Reflectorites
Below are web article links, headlines and/or paragraphs for the
period 22-27 January, in descending date order, with my comments
in square brackets.
Steve
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_620000/620847.stm
... BBC ... 27 January, 2000, ... Researchers build huge DNA
chains ... Scientists believe they will be able to create synthetic
lifeforms within the next decade. That is the confident prediction of
researchers at the University of Texas who have managed to
assemble very long strands of the life molecule, DNA, in the
laboratory. ... "Manufacturing" segments of DNA has been a neat
trick employed in laboratories since the 1970s. The technique
copies the way organisms do it themselves when they duplicate
their genetic material prior to cell division. Enzymes called
polymerases will construct a DNA chain from a template...But
creating a template and using it to build really long chains, that
incorporate useful gene sequences, entirely from scratch, has
proved difficult. Now, Professor Glen Evans...says his team has
produced a robotic process capable of joining large chains into very
long sequences. "We've been able to synthesise DNA in the range
of 10,000 base pairs," Professor Evans told the BBC. "But we
would need to extend that up to about 100,000 to 150,000 base
pairs to have the capacity to encode a whole organism." ..."This is
the critical unknown in this entire effort. The breakthrough that is
still necessary to do this is to know how to jumpstart the genome.
Even if we can encode the information, we still need somehow to
get it started - to do its first round of decoding and synthesising in
order to build something that would sustain life on its own." ... [It will
be interesting if a synthetic bacterium is built from scratch using
human intelligent design working through natural processes, and
then it requires the special, direct intervention of a human intelligent
designer to "jumpstart" it into life. What will that sound like? :-)]
http://cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/27/science.cloning.reut/index.html
CNN ... Geron tries cloning without using eggs January 27, 2000 ...
LONDON (Reuters) -- The scientists that cloned Dolly the Sheep
are working on a new method to cut the need for human egg cells
and cloned embryos, a magazine said Wednesday. If successful,
Geron BioMed's technique could remove a major ethical obstacle to
using therapeutic cloning to repair cells or human organs damaged
by disease ... unlike conventional cloning, in which the gutted egg
reprograms the genes of the donor cell, winding back their
developmental clock, the new technique will use embryonic stem
cells. "In this case, the reprogrammed cells wouldn't form an
embryo, but instead develop directly into the cells or tissues the
patient needs," the magazine said. The embryonic stem cells,
which can develop into any of the body's tissues, will still come from
human embryos but the technique will reduce the number of
embryos needed because they can be grown in culture. ... [If the
embryo is a human being, and killing a human being is murder,
then this seems to amount to arguing that one murder is better
than many. But in that case no murder is even better still!]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000127/sc/aids_integrase_1.html
Yahoo! Thursday January 27 ... Researchers Find New Possible
HIV Target By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers at Merck Research
Laboratories said on Thursday they found a possible new way to
attack the AIDS virus...they had made an integrase inhibitor -- a
long sought-after target that no one has been able to make work.
Merck has not been able to make this one work in animals yet,
either, but says it found two compounds that work in the laboratory
... HIV drugs target various the various stages of the virus's attack
on cells. The virus must first attach itself to an immune system cell,
punch a hole through its protective membrane and insert its own
genetic material in the form of RNA. Then it hijacks the victim cell,
forcing it to pump out copies of the HIV virus. Current drugs -- the
reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as AZT and the protease
inhibitors -- affect the virus after it has entered the cell. An integrase
inhibitor would stop it from getting its RNA into the cell in the first
place. Adding protease inhibitors to a cocktail of drugs is what
finally helped doctors to start keeping HIV patients alive for years at
a stretch, but there is growing evidence the virus is evolving to
outwit these powerful drugs. So more are needed. ... [I hope this
will eventually work, but if it doesn't, they already have a tried and
tested, ready made unfalsifiable answer: "the virus is evolving to
outwit these powerful drugs"! In the meantime, it doesn't do the
company's stock price any harm.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000127/sc/cancer_agent_1.html
Yahoo! Thursday January 27 ... Scientists Squeeze Cancer Killer From
Dirt By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For years, doctors have known that a
slimy bacterium found in the dirt produces compounds that have strong
effects against cancer. But while the compounds, known as
epothilones, are found literally underfoot, they cannot be produced in
the lab in any great amounts. On Thursday, a small California
biotechnology company said it had figured out how to produce large
amounts of the substance by genetically engineering another bacterium.
.... [Genetically engineering bacteria to produce designer drugs looks
set to revolutionise pharmacy and hopefully reduce costs. But one
wonders how they could stop rivals simply obtaining the bacteria and
then generating the substances themselves? And sooner or later someone,
maybe in the Third World, is going to engineer a bacterium with
unforseen, disastrous side effects.]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000126080913.htm
Magazines ScienceDaily ... Posted 1/26/2000 Scientists Create
RNA Computer PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton University
researchers have developed a kind of computer that uses the
biological molecule RNA to solve complex problems. ... the
Princeton scientists used a test tube containing 1,024 different
strands of RNA to solve a simple version of the "knight problem," a
chess puzzle that is representative of a class of problems that
requires brute-force computing.... One advantage, said Landweber,
is that the genetic molecules DNA and RNA, which encode all the
instructions for creating and running life, can store much more data
in a given space than conventional memory chips.... in the knight
problem, each strand of RNA represented a possible solution, but
the researchers did not need to sort through each one individually;
in a series of five steps, a specially targeted enzyme slashed away
all the strands that did not match the requirements of a correct
solution... The idea is that words written in the letters of DNA,
referred to as A, T, C and G, could represent the ones and zeroes
used in computer logic. ... With DNA, there is a limited set of
restriction enzymes ...With RNA, Landweber's group could use just
one universal enzyme that targets any part of the molecule.... [More
evidence that DNA/RNA are essentially the same as intelligently
designed information-processing systems.]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_619000/619407.stm
... 26 January, 2000, ... How life may live on Europa ... By BBC
News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse A radiation-
driven ecosystem could exist in the ocean thought to lie beneath
the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, a scientist has suggested. ...
some analyses of energy sources on Europa have been
pessimistic saying that there may not be enough free-energy
available to support life, or at least life as we know it. ... Chris
Chyba of the SETI ... Institute in California suggests that charged
sub-atomic particles that are swirled around Jupiter by its mighty
magnetic field should interact with Europa's icy surface providing
energy that primitive life-forms could tap. ... He suggests that
Europa could have a radiation-driven ecosystem and has
calculated the minimum amount of biomass in this ecosystem by
comparing it to ecosystems on Earth. His estimate is 20 billion
grams. ... [When does legitimate scientific speculation become
irresponsible wishful thinking? There are so many conflicting claims
in science today the public are hearing about through the media
(remember the Mars rock?), particularly in the area of the origin of
life, that there is a likelihood that the public will become
increasingly sceptical of the claims of scientists in these areas.]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_619000/619393.stm BBC
... 26 January, 2000, ... Horses have air-conditioned brains Horses have air-
cooled brains to stop them overheating when galloping at full speed, say
Canadian scientists. They have an unusual anatomical arrangement at the
base of their skulls that acts to cool the blood entering the brain, ... The
pouches must have some useful function, the veterinary scientist said,
because the horse takes a big risk by having them. "They are prone to
bacterial and fungal infections that can prove fatal. So the device has to do
something." ... Also at:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/horses000126.html ...
ABCNEWS ... January 26, ... Horses Keep a Cool Head Keeping the Brain
From Overheating ... "Horses are fantastic athletes," he says. As they run,
their body temperatures go up to ... about 114 degrees Fahrenheit. ...
Brains don't do well above about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, 'so we know they
have to cool their brains." ... If heat from the carotid artery is dumped into
the horse's guttural pouches, Lindstedt says, that dead-end sac must have
some air flow through it..... How the air in the pouches remains cool is a
mystery, he says, unless there's some way the pouches are ventilated. ....
[Here we have the development of a feature which would likely be a
disadvantage early on and only an advantage later on when fully developed.
Horses have a number of special features that make them ideally suited to
be the means of transport par-excellence for man, that a good case can be
made that they were specially *designed* by an Intelligent Designer for
that purpose.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000126/sc/britain_cloning_1.html
Yahoo! ... Wednesday January 26 ... Britain Urged to Lift Ban on
Therapeutic Cloning By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - A
leading British fertility expert urged the government Wednesday to lift
its ban on human therapeutic cloning research. Lord Winston, a close
friend of Prime Minister Tony Blair, said scientists in Britain were in a
"bizarre situation" because they could use human embryos to
investigate fertility, genetic disorders and new contraceptives but not
for the potential of saving human lives. ... Later Winston told reporters
he thought there was a government perception that therapeutic cloning
could cause a public outcry. Much of the negative information, he said,
was being generated by small but vociferous pressure groups. ... [Note
the self-contradictory spin-doctoring. Winston is afraid of "a public
outcry" but the only real opposition is "small but vociferous pressure
groups"!]
http://www.usatoday.com/life/science/paleo/lsp024.htm ... USA
TODAY ... 01/25/00 ... Dinosaur-bird link smashed in fossil flap By
Tim Friend, USA TODAY The "missing link" dinosaur-bird featured
by National Geographic magazine in November is a fake. ... The
composite, on display at the National Geographic Society in
Washington until last week, consists of a birdlike upper torso and
the tail and feet of a small raptor. The magazine described it as a
"true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs and
birds." ... Storrs Olson, curator of birds at the Smithsonian
Institution's Natural History Museum and an outspoken skeptic of
the bird-dinosaur link, says he warned the magazine in November,
when the article was published, that there were serious problems
with the fossil. He says he was ignored. "The problem is, at some
point the fossil was known by Geographic to be a fake, and that
information was not revealed," Olson says. ... [If Olson is right that
National Geographic went ahead and published its the story
knowing that it was (or even could have been) a fake, then this
would be bordering on (if not actually) fraud. It certainly would have
been good for sales of their magazine! However this turns out it will
probably do great harm to the evolutionist cause in the eyes of the
ordinary public and greatly help the creationist and ID causes. It will
be interesting to see if any of the other so-called "feathered
dinosaurs" are fakes also!]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/012500sci-mitochondrial-dna.html
January 25, 2000 A Genetic Tool to Track Evolution. Or Is It? ... By
BRENDA FOWLER ...In recent years, however, several articles
have challenged the assumption of clonal inheritance in
mitochondria, suggesting that fathers, not just mothers, might be
contributing mitochondrial DNA to their offspring, a process called
recombination. ... The findings have yet to convince most
researchers who study the genetic inheritance. ... said Dr. Lynn B.
Jorde, a human geneticist at the University of Utah. "...Many of us
feel that it is not really that great, especially as we look at their data
and re-evaluate." ... Dr. Jorde said he and Dr. Alan Rogers, an
anthropologist at the same university, had found problems with the
study. ... In an interview, Dr. Eyre-Walker said his group had
addressed the question of allele frequencies but acknowledged that
they might not have covered all the "subtleties in the statistics."...
[Sounds like reports of the death of Mitochondrial Eve have been
greatly exaggerated?]
http://cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/25/science.recognition.reut/index.html
CNN ... Never forget a face? Become a bird watcher January 25,
2000 ... WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The same part of the brain
exercised by people who "never forget a face" is used by bird-
watchers to tell a sparrow from a starling and by men who can
instantly recognize the latest model car, researchers said on
Monday. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience,
could help explain why such experts can pick out their chosen
subject with just a glance -- as easily as most people can find a
friend in a crowd. Recognizing faces is, of course, important for
human beings, and this information is known to be processed in
small region of the visual cortex called the fusiform face area (FFA).
... [Another special purpose module without which human life as we
know it would be impossible. Isn't the `blind watchmaker'
wonderful? :-)]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_618000/618365.stm
BBC ... 25 January, 2000 ... The robot scouring the Antarctic ice
for meteorites has tracked one down. The small space rock was
identified on Saturday and shows the robot can use its sensors to
automatically tell the difference between meteorites and Earthly
pebbles. ... Researchers had already seen the meteorite whilst
walking over the test area, but the robot, called Nomad, found,
analysed and classified the rock all by itself. ... Using visual and
spectroscopic data, Nomad came up with a 22% confidence value
that the rock was a meteorite. The robot found seven other rocks
during the sweep and correctly identified them as terrestrial - the
average confidence values was 5%. ... Also at:
http://cnn.com/2000/NATURE/01/24/nomad.meteors.enn/index.html
CNN ... 'Nomad' combs no-man's-land for meteors January 24,
2000 ... "Every time [the robot] captures a rock, it takes a picture of
it, classifies it and tries to estimate the probability of it being a
meteorite given its size and shape," said Apostolopoulos. When
Nomad spots a good candidate, he moves in for a closer inspection
with instruments attached to a moveable arm. His tool kit includes a
spectrometer, which shines light on the rock and analyzes the
spectrum... If Nomad determines the object under scrutiny is indeed
a meteorite, the robot will radio its exact coordinates to
researchers, who will later retrieve the object to confirm Nomad's
findings. "Nomad saves this data in its database and thinks 'what
does this new information mean' and incorporates it into its past
knowledge," .... "Its learns and improves its experience. The more
samples it analyzes the better it gets." [If it finds anything which
looks vaguely like life, then Nomad emails the President to call a
press conference on the White House lawn! :-)]
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns222252 New Scientist
Sat, 22 Jan 2000 ... Flying out of control Alien species can evolve at an
alarming rate FRUIT flies accidentally introduced to Americas two decades
ago have evolved at an unprecedented rate. .... Huey and his colleagues
discovered the unexpectedly rapid evolution while studying the fruit fly
Drosophila subobscura. ... [They] wondered how the wingspan of the
insects had changed since they reached North America. ... ten years ago, a
study in the flies in America revealed no such trend. ... It turned out that
the wingspan of North American females had indeed changed. Females, and
to a lesser degree males, showed the same increase in wingspan with
latitude as their counterparts that have lived in Europe for around 10 000
years. And the adaptation, although similar, was achieved differently, with
the exotic flies lengthening a different part of their wing. More shocking is
the speed and scale of change. Galapagos finches are the only other
organism known to have evolved faster in nature, after a drought in 1978
led to a dramatic shift in beak size in a local population of birds. But the
flies are changing across the country. "Evolution has occurred not just on a
local scale, but on a continental scale," says Huey. ... [This is another
example of evolutionists' habit of seeing any change as "evolution". If this
rate of change is too fast for Darwinian mutation and natural selection, then
it would seem to be another example of the genome's ability to respond
rapidly to environmental change without gene-substitution. In that case it
would neither be Darwinian nor would it even be evolution!]
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"To have any hope of success the neo-Darwinian theory must therefore
appeal to a reproductive model quite different from the model mostly
adopted by single-celled organisms. This is already an immense climb down
from what is usually claimed for the theory. Gone is its "obvious" status.
Only if a model can be found that contrives to uncouple the selective
properties of one gene from another, permitting the occasional good
mutation to survive and prosper in a sea of bad mutations, can evolution be
made to work at all. How exquisitely complex the model needs to be to
achieve such a remarkable result will be discussed in the next chapter."
(Hoyle F., "Mathematics of Evolution", [1987], Acorn Enterprises:
Memphis TN, 1999, p10)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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