Reflectorites
Below are web articles for the period 16 - 22 March, with my comments in square
brackets.
Steve
========================================================
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000322/sc/science_knuckles_2.html
Yahoo! ... March 22 ... Bone Study Suggests Ancestors Were
KnuckleWalkers ... WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When humanity's early
ancestors first jumped down from the trees, they did not walk fully upright
but probably scooted along on their knuckles much like chimpanzees and
gorillas do today.... A chance discovery made by looking at a cast of the
bones of "Lucy," the most famous fossil remains of the early hominid
known scientifically as Australopithecus afarensis, shows her wrist is stiff,
like a chimpanzee's ... This suggests that her ancestors -- and ours --
walked on their knuckles. The stiff wrist limits the flexibility of the hand
but makes the forearm strong enough to carry the weight of a heavy
primate .... "We have found evidence in the wrist joint that sheds new light
on arguably the most fundamental adaptation in humans ... which is why
did humans start walking upright?" .... "Walking upright is the hallmark of
humanity. It is the feature that defines all of our ancestors to the exclusion
of our ape relatives." Lucy, who lived in Africa between 4.1 and 3 million
years ago, did walk upright. Her hip and leg bones make that clear. ... But
she did not have the flexible wrists that allowed later humans to throw
spears and make tools. .... Humans came to walk upright, leaving their
hands free to gather and carry things, while apes compromised, keeping
their ability to climb while also sometimes coming to the ground. ...
Chimpanzees and gorillas have a special locking mechanism that prevents
the wrists from cocking back very far." Lucy has it, too. He said it was not
until Australopithecus africanus emerged, about 2.5 million years ago, that
the wrist became mobile like that of modern humans. Now Richmond said
the question is why Lucy's ancestors started to stand upright if they were
already able to come down from the trees and get around on the ground.
"This supports theories that argue there must have been something new in
terms of the use of hands," he said. "The hands were being dedicated to a
new role -- such as picking food from trees while standing upright or
carrying food." Also: http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/23/knucklewalkers.ap/index.html
... Other scientists praised the research, which appears to resolve a
longstanding debate over genetic tests that show a close evolutionary
relationship between chimps and humans even though it was not supported
by fossils. "We are more closely related to chimps than either of us is to
gorillas, yet they share the same specialization that doesn't appear in our
ancestry," .... "The simple solution is that a common ancestor was a
knuckle-walker, but the fossil record doesn't seem to jibe with that." The
new research shows that at least some early humans had that unique trait.
"If the anatomical analyses are shown to be correct, I think it's a hugely
important breakthrough in our understanding of early bipedalism," ... [If
bipedalism in Lucy's legs arose while her arms were still able to
knucklewalk, then this suggests that bipedalism was a *pre*-adaptation not
an adaptation. That is, function followed form, not the other way around as
Darwinism would expect. That is, the genetic programs for Lucy's legs,
feet, hips, spine, skull base and balance mechanism all started to change in
the direction of bipedalism and `her' behavior had to adapt to these
changes. But the apes never received those genetic program changes, only
the line which eventually led to humans. This is IMHO good evidence for
Intelligent Design, not for the `blind watchmaker'!]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000323/sc/science_fly_2.html Yahoo!
... March 23 ... Scientists Map Fruit Fly's Genes ... ROCKVILLE, Md.
(Reuters) - Scientists said ... they had sequenced all the genes in the
common fruit fly, a move that could provide new insights into human
disease and evolution. It is the most complex organism yet to have its
genome sequenced -- meaning the makeup of its DNA has been mapped
but not yet decoded. Fruit flies, a favorite tool of biologists, have much in
common with higher animals including as humans. The researchers, at
Celera Genomics ...and elsewhere say they have found a surprising number
of new genes that we share with the tiny insects, known scientifically as
Drosophila melanogaster... While the scientific community has been
strongly skeptical of Celera's approach to sequencing genes, known as the
"shotgun approach," ... this week's edition of the journal Science is
unusually lavish in its praise. "This sequence may be the Rosetta Stone for
deciphering the human genome," ... a "landmark achievement that marks
the end of a century of gene hunting and heralds a new era of exploration
and analysis." Genomics is a new science that involves studying the entire
collection of an organism's genes. The idea is to compare them to each
other and to other creatures to learn more about the very stuff of life -...
what makes an amoeba different from a chimpanzee. The eventual aim is to
come to know and understand every single human gene.... Both Celera and
a public collaboration known as the Human Genome Project are racing to
finish the first step in this process, which is sequencing all the 100,000
human genes. Celera says it is more than 90 percent finished and is
presenting its fruit fly data to show its computer-based methods work. ...
they must still analyze their map and that their work is far from done. ...
Also: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/032400sci-human-genome.html
The New York Times March 24, 2000 ... PITTSBURGH, ... 1,300 fly biologists at
their annual meeting found on their chairs a gift from Celera, a CD-ROM of the
genome sequence of their favorite organism. Dr. Venter was given a standing
ovation ... Some biologists say the Drosophila work does not guarantee that the
Venter approach will meet with similar success with the human genome. "Though
a major accomplishment, I don't think it proves they can assemble the human
genome," .... One immediate surprise is that so few genetic instructions are
required for the development and maintenance of a fly, compared with the number
known to be needed by other organisms. The fruit fly is a complex miniature
machine with elaborate behavior and a courtship ritual that, fly people assert,
closely resembles the human variety. Yet it has only twice as many genes as yeast,
a single-celled fungus, and considerably fewer than the 18,425 of the C. elegans
roundworm, the only other animal whose entire genome has been sequenced. "This
says you build complexity not by having more genes but by using them in more
inventive ways," ... people, with their predicted total of 80,000 genes, acquire their
greater complexity from a more elaborate arrangement of the same basic parts,
resembling a fruit fly much as a supercomputer resembles a personal computer.
"Once evolution got it right, it basically made minor tinkerings," he said, referring
to the time, 600 million years ago, when flies and people last had a common
ancestor ... there is one major omission from the fly genome: the large DNA
regions that form the central part of the fly's four chromosomes ...This DNA is
thought to contain almost no genes and to play a largely structural role ... In the
case of the fly, 60 million of the 180 million DNA units in the genome are
structural DNA, and 120 million units are in regions that code for genes. The
structural DNA consists of the same string of DNA letters repeated thousands of
times over, and cannot be decoded by present techniques. Most of the remaining
gaps in the fly genome occur in the zones where the gene-coding arms of the
chromosomes merge into the central regions of structural DNA. ... participants at
the jamboree were the first to see the fly genome and try to define the little
creature's complex genetic programming ... The biologists would describe a
pattern that should be looked for, and the bioinformaticists -- a new class of expert
who use computers to analyze genomes - would stay up all night writing the
appropriate software. .... "I am still optimistic that when people see the Drosophila
results, there will be renewed efforts at collaboration," Dr. Venter said, alluding to
recently broken-off negotiations with the public consortium to join forces on the
human genome. But the public consortium, treading piece by piece along the
genome, is also making substantial progress in a race now in its final laps. ... [A
fascinating `tortoise and hare' race! There is a lot of grist for ID's mill here.
Genomes like computers. A new science of " bioinformatics". The fact that using
genes "in more inventive ways" is more important than their number. Also IMHO
ID would predict that the noncoding sections of DNA will turn out to be
important, e.g. to slow down replication to better match cellular materials
transport in times of adversity and/or have a subtle code embedded in it which is
important to the using of genes "in more inventive ways", etc.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000317/sc/space_meteorite_1.html Yahoo! ...
March 17 ... Meteorite a 'Cosmic Bonanza' for Scientists VANCOUVER (Reuters)
- A meteorite that dazzled viewers when it exploded in the atmosphere over the
wilderness of the Canada-Alaska border may soon provide scientists with a
glimpse into life before the Earth was created. Charcoal-like fragments of the
meteorite indicate it is about 4.5 billion years old -- possibly predating the birth of
the solar system -and make the discovery a "cosmic bonanza," .... "It tells us what
the initial materials were like that which went into making up the Earth, the moon
and the sun," .... The meteorite exploded ... January 18 ... The location of the
explosion turned out to be ideal for scientists, because the frozen conditions helped
preserve organic materials ... About 2 pounds (1 kg) of meteorite fragments have
been recovered so far... Also: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/03/17/yukon.meteor/index.html
CNN ... Rare meteorite promises glimpse into dawn of creation ... March 17, 2000
...JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas (CNN) -- ...The crumbly, black, porous
rock fragments have charred, pocked surfaces and retain the smell of sulfur. They
look like used charcoal briquettes. But they actually are examples of carbonaceous
chondrite, a rare meteorite type that holds many kinds of carbon and organics, the
basic ingredients in the primordial soup from which life arose. Only about 2
percent of meteorites known to have reached Earth are carbonaceous chondrites,
which tend to deteriorate when they enter the atmosphere or during weathering on
the ground. ... The last time a similar carbonaceous chondrite fell to Earth and was
recovered was 31 years ago....They are the only newly fallen meteorite fragments
found and transferred to a laboratory without thawing, NASA said. Keeping them
constantly frozen reduces the risk that organics and other volatile compounds will
escape. ... [This might settle the question of whether life's 20 L-amino acids and
other biomolecules occur naturally in space.]
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2565029560-4d4 ... 03/17/00
Museum Unveils Bird-Like Dinosaur ... DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) _ Scientists
have identified what may be the most convincing evolutionary link yet between
dinosaurs and birds: a 75 million-year-old creature with a roadrunner's body, arms
that resembled clawed wings, and thin, hair-like feathers. The Florida Institute of
Paleontology unveiled the first recovered skeleton of the species _ bambiraptor
feinbergi _ .... It is not clear whether it could fly, but experts said that anatomically it
is the most bird-like dinosaur yet discovered. They said the finding advances the
increasingly popular theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. ... Ostrum said
bambiraptor has several traits usually found in birds, such as a wishbone instead of a
full breastbone and avian-like arm bones. About 3 feet long and weighing 7 pounds,
.... It would have preyed on small mammals and reptiles, using its teeth, sharp talons
and whip-like 18-inch tail to subdue its prey, ... It was fast, had a keen sense of smell
and the structure of its arms and its feathers may have allowed it to fly... In October,
Canadian paleontologist Phil Currie reported that a turkey-sized dinosaur called
archeoraptor that lived 120 million to 140 million years ago was the first dinosaur
capable of flying ... Also: http://www.sunsentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,29000000000113706,00.html
Sun-Sentinel ... Graves museum unveils rare dinosaur fossil -- the Bambiraptor ...
Mar. 17, 2000 DANIA BEACH -- .... Bambiraptor will take center stage at the
Florida symposium of dinosaur-bird evolution April 7-9 .... It will feature such
experts as Phil J. Currie, curator of dinosaurs at Royal Tyrell Museum of
Paleontology in Canada...because Bambiraptor was excavated almost intact and
shares so many features with birds, it will convince more people that birds descend
from dinosaurs. "When you look at it, you can easily understand the transition
from dinosaur to bird," Currie said. .... [At 75 myo, Bambiraptor is over 70 myr
too late to be a plausible ancestor of birds - Archaeopteryx is dated at ~ 145 mya.
More likely IMHO is that Bambiraptor is a flightless bird. The first article does not
point out that archeoraptor was a fake and the second that Currie advised National
Geographic that archeoraptor was genuine. Currie seems to have a strong desire to
convince the public that "birds descend from dinosaurs" and this may have warped
his scientific objectivity?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000316/sc/science_snakes_1.html Yahoo! ...
March 16 ... Argument About Snake Evolution Rekindled by Fossil ... NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Did snakes first slither onto land from the sea, or did their
ancestors first evolve on land? That's one of the questions a fossil snake with legs
has raised for scientists who thought they had already sorted out the origin of
serpents. The snake fossil, found more than 20 years ago in a limestone quarry
near Jerusalem, represents a new species, according to researchers .... "Haasiophis
terrasanctus" ... was about three feet long (0.9 meters) and lived in the shallow
waters of a Cretaceous sea that covered part of the Middle East during the days of
the dinosaurs. It is the second limbed snake to come from Ein Yabrud, a 95
million-year- old bed of sedimentary rock that also yielded "Pachyrachis
problematicus," another important fossil with clues to the origins of snakes.
Scientists believe that modern snakes are descended from lizards and that they lost
their limbs over time. Remnants of these limbs can still be found in the anatomy of
boa constrictors and pythons, just as the remnants of tails can be found in human
anatomy. But a description of Haasiophis ... has researchers once again puzzling
whether snakes evolved from sea-going lizards, or from lizards which lived in
seashore burrows. .... In the 1970s, when Haas first described Pachyrachis, he
thought that the well-developed hind limbs and advanced skull characteristics
meant that the fossils weren't from snakes at all. Instead he thought they were
reptiles related to a species of huge ocean-going Cretaceous lizards called
mosasaurs. Then in 1997, certain features in Pachyrachis' skull led scientists to put
it at the root of the snake's family tree as a sort of "missing link" between
mosasaurs and true snakes that at some point took to the land. Rieppel and his
colleagues now argue that traits found in Haasiophis and Pachyrachis are more
akin to those of modern snakes, like the ability to unhinge their jaws to eat things
larger than their heads. Such traits, ..., mean that they are more closely related to
modern snakes. So they "cannot be related to primitive mosasaurs," .... Rieppel
believes the ancestors of modern snakes were burrowing lizards that lived on land,
but he acknowledges that the West Bank fossils do not provide clear answers to
the question. ... "And so we are back to not knowing what kind of an origin snakes
had," ... the most intriguing aspect about the West Bank fossils is they may show
that certain "atavistic" traits can re-evolve if the right genes are triggered. The
West Bank fossils may be snakes whose limbs re-evolved, making them "real
snakes, just extinct real snakes" with legs, .... Greene postulates that if animals like
the West Bank fossils could re-evolve limbs, then other animals that have certain
genes they never lost but whose "triggers" are dormant could re-evolve those
traits. Maybe humans will end up with tails again. Also at:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/17/snakelegs.ap/ CNN ... Leggy snake
slithers out of obscurity March 17, 2000 ... WASHINGTON (AP) ... The snake's
legs aren't much to brag about. They are too small in relation to the animal's body
to have any function in moving the snake, Rieppel said. Modern pythons have a
rudimentary hind limb, usually little more than a claw of cartilage tipped with bone
that they use during mating and occasional fighting, and it is possible that
Haasiophis' leg served a similar purpose .... his team's analysis also indicates that
these two snakes were not primitive ancestors, but advanced snakes similar to
modern boas and pythons. The new anatomical interpretation suggests that neither
Pachyrhachis nor Haasiophis have anything to do with snake origins ... &
http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,SAV-0003170288,FF.html
Chicago Tribune ... SCIENTIST GOES OUT ON A LIMB FOR SNAKES LEG
FOSSILS STIR AGE-OLD DEBATE ... March 17, 2000 In the third chapter of
Genesis, the tale of Adam and Eve and the serpent who enticed them ends with
God's famous punishment for the wily reptile: "So the Lord God said to the
serpent, `Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and
all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days
of your life....' " While the Bible does not specifically say it, the implication is that
the snake once had legs to get around on, and God took them away.... The
religious interest came about because the fossilized snakes with legs were found in
a limestone quarry so close to Jerusalem. Many fundamentalists were convinced
the quarry must be the site of the Garden of Eden. They assumed the fossils were
skeletons of some of the last limbed snakes to live before God took their legs away
in punishment for tempting Adam's wife Eve in the garden. [I don't know about
this bit of Biblical eisegesis, but this appears to be another evolutionary transitional
`just-so' story which (like the Biblical snake) bites the dust! It has been one of the
few laws of evolution, i.e. Dollo's Law, that evolution cannot reverse itself. If traits
can be phenotypically lost, but remain genotypically unexpressed, then atavistically
reappear again when the conditions are right, it would throw another huge spanner
in the works of Darwinism, because claimed naturally selected features could just
be previously switched off genes which have switched on again. It also would
spike the pseudogene anti-design arguments for a similar reason. A pseudogene
could just be just a switched off gene which will switch on again one day when the
conditions are right, or it could be a gene that was once switched on but is now
switched off because it is no longer needed.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000315/sc/health_pigs_3.html Yahoo! ...
March 15 ... LONDON (Reuters) - Pig Organ Transplants Raise Ethical Dilemmas
...The cloning of pigs could relieve the global shortage of donor organs but critics
... challenged the ethics of changing the genetic makeup of animal species and
using their organs in humans ... Who gave humans the right to alter other species?
Should animals endure suffering and cruelty so we can live longer? Will animal
organs intrinsically change the people who receive them? Can animal viruses be
transferred to humans and do they pose a threat to human health? ... The use of
animal organs came closer to reality Tuesday when a British biopharmaceutical
company, PPL Therapeutics Plc, announced it had created the world's first cloned
pigs. The Edinburgh-based group hailed the achievement as a very important step
in xenotransplantation, animal-to-human transplants, and predicted cloned pigs
could one day provide a limitless supply of organs. ... patients receiving animal
organs would have severe restrictions placed on their lifestyles. "Recommendations
have been published by the UK Xenotransplantation Interim Regulatory Authority
... which suggests that anyone who receives an animal organ should never have
unprotected sex and will never have children," ...the British Union for the
Abolition of Vivisection, said a poll it conducted showed that 68 percent of
Britons are against animal-to-human transplants. "This opinion poll shows that
over two thirds of the population want a freeze on pig- to-human organ transplants
and a full public debate -- this cannot be ignored," .... [A good summary of the
ethical concerns re cloning for animal-human transplantation. My semester Biology
assignment is on cloning: its methods and ethics, so this has come at *just* the
right time for me!]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000315/sc/genome_reaction_1.html Yahoo!
... March 15 ... British Biotechs Defend Patenting Gene Technology LONDON
(Reuters) - Britain's biotechnology industry defended its right to patent gene-based
inventions on Wednesday following a move by the United States and Britain to
free up access to the mapping of human genes. The Bioindustry Association said
patents were the only way to exploit the promise offered by decoding the human
genetic map, offering companies a reward for spending an average 300 to 400
million pounds and 10 to 15 years in developing new drugs. ... "It's quite simply a
case of no patent, no cure," .... But the White House itself said ... the move was
not aimed at hurting biotech companies, rather at promoting competition and
profits from making the research freely available to firms so they can use it to
create new medicines. ... A handful of genomics companies, like U.S.-based Celera
Genomics, are racing to sequence all the genes in the human body, and want to
patent and license their information for profit. While such firms might be hurt, ...
biotech companies that actually developed the drugs would benefit from free
access to the information. [It seems that applications based on genes will be
patentable, but not the genes themselves?]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000315/sc/science_sex_1.html Yahoo! ...
March 15 ... British Researchers Show Why Sex Is Here to Stay LONDON
(Reuters) - Sex isn't the quickest way to continue a species but British scientists
think they may have figured out why it is here to stay. Asexual organisms --
including many plants and fungi and some invertebrate animals -- can reproduce
more quickly because each individual makes a clone of itself without having to
mate first. Evolutionary biologists have puzzled over the reason why asexual
reproduction, which produces more offspring more rapidly, has not replaced sexual
reproduction. ... researchers ... constructed a model that demonstrates why. It
shows the advantages of asexual reproduction are eliminated because more
offspring are competing for the same food and resources. "It's an ecological
problem... "Co-existence is the stable outcome. The sexual and the asexual can co-
exist quite happily even though the sexual one reproduces at half the rate of the
asexual one," ... "The first animals and plants in the world were asexual and at
some point sexuality evolved, so one can ask the reverse question of how it ever
got a foothold," .... sexual reproduction has the added advantage of genetic
variation and allows species to rid themselves of mutations. "The asexuals do
themselves in. They are ridden with competition so they negate their own threat to
the sexual species," ... [This explains why sexual reproduction has advantages in
the long run. It does not explain why it came into existence in the first place. A
`blind watchmaker' cannot see the long run. All it can see is the immediate
advantage. This is even more of a problem for `selfish gene' neo-Darwinism. Why
would selfish genes allow themselves to be eliminated for the long run good of the
organism and the ecology? This is of course not a problem for Intelligent Design
theory.]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000318/sc/spain_lizards_1.html Yahoo!
March 18 ... Spanish Scientists Discover 'Extinct' Lizards MADRID (Reuters) -
Spanish biologists have discovered a species of giant lizard that was previously
thought to have died out around 500 years ago ... The lizard, called galliota
gomerona by its scientific name, was only known to scientists through fossilized
remains until the discovery of six living examples on the cliffs of La Gomera, one
of the Canary Islands ... the lizards, which measure up to half a meter (yard) in
length, were slow moving and easy prey for predators introduced to the island by
man, especially cats. ... Scientists believe the giant lizards arrived in the Canary
Islands from Africa around 15 million years ago. ... Also at:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/03/18/bc.spain.lizardfound.ap/index.html
CNN ... The half-meter (1.6-feet)-long reptile was discovered in Spain's Canary
Islands.... In recent years, other giant lizards have been found in Tenerife and in el
Hierro. ... [One wonders how many other claimed species extinctions aren't just
that they have become rare and not easily found?]
HIV/AIDS:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000316/sc/aids_unicef_1.html Yahoo! ...
March 16 ... Confused Myanmar AIDS Signals Alarm United Nations ...
BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) - Military-ruled Myanmar is giving "confused
and conflicting signals" about its AIDS crisis and not diverting enough
resources to essential health programs, UNICEF's regional director has said.
"There are times when one part of the Burmese (Myanmar) government seems
to acknowledge HIV/AIDS is a big and growing problem," ... And then you
hear another part of the government at another time saying 'it's not a big
problem, it's all being exaggerated'. ... the Myanmar government's estimate of
HIV infections was only around 25,000 while the World Health Organization
projected at least 440,000. ... The fact is that HIV/AIDS incidents are on the
rise and no effective measures seem to be taken in Myanmar that are
commensurate with the crisis." ... General Says Aids Problem Exaggerated ...
General Khin Nyunt, the intelligence chief considered the most powerful figure
in Myanmar's government, accused critics of exaggerating the country's AIDS
problem and said it was not the catastrophe they maintained. ... [Yet another
country saying that international statistics on HIV/AIDS are being
exaggerated. Of course Myanmar one could argue that has a bias to understate
the problem but one could also argue that the UN has a bias the other way?]
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"At a recent meeting in Chicago, a highly distinguished international panel
of experts was polled. All considered the experimental production of life in
the laboratory imminent, and one maintained that this has already been
done-his opinion was not based on a disagreement about the facts but on a
definition as to just where, in a continuous sequence, life can be said to
begin." (Simpson G.G., "The World into Which Darwin Led Us," Science, Vol.
131, No. 3405, 1 April *1960*, pp.966-974, p.969. My emphasis)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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