How ?Junk DNA? Can Impact Evolvability
The findings concluded that the repeats affect the activity of neighboring genes by way of how tightly the downstream DNA is wrapped around a complex of proteins collectively called a nucleosomes. A nucleosome is one of the half dozen packaging features of the eukaryote genome which allows a genome that is 3 billion base pairs long or 6 feet in length to be squeezed into a tiny little nucleus. About 167 basepairs wrap around one nucelosome. DNA that is more wrapped around a nucleosome is harder to be activated, and thus otherwise non-coding/junk tandem repeats of sequences determine how tightly the local DNA is wrapped around these protein complexes.
Alvin Plantinga gives philosophy a bad name
Apparently, because Plantinga cannot imagine a source of information to imperfect minds other than the Christian deities, we're supposed to conclude that microwave ovens cannot be the product of ape brains shaped by evolution, with new and deeper understanding of the physical world derived by trial and error.
I really cannot take Alvin Plantinga seriously, ever. (Pharyngula)D?j? vu is that creepy feeling that you're living through a moment for the second time, as if retreading the path of an earlier existence. Now Alan Brown and Elizabeth Marsh believe they've found a way to simulate the d?j? vu sensation in the laboratory - a finding that could help us understand why the phenomenon occurs.
Ray Kurzweil Wants to Be a Robot
Ray Kurzweil can't wait to be a Cyborg?a human mind inside an everlasting machine. But is this the next great leap in human evolution, or just one man's midlife crisis writ large?
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