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Genetics

What happens when DNA snaps?

At Evolution News: "When both DNA strands break (the “double-stranded break” crisis, or DSB), a cell can die. Molecular machines fly into action as the strands flail about, threatening genomic catastrophe. The repair crew has an additional problem: unlike the bridge cable, the DNA strand is made up of a sequence of code that needs to match what was there before the DSB. In a process called homologous recombination, the machinery searches for a template to rebuild the broken sequence." Read More ›

Another Truism Dies

A new paper can be found at Phys.Org undermining the idea that what drives evolution is the “decoupling” of DNA with phylogenic structures. This idea is implicit in the twin ideas of pseudogenes and gene duplication: both allow the DNA to become “uncoupled” from the structures they code for and so RM becomes permissible. Well, this paper shuts down this idea. Given the success of cichlids, understanding the evolution of these two jaws has become an important line of inquiry for biologists. “We’re trying to gain a better understanding of the origins and maintenance of biodiversity,” says Albertson. Researchers have long thought that the two sets of jaws are evolutionarily decoupled and can evolve independently of one another, pushing the Read More ›

Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne says they’ll never clone a herd of mammoths

Coyne: What they’d get would be a genetic chimera, an almost entirely Asian elephant but one that is hairier, chunkier, and more tolerant of cold. That is NOT a woolly mammoth, nor would it behave like a woolly mammoth, for they’re not inserting behavior genes. Read More ›

Genes respond to coded information in signals

The point here is that genes, like fungi, are not intelligent but — like mechanical devices — they can respond to signals. The reason the confusion arises is that establishment science does not want to admit that creative intelligence underlies the universe. Forced into a corner, some will even pretend that mushrooms think and genes have “behavior,” the way a dog would. Read More ›

Mind Matters News: Our brains break DNA in order to learn more quickly

MIT News: Neurons and other brain cells snap open their DNA in numerous locations — more than previously realized, according to a new study — to provide quick access to genetic instructions for the mechanisms of memory storage. – David Orenstein, “Memory-making Involves Extensive DNA Breaking” at Mit News (July 14, 2021) Read More ›

ID theorists were right about junk DNA. Now here is an ID prediction about CRISPR gene editing

William Dembski: The big question, then, is whether CRISPR gene editing will allow for huge improvements of human and other animal forms via genetic enhancements. My prediction is that it won’t. Specifically, I predict that attempted enhancements of the human germ line using CRISPR gene editing will (1) quickly hit an “enhancement boundary” beyond which enhancements are no longer feasible and (2) prove self-canceling in the sense that intended benefits will be undone by unintended deficits. Read More ›

Bees thrive by cloning selves as exact duplicates

“For the Cape honeybees, the cloning is perfectly in keeping with evolutionary theory, says Laurent Keller at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. ‘Evolution is just selecting what’s doing well at a given time.’” But wait. Did any evolution pundit claim that one bee cloning itself many millions of times (identical copies) would be an example of evolutionary fitness? If evolutionary fitness is whatever happens to “be doing well” at a given time, there is no theory. How does it differ from “whatever happens”? Read More ›

Central Dogma: Reasons for Further Thought

For about a year now, from reading various news items on newly published science articles, I’ve begun to consider not DNA, but RNA, the real driver of life. I think that DNA’s essential role is that of information storage–a hard drive, while RNA is like the BIOS system–it tells the “system” what it should be doing. I’ve been waiting for the right article to come along to present this newer view of genomic life. Well, it appears that the ‘right article’ has come along. This is from Phys.Org and this is the pdf online version of the article. From the Press Release via Phys.Org: Cells contain machinery that duplicates DNA into a new set that goes into a newly formed Read More ›

Bats are born knowing how to measure speed in time, not distance

Most interesting. But what does the professor mean when he says, "we hypothesize that an evolutionary 'choice' was made to be born with this knowledge in order to save time during the sensitive development period." So evolution is a designer that makes choices? But, as Michael Behe would ask, “How, exactly?” He can’t walk away from the problem just by putting “choice” in quotation marks. Read More ›