Author: Evolution News
Of Birds and Men
Proponents of evolutionary theory assume that human beings as well as every other living creature evolved through natural selection. They theorize that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor and cite various archeological examples of possible pre-homo sapiens in hopes of filling in the missing links leading up to today’s version of human. Evolutionary biologists, therefore, tend to look towards the past to find confirming evidence of what they presume to be true, humans evolved. Transhumanists, on the other hand, tend to look forward to a day when, though the assistance of technology, a new species of human will evolve. As Nick Bostrom, one of the major spokespersons for the transhumanism movement, writes, “After the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species Read More ›
Icons of Evolution 10th Anniversary: Four-Winged Fruit Fly
Help Support Discovery Institute in 2010
Evolution News & Views comes to you as a service of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which produces other online media, such as ID the Future, the podcast about evolution and intelligent design, and websites like IntelligentDesign.org and FaithandEvolution.org, where videos, articles, and other resources are available and accessible. We’ve had a busy and memorable year, and we couldn’t have done it without support from readers like you. Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture is a nonprofit 501(c)3, and looking ahead we know that the next year will be a great one as intelligent design continues to advance as a theory — but we will need your help. Please consider partnering with us, whether it be as Read More ›
Is the Origin of Life in Hot Water?
Is origin of life chemistry in hot water? So it seems according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors address the conundrum of origin of life chemists between the rate of (un-catalyzed) organic reactions and the lack of time available for these reactions to occur. From the article (note: an enzyme is a biological catalyst): Whereas enzyme reactions ordinarily occur in a matter of milliseconds, the same reactions proceed with half-lives of hundreds, thousands, or millions of years in the absence of a catalyst. Yet life is believed to have taken hold within the first 25% of Earth’s history. How could cellular chemistry and the enzymes that make life possible, have arisen Read More ›
Regulating DNA Repair Mechanisms
Every once in a while an article comes out on a new DNA repair mechanism or a new feature of a known DNA repair mechanism. There are so many complexities behind DNA repair and there is still more to uncover. Last October, a review article came out in Molecular Cell on regulatory factors for DNA repair mechanisms (Molecular Cell 40(2), October 22, 2010, 179-204). Basically, DNA repair mechanisms are very powerful because they can often replace or remove nucleotide bases. So these powerful mechanisms need something to make sure they do their job properly and not destroy the whole genome in the process. That is where regulators come in. If DNA repair mechanisms are medics flying out to the damaged Read More ›