evolution
jrosenhouse | June 18, 2012Update: June 19, 10:56 am: The commenting issues have now been fixed! Yay! So please ignore the first paragraph of the post.
The commenting issues around here remain unresolved. In the past I have been told by the overlords that this was being treated as a high-priority problem. If that is so, then I would hate to see how a low-priority problem is treated. It's also been pointed out to me that if you read the blog through an RSS feed, then you will have to resubscribe to the blog. Of course, if you are reading this post then you have already surmised that something was wrong with the…
jrosenhouse | June 13, 2012You know that long-running Gallup poll about evolution and creationism, the one that has consistently shown that support for creationism has been in the mid forties for the last thirty years or so? Well, the latest numbers are out, and they are not good news. The creationism number, which was at an all-time low of 40% two years ago, is now all the way up to 46%. Theistic evolution is down from 38% to 32%, while atheism went from 16% to 15%. That six percentage point jump for creationism and corresponding drop for theistic evolution could well be a blip in the data, but it is significant…
sa smith | June 13, 2012Many roads lead to Rome-- there is no one 'right' way to solve an evolutionary hurdle. Viruses encounter the same evolutionary 'problems', but have evolved lots and lots and lots of different solutions to the exact same problems. Random chance of mutations + the bumbling blindness of natural selection ('good enough' is selected, not 'BEST!') means all that bumbling mess leads to different 'solutions'. Some might work better than others, but they all work, and thats good enough.
Its easy to comprehend an RNA virus doing something differently than a very distantly related DNA virus. But…
jrosenhouse | June 11, 2012Scot McKnight, a Professor of New testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois, has posted a review of the Big Evolution/Creation Book. He describes it as “a good read,” though it is hard to pick out one quote that perfectly summarizes his reaction to it. So go have a look for yourself. You don't want to be the last one to read it!
milhayser | June 11, 2012On ERV, Abbie Smith reports that scientists have discovered an entirely new branch of viruses in the boiling acid pools of Yellowstone National Park. By analyzing RNA segments from the pools, researchers inferred the existence of positive-strand RNA viruses with unknown genetic configurations. Smith writes, “These viruses are not just kinda new. They are really really different from the RNA viruses we already know about!” They infect primordial single-celled organisms called Archaea which thrive in the extreme heat of the pools. On the multicellular side of life, Dr. Dolittle shares the first…
sa smith | June 8, 2012I first wrote about honey bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) in 2009--
Since ~2006, honey bee colonies in the US have been dropping dead overnight. Literally. They call it ‘colony collapse disorder’. While large populations of organisms dying is disturbing, no matter the species, we need honey bees– they help pollinate so many of our crops. I grew up in the banks of the Missouri River, around apple and peach orchards (who always had their own bee hives, and honey) and hell, I eat everything on that list…
What is killing our bees?
People have accused GMOs and wireless internet and pesticides…
pharyngula | June 6, 2012
At last! Here is the much delayed Carnival of Evolution 48!
I must begin by apologizing for my tardiness, especially since John Wilkins managed to post the last one on time. I was traveling in the 2½ weeks preceding the deadline for CoE, and the combination of spotty internet access, extreme jetlag (British Columbia to Germany to Iceland, where the sun hovered around the horizon all night long, just messed me up), and of course, the incredible distractions of exotic foreign lands, meant that I was disgracefully dilatory in putting it all together.
To reward your patience (or punish you…
gregladen | June 5, 2012A talk by Genie Scott of the NCSE:
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Photo of Darwin Statute by KevinZim
sa smith | May 18, 2012I have a some updates on a few stories I covered the past couple of weeks:
Some people who proclaim to have 'chronic fatigue syndrome' show everyone just how NOT CRAZY they are... by transcribing my entire interview with Conspiracy Skeptic by hand (they cant hold a job you see-- 'brain fog') and comparing me to a cheerleader/goat, and fantasizing about me getting my comeuppance for daring to speak negatively about St. Judy Mikovits (ie-- tell everyone the bullshit she and her comrades have been up to). Just to be clear, these folks are NOT CRAZY. THEYRE NOT FUCKING CRAZY GODDAMMIT!!!! We…
sa smith | May 16, 2012La Sierra University April 2011--
L. Lee Grismer, a field biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, is gaga over a new species of forest gecko from Southeast Asia that he will present in the scientific journal Zootaxa in three months.
...
Grismer will test his hypothesis that the forest lizard is closely related to another new species he discovered last June. He will isolate the forest gecko's DNA and compare it to that of a similar reptile he tracked down in a cave at the Malaysia-Thailand border.
"We're still in the age of discovery," said Grismer, who is credited with detecting more…
jrosenhouse | May 14, 2012This coming Wednesday, May 16, I will be speaking at the Library of Virginia. I will be discussing my book Among the Creationists Refreshments go from 5:30-6:15. The talk will go from 6:15-7:15, with the plan being to speak for thirty minutes, and then take questions for the remaining time. Then there will be a book signing afterwards.
Hope to see you there!
pharyngula | May 7, 2012No, dinosaurs did not fart themselves to death. This is what happens when you get your information from Fox News.
Dinosaurs may have farted themselves to extinction, according to a new study from British scientists.
The researchers calculated that the prehistoric beasts pumped out more than 520 million tons (472 million tonnes) of methane a year -- enough to warm the planet and hasten their own eventual demise.
Until now, an asteroid strike and volcanic activity around 65 million years ago had seemed the most likely cause of their extinction.
So I read the paper. The researchers didn't…
pharyngula | May 7, 2012Vertebrates are modified segmented worms; that is, their body plan is made up of sequentially repeated units, most apparent in skeletal structures like the vertebrae.
Arthropods are also modified segmented worms. Look at a larval fly, for instance, and you can see they are made up of rings stacked together.
So here's a simple and obvious question: can we infer that the last common ancestor of vertebrates and arthropods was also a segmented worm? That is, is segmentation a common ancestral trait, or did arthropods and vertebrates invent it independently? At first thought, you might assume they…
jrosenhouse | May 6, 2012I recently had a conversation with Greg Gorey of Think Atheist Radio about my book Among the Creationists. We discussed the history and cultures of creationism, the problem of evil, methodological naturalism, my experiences socializing with creationists and several other things besides. From my end I can honestly say it was one of the most interesting conversations I have had on these topics, so I hope you enjoy it. The discussion is fifty minutes long. So go have a listen and let me know what you think!
At the bottom of the web page linked above, there is a crawl at the bottom showing…
pharyngula | May 1, 2012The latest Carnival of Evolution is at Evolving Thoughts, hosted by that guy Wilkins who usually covers the philosophical beat…but we'll let him out of that cage this one time.
The Carnival of Evolution 48 will be held right here, on Pharyngula. You can submit entries via the carnival widget; get them in before 1 June, or I'll ignore them and they'll be passed on to the next carnival host, who doesn't exist. And therefore doesn't have a blog. Which means your carefully crafted science post will be shipped off to dev:null. So you might also consider volunteering for the hosting duties some…
gregladen | April 25, 2012Here is a way you can support the Life Science teachers in your local school. Give them a poster or a hat or a T-shirt or a book or something. I'll tell you why in a moment.
First, you have to find the teachers and start up a relationship with them. I have various relationships with various teachers around the Twin Cities area, but strangely enough my efforts to strike up a relationship with the Life Science teachers at Coon Rapids has led to nothing. The school is very close to my house. I go by it every day to do one thing or another. But when I've emailed the staff there I've never…
pharyngula | April 25, 2012A while back, I told you all about this small piece of the biochemistry of the fly eye — the pathways that make the brown and red pigments that color the eye.
I left it with a question: if even my abbreviated summary revealed considerable complexity, how could this pathway evolve? Changing anything produces a failure or change in the result. Before I answer, let's make the problem even harder, because I love a challenge (although actually, I'm cheating — it's going to turn out that complexity is not a barrier, but an opportunity).
The pigment pathways above are far downstream: they operate…
sa smith | April 24, 2012The human genome is about 3.1 billion nucleotides long.
8-10% of your genome is retroviral-ish. We will be conservative and go with 8%-- thats 248,000,000 nucleotides of retrovirus.
The average retrovirus is about 10,000 nucleotides long. So we should have ~ 24,800 retroviral elements in our genome.
But there must be more than that, because there usually are not full-length retroviruses left in your genome (they would make retroviruses and kill you). Some have deleted genes, or deleted chunks of genes, or sometimes the entire genome is deleted except for a solo-LTR.
So, some number of…
sa smith | April 19, 2012Viruses are everywhere.
Theyre even in other viruses.
:-|
A couple of scientists at Portland States 'Center for Life in Extreme Environments' just found a virus in the sediment of Boiling Springs Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park ('boiling'? 'volcanic'? sounds cozy!). It is a single-strand, circular DNA virus.
Well, okee dokie! Every new virus we find is a good thing-- helps us find new genes that evolution has already invented for us, helps us understand the evolution of viruses, its fun!
But what makes this guy so neat is that it is a DNA virus... with the capsid (structural core,…
jrosenhouse | April 12, 2012
The official publication date for the BECB (that's the big evolution/creationism book for those not up on the local slang) was April 10. Alas, as the tenth drew near I was dismayed to find that the book was only available for pre-order. My previous two books were both available two to three weeks prior to their official release date, you see. Then the tenth arrived, and I found that Amazon had the book listed as out of stock, with an estimated delivery time of one to three weeks. Drat. I sent an e-mail to my publisher, but, alas, have not yet received a reply. Today, however, I see…