Breakthrough study overturns theory of ‘junk DNA’ in genome

This is big news, the international Encode project has found that about a fifth of the human genome regulates the 2% that makes proteins. What was the previous thinking? Until now, the thought was that the vast stretches of DNA between our 20,000 or so protein-coding genes – more than 98% of the genetic sequence … Read more

evolutionary science = ‘the new classics’ – A proposal by Richard Dawkins

I first heard Richard talk about this two years ago. At the time, I listened, watched the slides and thought, “Nice Talk”, but did not really get it. Well, I’ve changed my mind, there is an article by Carole Jahme in yesterday’s Guardian that clearly explains it all, and so now I think I’m beginning … Read more

Whole Brain wiring Diagram – We have reached an important milestone

Neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have reached an important milestone, they have released the first installment of data from the 500 terabytes so far collected in their pathbreaking project to construct the first whole-brain wiring diagram of a vertebrate brain, that of the mouse. Wow. The data consist of gigapixel images (each close to … Read more

“Map of Life” Shows the Location of All Organisms, Large and Small

Wow this is cool … (translation: “Oh here is something I like”) OK, so what exactly do we have here? Well, a team of researchers has embarked on a potentially groundbreaking project known as the Map of Life — an online database designed to catalog and locate every known plant and animal species on Earth, and is led … Read more

Are we still evolving? – New study says “Yes” … but I still have a couple of questions.

It might sound silly to claim that evolution has stopped, but some that I’ve discussed this with at times have suggested it might be the case. The thinking is that natural selection no longer kicks in because we now step in with modern medicine and so those who would not have been previously naturally selected … Read more

Unintelligent design … the debate continues

As a parody of “Intelligent design”, Keith Gilmour, a UK-based secondary school teacher set up a website called “The Centre for Unintelligent design” last year. In response Creationists have been popping up and scribbling a few daft claims to him to put him right … except what they are claiming is simply making them look even sillier … Read more

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