What'sNEW

2 May 2008
Arthur C. Clarke ...arranged for a lock of his hair to be launched into space so that he could share his DNA with the universe.

22 April 2008
Richard Dawkins endorses panspermia in a movie about Intelligent Design (ID). Interviewed in dim light by Ben Stein, Dawkins says that the intelligent design of life on Earth might be detectable if the designers were highly evolved creatures who spread life through space by panspermia long ago. Wow, we’re pleased by this development in Dawkins' thinking. Of course he adds that the first creatures must have evolved in the strictly darwinian manner. Of course.

The movie, "Expelled," is pretty much a food fight between darwinists and proponents of creationism / ID. For one question, is Intelligent Design the same as creationism? Early in the movie, proponents of ID say, no, the designer need not be God. But later on the movie seems to be all about belief in God.

The most discouraging thing is the message that there are only two choices about evolution — a message pounded in with images of the Berlin Wall. The darwinists are entirely complicit with the IDers in this false dilemma. Do both sides secretly enjoy this fight? So it seems.

We liked getting a closer look at some well-known darwinian proponents and opponents, including a few we already know. We wish the movie had said more about the science issues and less about the political ones. But sometimes the science issues were at least framed well. And ID proponent William Dembski, whom we have criticized elsewhere, made only arguments with which everyone should agree. For visual effects we especially liked a computer animation of the interior of a eukaryotic cell. Bottom line: if you like a food fight, you may like the movie.

21 April 2008
Placental genes have ancient origins. Two geneticists at Stanford University reached this conclusion in a comprehensive study that asked, "What are the evolutionary origins of genes that play specific... roles in placentation?" First, they identified those genes as being the 757 ones preferentially expressed – above a specified threshold – in the placenta during development. They "found evidence that the basic placental structure relied largely on co-option of ancient genes."

Then, seeing that the expression profiles of those genes change markedly during development, they separately analyzed the ones expressed in the mature placenta. They concluded that those ones are "rodent specific and recently evolved." Furthermore, "In the mature human placenta, 24.0 to 29.9 percent of genes …are primate specific...." And they continued, "…While order- or species-specific modifications may have occurred, the rapid trophoblast development and differentiation found in all eutherian mammals is likely based upon a program already established in their last common ancestor."

We note that none of this has anything to do with the origin of genes. Knox and Baker use "origin" misleadingly — the earliest-detected example of a given gene is designated as its "origin". But how any given gene actually originated is not a question they consider.

They do speculate that duplication and divergence may have produced some new functions. For example, in mice, "While some of the Prl [prolactin-like] gene family members appear to mimic the biological actions of prolactin itself, others, including many of those we have found to be characteristic of the mature placenta, are believed to possess novel biological actions."

Even if this belief is true, the novel actions may come from programming already present and ready to be activated by directed mutations on the right few nucleotides. Of course, we recognize that this speculation of our own needs additional support — but directed mutation has become an accepted phenomenon. Meanwhile, the de novo composition of genetic programs or subroutines of more than, say, 50 ordered nucleotides, remains undocumented.

In sum, this study of today’s genomes concludes that as the past is examined more and more deeply, placental genes have identifiable predecessors... until they don’t. This shift is not gradual, but abrupt. The gradual composition of placental genes is not observed. Most placental genes are apparently ancient, but some show up only more recently, without detectable predecessors. How any of them originated is not known or even considered.

If anyone knows of a study that convincingly accounts for the origin of a genetic program or subroutine, we would like to hear about it!

11 April 2008
Earth's first animal... was probably significantly more complex than previously believed. This is the conclusion of a new study that used more than 100 computers to analyze the most data, so far, to map the evolutionary history of animals. "Among the study's surprising findings is that the comb jelly split off from other animals and diverged onto its own evolutionary path before the sponge." The comb jelly has complex features like specialized tissues and a nervous system, and the sponge doesn't.

1) The comb jelly evolved its complexity independently of other animals, after it branched off onto its own evolutionary path.		2) The sponge evolved its simple form from more complex creatures. © NSF

"This was a complete shocker," says Casey Dunn, lead author. "So shocking that we initially thought something had gone very wrong." The article, Nature's cover story, reports that the comb jelly "could only have achieved its apparent seniority over the simpler sponge via one of two new evolutionary scenarios: 1) the comb jelly evolved its complexity independently of other animals, after it branched off onto its own evolutionary path; or 2) the sponge evolved its simple form from more complex creatures...."

In spite of the unprecedented volume of data already analysed, the research team thinks the conclusion "should be viewed as provisional until more data are considered." Meanwhile, we note that other recent studies have reached similar conclusions — finding that complex genetic programs either are older than they should be, or arose independently more than once. With darwinian logic, either way, it's a jarring surprise. But with the logic of cosmic ancestry all genetic programs are very old and can be distributed freely by gene transfer mechanisms.

Jarring to us is a different puzzle: Why is it considered unscientific to question a theory as fallible as darwinism?

4 April 2008
Astrobiology and the connection of life with the external universe is more widely accepted and is certainly fashionable compared with the heresy it once was....

3 April 2008
What is the origin of eukaryotic RNA polymerases? Three geneticists in France ask this question in a study that compares related polymerase sequences across all domains of life. They find that a previously unaccountable component of eukaryotic RNA polymerase is closely related to a "G" polypeptide found in archaeal RNA polymerase. Thus they have identified "a last missing link between the core structure of archaeal and eukaryotic RNA polymerases."

It will be assumed that this study adds weight to the already monumental case supporting darwinian evolution. In the darwinian paradigm, genetic programs such as eukaryotic RNA polymerase are built up incrementally from simpler precursors. Here someone has found a "missing link" that ties the eukaryotic program to one in archaea, which are older and simpler than eukaryotes. It shows that eukaryotic RNA polymerases originated by darwinian evolution, right?

Loss of G or Gain of G

Wrong. The study shows that the G polypeptide is present in some lineages and absent in others. The French team offer two scenarios to account for this pattern. "The first posits that all eukaryotic and archaeal RNA polymerases derive from an ancestral enzyme equipped with all of the eukaryotic core subunits," some of which were subsequently lost in various lineages. Of course, this pattern — a complex common ancestor and simpler descendants — is the very opposite of darwinism.

"A second scenario ...states that the G protein was specifically acquired by Crenarchaea, after they diverged from Euryarchaea...." — until recently, this possibility might have been overlooked. But if a genetic program or component was acquired by gene transfer, the phenomenon supports strong panspermia, not darwinism. In sum, either the whole program was there at the beginning, or parts of it came later, from nowhere. In no way does this study show that eukaryotic RNA polymerases originated by darwinian evolution.

In our opinion, a similar, mistaken assumption is made about most studies like this one. That is, people often assume darwinism has been reinforced when it hasn't. We think the crucial question is: Can darwinian evolution can compose wholly new genetic programs? If so, there there should be unequivocal evidence. We haven't seen it.

29 March 2008
An amino-acid-like molecule has been seen in a dust cloud 25,000 lightyears away. A team at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn used radio telescopes in Spain, France, and Australia to collect spectra from The Large Molecule Heimat, as the cloud is known. Among 3,700 separate spectral lines, 51 were attributable to amino acetonitrile, which closely resembles glycine.

Since about 1965, more than a hundred different organic molecules have been detected in space. Orignally surprising, they are now welcomed as "prebiotic" ingredients for the origin-of-life. Thus, pseudo-panspermia has become mainstream. But instead, organic molecules in space could be "post-biotic" remnants of life, as stronger versions of panspermia would predict. We think this possibility should not be ignored.

A bdelloid rotifer, c. 400 microns

25 March 2008
Bdelloid rotifers have unusual properties. They reproduce only asexually, they remain viable after dessication at any life stage, and all of the transposable elements in their genomes transfer readily. Now, two biologists at Harvard and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, observe that they are are also "extraordinarily resistant" to ionizing radiation.

Bdelloid rotifers are worm-like animals barely visible without a microscope. Numbering about 360 species, they thrive in a broad range of mostly freshwater habitats. For what it's worth, we think they might be able to remain viable in space.

22 March 2008
Methane and water, but no carbon monoxide, can be seen in the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet 63 lightyears away. The analysis is possible because, from our vantage point, the planet eclipses its central star (HD 189773). Briefly then, every 2.2 days, astronomers can see starlight that is partially absorbed and scattered by the planet's atmosphere. The spectrum of that light, compared to the spectrum of the star's uneclipsed light, can reveal a lot about the atmosphere of the planet.

The lack of carbon monoxide rules out the favored nonbiological explanation for the existence of methane. Other explanations, such as "an ill-understood photochemical mechanism," are being proposed. The surface of the planet, a "hot Jupiter," is too hot for life as we know it. But could there be subsurface niches that are cooler? Could the methane be a "fossil" from an earlier time? On Earth anyway, methane comes from life.

21 March 2008
Could an ocean on Titan contain life? New observations from NASA's Cassini spacecraft lead planetary scientists to consider the possibility. Orbiting Saturn, Titan is larger than Mercury, Pluto, and all other moons in the solar system except Jupiter's Ganymede. Now it joins the handful of satellites perceived to have ice-covered oceans.

Genes for (bacterial) gliding motility are found in viruses in the listed ecosystems.

14 March 2008
Viruses serve as gene banks for ecosystems?! In a study of microbial interactions within nine ecosystems, viruses were seen to carry large loads of DNA without using such DNA themselves. Forest Rohwer of San Diego State University, a member of the research team, believes that the viruses probably transfer such excess DNA to bacteria during infections, and thereby pass on "new genetic tricks" to their microbial hosts. The study also indicates that by transporting the DNA to new locations, viruses may serve as important agents in the evolution of microbes.

5 March 2008
A carbonaceous meteorite collected in Antarctica contains amino acids that are predominately left-handed. Three chemists at Arizona State University have found "enantiomeric excesses" (ee's) in amino acids and other organic molecules in GRA95229 (fragments pictured). Similar asymmetries have been seen in other meteorites, like Murchison, but ASU claims that this is the first analysis clearly proving that the ee's cannot have been caused by earthly contamination.