatisfying when it comes to understanding true biological novelty."

Modularity may be one part of the equation as the author mentions. I think a bigger part is the evolution of sexual selection and the ability to subconsciously recognize key traits in others, the effects of environment on how the brain experiences attraction and for whom, the mechanisms behind the transfer of epigenetic traits, and the processes by which cells fix transcription errors. Then there is similarly the notion of hybridization and rapid mutation in the presence of radiation... alas, we still have much to learn.

The Secret’s in the Neurons

Not much substance to these articles, but they point to interesting phenomenon.

The Secret’s in the Neurons - New York Times: "Groundbreaking spinal cord studies have shown that during development, certain proteins are released at ventral and dorsal sides of the cord, and their concentrations decrease across the cord. These protein gradients have been shown to play a role in the differentiation of nerve cells — what kind of cells form where."

Evolution and Religion

Evolution and Religion - Darwin’s God - Robin Marantz Henig - New York Times

I've always believed in a biological imperative driving us toward belief in a higher power. The biggest question for me though is whether that is a first-order biological process or a side-effect of having a biological predisposition toward social groups and hierarchical structures.

For instance, horses are naturally social and hierarchical in the wild, which is hypothesized to be why it is also easier for horses to look to humans for that leadership.

Similarly, wolves tend to be very social and hierarchical in the wild. Many breeds of dogs seem to need social companionship. That same need for social companionship seems to drive the comfort and pleasure we receive from being in a committed relationship. That sense of comfort is itself a neuro-chemical process.

I've also thought a lot about the "identification of traits in others" aspects to evolution lately. The idea here is that the ability to identify certain traits in other individuals is a key factor in successful sexual selection and in survival in general. Not only are we predisposed to recognize beauty (and especially facial beauty), we also possess a keen ability to recognize intellect in others.

I suspect horses and dogs also have this ability to recognize intellect and to decide whom to follow based on not just physical, but also intellectual prowess.

The ability to recognize intelligence in another individual of the same species would rapidly confer evolutionary advantage.

So in the end, from a neuro-chemical standpoint I think God may be an idealized abstract notion of intellectual perfection and the ideal leader hard-wired into the brain to set a pattern for selecting leaders and mates. Perhaps?

How to Grow a Super-Athlete

More details on the mechanisms behind neural development and the nature/nurture boundary.

The video is worth watching.

How to Grow a Super-Athlete - New York Times: "he heart of one of those breeding grounds, the Spartak Tennis Club in Mosco"

Prince Harry of Britain to Serve in Iraq - New York Times

Does anyone remember that WWI was set into motion by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne?

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Prince Harry of Britain to Serve in Iraq - New York Times

Complexities of Sexual Selection -- Avoiding Incest

Another example of how environmental factors affect brain chemistry which affects sexual selection preferences.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Evolving a Mechanism to Avoid Sex with Siblings -- Evolutionary psychologists claim humans evolved a detector for avoiding sex with close kin: "Whether subjects directly saw siblings as newborns or simply shared the growing-up process, they both behaved more altruistically toward these siblings and felt a stronger aversion to any sort of sexual contact with them. "

Brain Creates New Neurons...

Woohoo, no reason to avoid those drunken binges anymore!

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: New Cells from Old Brains -- Taking a cue from rats, researchers find new neurons developing in a brain region used to process scents

What It Takes to Make a Student - New York Times

Very thorough discussion of what we know about how to improve our educational system and level the playing field for all students.

What It Takes to Make a Student - New York Times

New Breed of Toys...

Fun!

If Leonardo Had Made Toys - New York Times

"Junk" DNA may not be junk...

Not sure if I posted this here before or not, but still an interesting read.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Salvage prospect for 'junk' DNA

Environmental Factors Affect Sexual Selection...

Fewer males in the environment changes a female butterfly's sexual selection. Presumably this is a chemical/hormonal pathway that responds to environmental changes to change the lust/promiscuity that the female butterfly feels.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Female Butterflies Get Frisky When Males Become Scarce -- Researchers demonstrate how a parasite that ravages male butterflies drives females to seek multiple partners: "females do not resign themselves to forced virginity. Instead they become promiscuous scavengers, taking advantage of a single male's high capacity for mating"

Metabolome

Alberta scientists map human metabolome chemicals: "The researchers on Wednesday said the Human Metabolome Project, led by the University of Alberta, has listed and described some 2,500 chemicals found in or made by the body (three times as many as expected), and double that number of substances stemming from drugs and food. The chemicals, known as metabolites, represent the ingredients of life just as the human genome represents the blueprint of life."

More readily manipulated, understanding the role of different metabolites could lead to massive advances in treatment options.

Would you bet on it?

Intriguing...

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Consciousness May Be a Sure Bet -- New research suggests that placing a wager could illuminate whether a person has made a conscious decision: "The researchers, reporting in this week's Nature Neuroscience, found that study participants were reluctant to wager big bucks unless they were confident in their choices, indicating that they knew full well what they were doing."

Why are our eyes white?

This is an interesting study, but I still find all the evolutionary guessing games somewhat frustrating.

For Human Eyes Only - New York Times: "humans are sensitive to the direction of the eyes specifically in a way that our nearest primate relatives are not. This is the first demonstration of an actual behavioral function for humans’ uniquely visible eyes."

Big Brains Better Survival

More information on natural selection...

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Being Bird-Brained Is Not So Bad--as Long as It Is a Big Bird Brain -- Study of over 200 avian species finds that the bigger the bird brain, the better the survival rate.: "Lefebvre stresses that birds with relatively small brains (compared with the rest of their bodies) are not necessarily doomed. 'Obviously there must be something that's keeping those small-brained birds around, because an advantage like that would normally lead to selection against any [genetic variants] that would lead to small brains in the species,' he explains. Yet, partridges, pheasants, and even emus continue to thrive."

Icing the kicker

Following up on the earlier thread, it looks like icing the kicker/shooter might actually work.

Math Trek: The Iced Foot Effect, Science News Online, Nov. 13, 2004: "Using their model, Berry and Wood calculate that, for an average kicker, the estimated probability of a successful 40-yard kick in sunny weather is 0.759. The estimated probability under the same conditions for an average kicker who has been iced is 0.659."

Evolution of Menopause

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Children Took a Toll in Pre-Industrial Societies, May Have Driven Evolution of Menopause -- The high costs of too many offspring may have shaped the psychology of women and could explain plunging modern-day birth rates

This one doesn't seem to add up to me. Evolution has always seemed relatively insensitive to lifespan. Lifespan varies widely between creatures of similar complexity. Take some very evolved squid that only live one year or turtles that live 300.

Consequently, menopause would not seem to be a huge advantage or disadvantage, especially given that until very recent times average lifespan was much less than 50 years.

It would also seem that beyond age two to four, the survival of offspring would seem uncorrelated to the survival of the mother, especially given humans have always seemed to live in larger social units.

I guess I would need to do some more research to see if we believe monkeys and other primates live long enough to reach an equivalent menopausal age to understand if this truly is a recent adaptation. Assuming the article is correct, then what would the selection pressure be?

Perhaps if children born after age 50 had a negative impact on the success of other offspring that could create an evolutionary advantage for those families who didn't birth children at that age?

Or perhaps if the survival of early matriarchal societies were improved by the presence of elder matriarchs, then those that were no longer child-bearing and thus lived longer would confer some advantage to the society?

Brain Evoluntion Stabilizing

More discussion on how parts of the genome evolve at different rates.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Genes Expressed in Brain Evolving at a Medium Pace -- Even mice brains evolve faster than human brains, and our complexity may be the culprit: "'We found that genes expressed in the human brain have in fact slowed down in their evolution, contrary to some earlier reports,' states Chung-I Wu, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago and the co-author of a study appearing in the most recent issue of PLoS Biology. 'The more complex the brain, it seems, the more difficult it becomes for brain genes to change.'"

Hybridization as a means of speciation...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Two species become one in the lab: "The study demonstrates that two animal species can evolve to form one, instead of the more common scenario where one species diverges to form two."

Yet another twist in the evolutionary process. Rated a top-10 science article of 2006 by BBC News.

Small changes in DNA strand lead to big changes in eye color

Blue, green, brown eyes are controlled by a very few base pairs. Given these aren't in a protein encoding, this is a signaling structure? Or perhaps there are regions of DNA in which simple modification/mutation/Mendel'ing genetics play out to bigger consequences in more stable portions? Kind of an overlay-configuration on top of a largely stable base configuration?

I still want to know if the rate of base-pair-change frequency is uniform across the entire genome or is it far more stable in certain areas and very dynamic in others?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Genetics of eye colour unlocked: "'When OCA2 is knocked out, there is a loss of pigmentation. The position of these SNPs right at the start of the gene means it is possible we're looking at a change in the regulation of the gene in people with blue eye colour.'"

Komodo dragons can reproduce asexually

Ok, if this isn't proof that evolutionary biology is more complex than our simplistic Mendel'ing models suggest I don't know what is.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Virgin births' for giant lizards

Meditate before you take that shot!

When you're shooting a basketball, which screws you up more -- neural inconsistencies before you shoot, or while you're shooting?

These Stanford neuroscientists show that some or much of it comes from before you shoot. Makes sense to me. Coordinated muscle movements are well-trained, while the neurochemical conditions (hungry, in love, angry, excited) in which you're about to shoot seem to be all-over-the-map.

An interesting related question would be -- does calling a timeout to ice the free-throw shooter work? If so, it seems that would add credence to this study.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Why You Can't Shoot the Same Foul Shot Twice -- Repeated motions differ slightly because of the brain's planning mechanism and muscle contractions.

by Nikhil Swaminathan: "'The bottom line is the neural recordings can explain upcoming velocity variability as well as muscle recordings can,' says Afsheen Afshar, a graduate student who worked on the study. He adds that off-line activity probably accounts for half of movement variability, whereas on-line effects influence the other half."

Adult lactase tolerance arose twice...

Natural selection appears to have favored humans tolerant to lactose in their adulthood, especially in early cow-raising societies. Different genetic mechanisms appear to have arose independently in Europe and Africa.


Study Detects Recent Instance of Human Evolution - New York Times: "After testing for lactose tolerance and genetic makeup among 43 ethnic groups of East Africa, she and her colleagues have found three new mutations, all independent of each other and of the European mutation, which keep the lactase gene permanently switched on."

What is triggering elephant aggression?

If elephant numbers are down and food is plentiful, what is triggering elephant aggression? Have we been the agent for natural selection by culling the least aggressive elephants?

Or has some change in the environment led to a behavioral adaptation leading the elephants to become more territorial? Is that environmental change simply the introduction of humans and our territorial expansion or is it something else?

Or perhaps UV radiation signals a changing epoch and elephants respond by leveraging their dominance?

"Across Africa, elephants seem to be turning on their human neighbours in ever increasing numbers. Although such attacks are nothing new, they have always been seen as a side effect of elephants competing for food and land, either as a result of population explosions or because people have encroached on elephant territory. But that may not be the whole story.

'Elephant numbers have never been lower in Uganda. Food has never been so abundant,' ..."

Elephants on the edge fight back - life - 18 February 2006 - New Scientist:

Rapid evolution and behavioral adaptation

Environmental pressures lead to behavioral adaptation that leads to genetic adaptation through natural selection.

I wonder if natural selection is the only agent at work in selecting the leg-length? If the lizard can adapt its behavior, can it also adapt the genetic predisposition of its offspring.

I also wonder if the behavioral adaptation is learned or inherited? Does the lizard's preference for the trees come from a learned fear of the predator or an intrinsic neurochemical preference for trees?

"Anolis sagrei spends much of its time on the ground, but previous research has shown that when a terrestrial predator is introduced, these lizards take to trees and shrubs, becoming increasingly arboreal over time...

"The behavioral shift from the ground to higher perches apparently caused this remarkable reversal, Losos says, adding that behavioral flexibility may often drive extremely rapid shifts in evolution."

Pressured by predators, lizards see rapid shift in natural selection:

Brain as Persistent Data Storage

Another clue to the workings of the hard drive of the mind.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: While Signals Keep Firing, Memories Hold Still in the Brain

Ingrained Sense of Right and Wrong

"Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution...."

"People are generally unaware of this process because the mind is adept at coming up with plausible rationalizations for why it arrived at a decision generated subconsciously."

"The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior."

Yes, this seems to make perfect intuitive sense. How many times are you deeply emotionally conflicted over a biological desire and a biological sense of right and wrong? Certainly, this would seem the definition of addiction.

Very interesting article though.

An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong - New York Times

Live an Extra Twenty Years

Wow, if only I didn't crave those cookies so much! Yikes!

One for the Ages: A Prescription That May Extend Life - New York Times

Male Manliness Varies By Generation

"'Male serum testosterone levels appear to vary by generation, even after age is taken into account,'"

Could this be a similar effect to the spottedness of mice varying by generation?

Yahoo! Health News: Testosterone Tumbling in American Males

More Bee Buzz

Oldest fossil bee preserved in amber...

"Experts believe pollen-dependent bees arose from carnivorous wasp ancestors. With the arrival of pollinating bees, flowering plants blossomed on Earth. Prior to 100 million years ago, the plant world was dominated by conifers which spread their seeds on the wind."

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bee fossil, DNA generate a buzz

Evolution of Bees

According to this article, bees are far more sophisticated than other similar insects, but show a much lower rate of genetics changes and substitutions.

"Despite diverging from human ancestors more than 600 million years ago, the bee shares a number of genes with its vertebrate cousins that its insect brethren lack, such as those involving RNA interference, aging, DNA methylation and circadian rhythms."

"The honeybee genome is already yielding some other surprising conclusions, such as a very slow rate of evolution. 'There are fewer changes and substitutions in the honeybee when compared with Drosophila and Anopheles,' explains geneticist Martin Beye of the Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany, but he also notes that the bee has a relatively high rate of exchange of DNA between chromosomes, or recombination, to preserve diversity with only one breeding female in a hive. 'The existence of recombination is still one of the major biological questions,' he adds. 'We can test theoretical predictions on the basis of a 10 times higher recombination rate.'"

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Social Honeybee Shares Genetic Secrets

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day - New York Times

I'm not big on using my blog for social commentary. However, this article caught my eye. If women want to look sexy on Halloween, go for it. Men and women are both likely to dress to catch the attention of that someone special. Halloween is one of those few days where women can push the edge without being castigated.

Now the New York Times is castigating those women.

"Obviously, however, many women see nothing wrong with making Halloween less about Snickers bars and SweeTarts and more about eye candy." -- Implying they should see something wrong with it.

"Indeed, many women think that showing off their bodies 'is a mark of independence and security and confidence,'" -- Implying that they shouldn't think that.

"'It’s not a good long-term strategy for women,' Dr. Tolman said." -- Implying that women really shouldn't do this if they thought of the bigger social picture.

"'I’m not going to go and say this is bad for all women.'" -- Implying that this is definitely bad for some or most women.

"Perhaps, say some scholars, it could even be good." -- Implying that on the surface it is clearly bad, but maybe there's a silver lining.

"Still, women may be buying racy outfits because that is all that is available." -- If women had a choice, clearly they wouldn't choose *those* outfits. (Seriously!)

"Besides, she said, men are less interested in accessorizing. 'They’re happy grabbing a mask and a robe and being done,' she said." -- Let's just throw in a swipe a men at the end! Of course men don't care about their appearance at all.

"'We’re not just risking our dignity here,' she said. 'We’re risking frostbite.' -- I see, dressing sexy hurts women's dignity. Geez.

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day - New York Times

Value Erosion Through Corporate Investment

Illuminating article about how companies investing in new directions could be just eroding shareholder value.

"So I'm growing and I put in $100 million to fund the growth. Now, there are three possibilities. One is that I'm beating my head against a highly competitive market where other people are frankly better positioned than I am. Suppose my cost of capital, what I had to pay to raise that $100 million, was 10%. Well, I'm going to earn a lot less than that 10% in that market. So I'm going to pay 10 million a year, which is 10% of 100 million to raise the money. I'm going to invest it at 8%, which is 8 million a year. I'm going to lose 2 million a year. So the growth destroys value in that case for the existing shareholders. And the way it gets disguised, of course, is that they are taking it away from themselves. They don't go out and raise the money. They just reinvest their earnings in a way that loses money. Anyway, but it still dissipates value."

Fool.com: Identifying Franchises [Commentary] August 12, 2004

Charge your electric car in 5 minutes!

Power your electric car with a big capacitor? Cool!

"If it works as it's supposed to, it will charge up in five minutes and provide enough energy to drive 500 miles on about $9 worth of electricity"

Business 2.0...Big Innovations: EEStor - Sep. 18, 2006:

Living off half a genome

My fears that there's no need to reductionist thinking seem pacified after reading this!

"The microbe is missing almost half of the genes thought to be essential for its kind to persist, raising the possibility that it is becoming an organelle similar to a mitochondrion or chloroplast, according to researchers..."

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Tiny Genome May Reflect Organelle in the Making:

Math at work

This is a very cool mathematical trick.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Camera Reconstructs Image from Single Pixel

30x More Aggressive Flys in 21 generations!

"More aggressive males started to appear after only 5 generations, and by the 21st generation, Dr. Dierick found that the aggressiveness of male fruit flies had increased more than 30-fold, according to a scoring system he developed."

Flyweights, Yes, but Fighters Nonetheless: Fruit Flies Bred for Aggressiveness - New York Times

More Fun With Magnets

Cheap and cool little toy.

Magnet Launcher

Direct Brain->Atari Interface

They did this with monkeys a few years ago...

Teenager moves video icons just by imagination

Canadian invents VR bird

I seriously want this. Doesn't look that hard.

Remote Flying with VR Goggles and a Camera - Gizmodo

Magnetic Flinger

Combining magnets and space flight is just about every 10yr-old-science-nerd's dream scenario!



Huge 'launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit - space - 03 October 2006 - New Scientist Space

Fun with Big Balloons!

Launch your own balloon and take lots of pictures. These guys did!

GeoCam - An off-the-shelf Imager for Rapid Response Remote Sensing Monitoring

Ian Pearson, Futurologist: The ITWales Interview

This looks like a fun job! What we really need though is a mechanism for measuring the accuracy of futurologists. Pure speculation is fun, but we're not going to get better ate predicting the future until we know how good we are at it.

ITWALES.COM - Ian Pearson, Futurologist: The ITWales Interview

Gems Among the Junk

This is an amazing article concerning how little we still know about much of our DNA and some theories for how that additional DNA might be used.

The Unseen Genome: Gems among the Junk by W. Wayt Gibbs [PDF]

Here is an interesting articles that follow from this:

The Alternative Genome by Gil Ast [PDF]

Seahorses in Love

When Seahorses pick their mate, is it a neurochemical sensation that leads to Assortive Mating?

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Male Pregnancy May Spur Seahorse Speciation

Impressive Predictions

September 1995 from Scientific American

"In a decade or two, travel by automobile in some advanced countries may very well involve the kind of technology and intelligence gathering once reserved for tactical warfare. Onboard navigational aids, fed by satellite tracking systems, will give directions in soothing digital voices. In big cities, roadside screens will flash messages about distant traffic jams and alternative routes. Computerized control and guidance devices embedded underneath heavily trafficked corridors will allow appropriately equipped cars and trucks to race along almost bumper to bumper. Special debit cards will let motorists enter tollways without stopping, park downtown without fumbling for change, and hop on trains and people movers by swiping their cards through electronic turnstiles. Some experts even foresee customized tractor trailer-style "car-buses" that carry up to 20,000 cars per hour per freeway lane--10 times the current capacity."

Why Go Anywhere? -- Scientific American

Rapid Speciation

From 2000: "Now new research, reported today in the journal Science, describes a run of salmon that colonized a river and a lake beach, and evolved partial reproductive isolation in fewer than 13 generations. Natural selection, it appears, can spur the emergence of new species far faster than expected."

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: High-Speed Speciation

Speciation by Hybridization?

Yet another potential wrinkle in the complexity of the evolutionary process.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Wandering Fly Gene Supports New Model of Speciation

Rocket Belts: Ripe for Innovation

Seems like with the right control system you could make Rocket Belts far easier to control and consequently much safer. Air-Segway!

The men who want to fly. By Larry Smith - Slate Magazine

Big Brain

"Scientists say they have discovered a gene sequence which appears to play a central role in giving humans their unique brain capacity.

"The area, called HAR1, has undergone accelerated evolutionary change in humans and is active during a critical stage in brain development."

Research finds 'unique human DNA'

More Genetic Craziness

How Human Cells Get Their Marching Orders - New York Times

Plants respond to stress by increasing their rate of mutation

Stressed Plants Pass On Ability to Quickly Adapt

"The plants survived the ordeal by upping the frequency of homologous recombination (genetic swapping) during cell division... 'We propose that the environmental influences that lead to increased genomic dynamics even in successive, untreated generations may increase the potential for adaptive evolution.'"

More evidence that genetics is more complicated than we think

Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA

String Theory Is Distracting

Has string theory tied up better ideas in physics?

Robot Dogs Talk to Each Other

Remember the binars from Star Trek? These AI dogs are almost there!

Robot Dogs Evolve Their Own Language

Parent RNA expression affects mice coloration

Again, I reiterate: genetic evolution is not as simplistic as we make it out to be.

Is this not very similar to Darwin's theory of pangenesis?

Spotty Mice Flout Genetic Laws -- BBC NEWS

My Pain, My Brain - New York Times

This is the most amazing and in many ways the most frightening thing I've read, perhaps ever. The implications are incredible.

My Pain, My Brain - New York Times