© 2013 Peter Free Citation — to article Alexei A. Sharov and Richard Gordon, Life Before Earth, arXiv:1304.3381v1 [physics.gen-ph], arXiv.org [open article access at Cornell University Library] (28 March 2013) Citation — to press release Bob Yirka, Researchers use Moore’s Law to calculate that life began before Earth existed, Phys.org (18 April 2013) What this [...]
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Alexei A. Sharov, biological complexity, biology, Bob Yirka, dating the beginning of Life, detrimental mutations probabilities, evolution, Life Before Earth, metabolic costs, Moore's law, Researchers use Moore's Law to calculate that life began before Earth existed, Richard Gordon
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- 19 April 2013 – 15:30
- Author:
- By BrainiYak
Citation Victoria L. Herridge and Adrian M. Lister, Extreme insular dwarfism evolved in a mammoth, Proceedings of the Royal Society B [Biological Sciences], doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0671 (published online before print, 09 May 2012) What is the evolutionary effect described as the “island rule”? The authors explain the evolutionary effect of island confinement as having (i) a [...]
Categories: Science
Tagged: Cretan, Crete, dwarfism, elephant, evolution, evolutionary, extreme insular dwarfism, insular dwarfism, island rule, mammoth, Mammuthus meridionalis, Mammuthus rumanus, Mammuthus trogontherii, molar, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, Palaeoloxodon creticus, Pleistocene, pliocene, taxonomic
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- 9 May 2012 – 08:41
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- By BrainiYak
Balancing the costs of carrying extra metabolic baggage against the benefits of letting other contributors to the environment provide the necessary services Professor Erik Zinser (University of Tennessee) and colleagues attempted to explain why Procholorococcus, which may be the most abundant photosynthetic organism on the planet, had lost oxidative stress reduction genes, during the course [...]
Categories: Environment,Science
Tagged: adaptive gene loss, Black Queen Hypothesis, coevolution, Erik R. Zinser, evolution, evolutionary theory, fitness, J. Jeffrey Morris, oxidative stress, Prochlorococcus, Red Queen Hypothesis, Richard E. Lenski
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- 4 April 2012 – 16:14
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- By BrainiYak
It may be figuratively true that we can’t reason our way out of an open paper bag — no disrespect to us intended Two studies of how people interpret lists of disease symptoms, while Internet browsing revealed that: [A] streak is a sequence of consecutive items on a list that share the characteristic of being [...]
Categories: Medicine,Psychology,Public Health
Tagged: Ashley M. Votruba, Christopher Y. Olivola, Daniel Kahneman, evolution, hypochondriac, perceived disease risk, Sean P. Wojcik, symptom order, symptom presentation, System 1, System 2, Talya Miron-shatz, Thinking Fast and Slow, Virginia S. Y. Kwan
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- 16 March 2012 – 12:51
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- By BrainiYak
This procedure doesn’t work in plants, but, for animals — Knowing where to look in long DNA strands has always been the problem — whether it be identifying the source of an abnormality or finding a shortcut label for whatever it is research wants to identify. Species identification via mitochondrial DNA “bar coding” has been [...]
Categories: Genetics,Science
Tagged: adenosine triphosphate, ATP, bar code, bar coding, biodiversity, CO1, cytochrome oxidase, DNA, electron transport, energy production, evolution, Michael Gross, oligomer, polymer, speciation, subunit, transmembrane protein
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- 16 February 2012 – 10:15
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- By BrainiYak
Clarity on a complicated subject — why the human genome retained major histocompatibility complexes that arguably no longer work properly for immune purposes From the press release: “Major histocompatibility complex” (MHC) proteins are found on the surface of most cells in vertebrate animals. They distinguish self from foreign, and trigger an immune response against foreign [...]
Categories: Medicine,Science
Tagged: agriculture, allele, antibiotic resistance, bacteria, Cornelius Whitney Hyzer, defunct, detrimental, diversity, DNA, endangered, evolution, genes, genome, genotypes, James S. Ruff, Jason L. Kubinak, major histocompatibility complex, MHC, Patricia R. Slev, virulence, virus, Wayne K. Potts
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- 8 February 2012 – 14:03
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- By BrainiYak
The underlying genetic change appears to be founded upon pre-existing gene diversity and its concomitant habitat preferences Which is what one would have predicted. Citation James Buckley, Roger K. Butlin, and Jon R. Bridle, Evidence for evolutionary change associated with the recent range expansion of the British butterfly, Aricia agestis, in response to climate change, [...]
Categories: Climate change,Environment
Tagged: AFLP, amplified fragment length polymorphism, Aricia agestis, Brown Argus, butterfly, chalk, Erodium cicutarium., evolution, evolutionary change, genetic, genome, Geraniaceae, Geranium disectum, Geranium molle, grasslands, Helianthemum nummularium, James Buckley, Jon R. Bridle, limestone, loci, Roger K. Butlin, United Kingdom
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- 30 November 2011 – 12:34
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- By BrainiYak
This was obvious to me years ago (on a gut level) — but now there’s some evidence for it The Journal of Leukocyte Biology recently published research demonstrating that fever may be beneficial to our immune response, at least as to the function of CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells. These lymphocytes can destroy virus-infected cells and tumors. [...]
Categories: Medicine,Science
Tagged: Casey Kilpatrick, CD8+, cell, Chen-Ting Lee, Cody Mooneyhan, conserved, cytotoxic, ectotherm, effector, Elizabeth A. Repasky, Evan Zynda, evolution, febrile, fever, Hans Minderman, hyperthermia, immune response, leukocyte, Lingwen Zhong, lymphocyte, Maegan Capitano, physiological, T-cells, Thomas A. Mace, tumor, virus-infected
- Published:
- 1 November 2011 – 14:46
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- By BrainiYak
It didn’t take long for this to happen, thanks to Roundup® and its buds Remember when manufacturers told us that we didn’t have to worry much about weeds developing resistance to glyphosate-based herbicides? Even when the same manufacturers partnered up to develop glyphosate-resistant crops? Well, guess what (predictably) happened: GR [glyphosate-resistant] crops, first released in [...]
Categories: Agriculture
Tagged: 2 4-D, 2 4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, agronomic, auxin, auxinic, broadleaf, common ragweed, common waterhemp, crops, Dean E. Riechers, evolution, field bindweed, giant ragweed, glyphosate, horseweed, J. Christopher Hall, J. Mithila, Kevin B. Kelley, Palmer amaranth, resistance, Roundup, William G. Johnson
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- 12 October 2011 – 14:48
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- By BrainiYak