Final Notice: PZ Myers in Toronto and Guelph

 
The Center for Inquiry, Toronto and The University of Toronto Secular Alliance are sponsoring a lecture by PZ Myers this Friday evening (Halloween). Contact me if you want to meet PZ.

From the CFI press release ...

Fri, Oct 31, 2008, 7:30pm at University of Toronto, J.J.R. MacLeod Auditorium. A catered reception with PZ exclusively for Friends of the Centre will take place from 6:00 - 7:00 pm at the Centre For Inquiry.

Partnered with the University of Toronto Secular Alliance the Centre for Inquiry - Ontario presents the popular biologist and author of the stimulating blog Pharyngula. Dr. Myers is an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He obtained his B.S in zoology from the university of Washington and his Ph.D. in biology from the Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon. His blog is the most widely read science blog on the internet with topics ranging from octopus, religion and getting kicked out of Expelled.

Note:  On Sat, Nov 1, 2008, 2-4pm Guelph Campus Skeptics will host a more informal interactive discussion with PZ Myers at the University of Guelph, A.A. Thornbrough Building, Rm. 1200 (click THRN on the map). There will be refreshments available from 1 - 2pm. The cost is $3 and free for members of CFI.

PZ Myers Presents: Science Education: caught in the middle of the war between science and religion

Friday, October 31, 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
MacLeod Auditorium
2158-1 King's College Circle,
Room 2158, Toronto, ON, M5S1A8

See the PZ Myers Visit website for more information, including how to get tickets and how to get to the MacLeod Auditorium.

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Chris Nedin Enters the Blogosphere

 
Chris Nedin is an interrupted paleontologist who studied Ediacaran and Early Cambrian palaeontology, palaeoecology and taphonomy. He was one of the early regulars on the newsgroup talk.origins and he even came to a Howlerfest in Toronto a few years ago (1997).¹ (Chris lives in Australia.)

Chris Nedin has now become a blogger. Visit Ediacaran and read his first posting: The Spandrels of San Marco and the Anomalocaris Paradigm. Here's a teaser ..

The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm is one of my favourite science papers. As someone who accepts natural selection as a powerful evolutionary mechanism, but who considers that there are other, equally, or perhaps more, powerful mechanism out there, such as genetic drift, this paper resonated a lot with me. To summarise the paper (if you haven’t read it, please do), not everything that happens in evolution occurs because it was selected for. Like spandrels, things can happen as a consequence of other events. To summarise the summary, sh*t happens.

Here I’d like to develop that theme using Anomalocarus.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Chris. With an opening like that, we expect big things in the future.

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1. I still remember how excited he and Saint Andrew (Andrew MacRae) were when the curators at the Royal Ontario Museum pulled out their famous fossil of Anomalocarus to look at. Chris and Andrew, being paleontologists, were the only ones allowed to touch it. Chris was also thrilled to see the trilobites with bite marks. Read his posting to see why.

What Does Marcus Antonius Tell Us about Evolution?

 
Meet my (probably mythical)¹ ancestor, Marcus Antonius (83 BC - 30 BC), better known as Mark Antony. (Color photo not available.)

Mark Antony was a friend, and cousin, of Gaius Julius Caesar, although after Caesar's assassination he stopped praising Caesar. Mark Antony had a falling out with Octavian (Augustus) after the Second Triumvirate split up and he ended up in Egypt. The history is kind of interesting but not very relevant.

We're mostly concerned about Mark Antony's genes. Near the end of his life he had three children by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt; the twins Alexander Helios & Cleopatra Selene II and Ptolemy Philadelphus. This led to gene flow between the Italians and subpopulations in the Middle East. (There were other liaisons that contributed to gene flow in both directions between the Middle East and Europe.)

Before moving to Egypt, Mark had several wives in Rome. One of them was Octavia Major and they had a daughter, Antonia Minor. Antonia married Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus and one of her sons was Claudius Cæsar (Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus), Emperor of Rome. At the time Antonia and Drusus were living in Lugdunum (Lyon, France).

Claudius married Valeria Messalina (granddaughter of Octavia) and their daughter was Genvissa (Venus Julia). Claudius then married Julia Agripina and had more children, including Emperor Nero. We aren't interested in Julia Agripina except to note her scientific contribution to the understanding of eukarotic transcription [Mushrooms for Dinner].

Genvisa married Arviragus, King of Siluria, in 45 AD. Siluria was a kingdom in the south of Wales and at the time they were resisting Roman occupation. Arviragus became King of the Britons. Their son was Meric (Marius) , King of the Britons. Do you see where this is headed?

Meric married Penardun and their son was Coel I "Old King", King of Siluria. Coel had a SON who in turn had an unnamed GRANDSON who had a daughter named Alofe (Aife).

Alofe married Fiachadh III Streabhruine, 120th Ard Righ of Ireland, and their son was Muirreadhach Tireach , King of Connought, 122nd Ard Righ of Ireland.

Muirreadhach married Murien and their son was Eochaidh Moihmeodhain (Echu Mugmedón), 124th Ard Righ of Ireland.

Eochaidh married Carthan Casduff and their son was Niall Nóigiallach - Niall of the Nine Hostages, my ancestor and the ancestor of about 100 million other people.

Thus, Marcus Antonius is also my ancestor.

The figure below show that the various subpopulations within Europe are genetically distinct (Novembre et al. 2008). See my recent posting, Genes and Geography with a link to Razib's explanation of the structure of populations at Gene Expression [Genetic map of Europe; genes vary as a function of distance].

This data represents only a small percentage of the genetic variation in Europeans. Much of the remaining variation does not show a geographic distribution like the one in the figure because the variants arose much earlier. They have had time to spread to all subpopulations, or perhaps they pre-date the founding of the European population.

Novembre et al. also had to restrict their analysis to those 1,387 individuals who had both sets of grandparents from the same region. Many of the remaining group of 1,805 individuals did not know where their grandparents were born but a substantial number had grandparents from two different regions. What this means is that there is substantial ongoing gene flow between the various subpopulations

What does this have to do with Mark Antony? Quite a bit, actually. Looking at the figure from the Nature paper one can't help but be struck by what it says about population structure and gene flow in the past. The pink individuals in the upper left-hand have clearly been partially isolated from the rest of the European population for quite some time—equivalent to about 40-60 generations.

We know that this group has received alleles from Italy via Mark Antony and Niall of the Nine Hostages and probably from a great many other Italians who were living in Roman Britain. This level of gene flow amounts to just a trickle and the foreign alleles might easily be diluted out by random genetic drift.

We can think of gene flow in the opposite direction by considering what might have happened if a favorable allele had arisen in the Irish population about 1500 years ago. While it might have spread rapidly in Ireland, chance are it would not have made much impression in the rest of the European subpopulations until very recently. All bets are off now that humans have become so mobile but it is worth keeping in mind that the populations of most other species probably look a lot like ours did only a few centuries ago.

New beneficial alleles will not make much headway in 2000 years because gene flow between subpopulations is very low. There's no reason to assume that it was any different in the ancient past—it may even have been worse. Think about that the next time you hear about some hypothetical allele that arose 50,000 years ago and became fixed in the entire species. That's not very likely.

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1. See comments. It looks like Genvissa, the presumed daughter of Claudius, is a mythical character made up many centuries after her presumed marriage to the King of the Siluria.

Novembre J, Johnson T, Bryc K, Kutalik Z, Boyko AR, Auton A, Indap A, King KS, Bergmann S, Nelson MR, Stephens M, Bustamante CD (2008) Genes mirror geography within Europe. Nature, Published online 31 August 2008 [doi:10.1038/nature07331]

Niall Nóigiallach - Niall of the Nine Hostages

 
Niall Nóigiallach is a very famous man (Nóigiallach is Gaelic for "having Nine Hostages"). He was an Irish King who lived from about 350 to 405 AD. The "nine hostages" refers to hostages that he kept from each of the places that owed him allegiance.

Niall was fond of raiding the coast of Roman Britain and on one of those raids he captured a man named Maewyn Succat, who became a slave in Ireland. Succat eventually escaped, returned to Britain, and became a Christian missionary. He then went back to Ireland to convert the Irish heathens to Christianity. We know Maewyn Succat by his Christian name, Patrick, or Saint Patrick.

The reason Niall Nóigiallach is famous is because he is associated with the List of High Kings of Ireland, one of the oldest well-established genealogies in all of Europe. Anybody who connects to the lineage can trace ancestors back to about 100 AD.

Niall is also famous for another reason. DNA studies indicate that one in twelve Irish men carry a Y chromosome haplotype that traces back to Niall. The haplotype is also common in Scotland and England, and on the continent. This makes Niall one of only a handful of men who have millions of direct male descendants. (Genghis Khan was another [Genghis Khan a Prolific Lover, DNA Data Implies].)

Families that trace their ancestry back to Niall of the Nine Hostages include: (O')Neill, (O')Gallagher, (O')Boyle, (O')Doherty, O'Donnell, Connor, Cannon, Bradley, O'Reilly, Flynn, (Mc)Kee, Campbell, Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, Hynes, McCaul, McGovern, McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, O'Kane, O'Rourke and Quinn.

My mother's maiden name is Doherty. We are descendants of the O'Dochartaigh's of Donegal in the north-west part Ireland. Donegal is in the Republic of Ireland not in the part of Ulster that became what is now called "Northern Ireland", which is part of the United Kingdom. Donegal is near where the most intense spot on the DNA map is located.

My mother was hoping to establish the direct connection between her ancestors and the ancient lineage leading to Niall but it hasn't been possible. That was a big disappointment because I thought it would be fun to have a known ancestor from 400 AD.

Recently I discovered that my ancestors connect to the Niall lineage through English and through Scottish lines that are completely unrelated to the Doherty's. This shows, once again, that most people in England, Scotland, and Ireland are related if you go back far enough. The fact that so many lineages connect to the Niall lineage is not as significant as you might think. It's mostly because that ancient lineage is so well known.

In my case, the connections come through Isabel de Clare, grandmother of Robert the Bruce of Scotland, and through Isabel Mar, the wife of Robert the Bruce. Niall Nóigiallach is one of my ancestors.

If your ancestors are from the British Isles, chances are pretty high that we are related if we go back 60 generations. We all have about a trillion potential ancestors back then but that's five orders of magnitude more than all the people who lived in the British Isles at that time.

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Happy Mole Day!

 
Today is "Mole Day," celebrated as part of National Chemistry Week. You can read all about it on Adventures in Ethics and Science [Happy Mole Day! (What's a mole?)].

What do you mean, "it's not that kind of mole?"¹

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1. What would you call 6.02 × 10²³ Cindy Crawford moles?

Bar Graphs, Pie Charts, and Darwin

One of Ms. Sandwalk's ancestors is William Playfair (1789 - 1823). Her great grandfather—the great-great-grandfather of my children—was John Playfair Leslie. John's mother is a direct descendant of William Playfair.

William Playfair was an interesting man for many reasons. He is most famous for inventing statistical graphs; especially pie charts and bar graphs. These were printed in his famous book, Commercial and Political Atlas, published in 1786. Two examples of figures from that book are shown here.

But that's not all that Playfair did. His biographers call him an "engineer, political economist and scoundrel." I won't talk about the "scoundrel" part except to mention that it's probably an accurate description. One of the more legal things he did was to participate in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. (See William Playfair for some of the less legal activities.)

William Playfair was born in Scotland and lived with his older brother John Playfair in Edinburgh. John Playfair was a distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. Their other brother was the architect James Playfair.

William Playfair was trained as an engineer with Andrew Meikle, the inventor of the threshing machine. Following his apprenticeship, he joined the company Boulton & Watt in Birmingham, England. This company operated a large plant that manufactured steam engines. William Playfair was assistant to James Watt.

It was during his time in Birmingham that Playfair made the connection that's so important to readers of Sandwalk.


In Birmingham, William Playfair associated with the members of the Lunar Society and attended their meetings. In addition to Matthew Boulton and James Watt, his bosses, there were other members whose names may be familiar; Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestly, and Erasmus Darwin. Erasmus is Charles Darwin's grandfather. Josiah Wedgewood was Charles Darwin's other grandfather.

I keep hoping that one or more of my ancestors would have known Charles Darwin or even been related. No such luck. This is as close as it gets. My wife and children have an ancestor who hung out with Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgewood.

I'm jealous.

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Society Without God

 
From Amazon.com.

Before he began his recent travels, it seemed to Phil Zuckerman as if humans all over the globe were “getting religion” — praising deities, performing holy rites, and soberly defending the world from sin. But most residents of Denmark and Sweden, he found, don’t worship any god at all, don’t pray, and don’t give much credence to religious dogma of any kind. Instead of being bastions of sin and corruption, however, as the Christian Right has suggested a godless society would be, these countries are filled with residents who score at the very top of the “happiness index” and enjoy their healthy societies, which boast some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world (along with some of the lowest levels of corruption), excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer.

Zuckerman formally interviewed nearly 150 Danes and Swedes of all ages and educational backgrounds over the course of fourteen months, beginning in 2005. He was particularly interested in the worldviews of people who live their lives without religious orientation. How do they think about and cope with death? Are they worried about an afterlife? What he found is that nearly all of his interviewees live their lives without much fear of the Grim Reaper or worries about the hereafter. This led him to wonder how and why it is that certain societies are nonreligious in a world that seems to be marked by increasing religiosity. Drawing on prominent sociological theories and his own extensive research, Zuckerman ventures some interesting answers.

This fascinating approach directly counters the claims of outspoken, conservative American Christians who argue that a society without God would be hell on earth. It is crucial, Zuckerman believes, for Americans to know that “society without God is not only possible, but it can be quite civil and pleasant.”

”Most Americans are convinced that faith in God is the foundation of civil society. Society Without God reveals this to be nothing more than a well-subscribed, and strangely American, delusion. Even atheists living in the United States will be astonished to discover how unencumbered by religion most Danes and Swedes currently are. This glimpse of an alternate, secular reality is at once humbling and profoundly inspiring — and it comes not a moment too soon. Zuckerman’s research is truly indispensable.”
—Sam Harris

It's not just Denmark and Sweden. Many European countries are essentially secular as are many parts of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Even in the USA, there are pockets of the country where the influence of religion is minimal.

Wake up Christians. Your religion is becoming increasingly superfluous. There's no point in being religious.

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[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]

Is Religion Here to Stay?

 
In the comments of a recent posting we heard the oft-repeated argument that a majority of Americans are believers and nothing is going to change that. It's an example of an irrational argument but it seems to be part of the defense mechanism of most believers.

I don't think it's true. I think the USA will change, just as Western Europe has changed. Here's what PZ Myers calls [A heartening graph].

There is one other possibility that some of my colleagues fear. Instead of a slow steady evolution away from superstition, we may see an ugly revolution in the USA as the two sides of the debate adopt mutually antagonistic points of view. There's an argument to be made that what many of us see as a hopeful sign is actually the precursor to establishment of a religous fundamentalist state—or at least a civil war where the attempt is made.

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Happy Birthday Universe!

 
Bishop James Ussher (1581 - 1656) was Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. He calculated that the universe was created on this day in 4004 BC, or more correctly the night before this day.

In addition to astute Biblical scholarship, the calculation required a knowledge of ancient history. Ussher's estimates of ancient dates were pretty good for his time.

We now know that his calculation was flawed because the Bible is completely wrong about creation but it is unfair to make fun of Ussher based on what we learned several centuries later.

Happy Birthday Universe.

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Nobel Laureate: Hermann Muller

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1946.

"for the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation"

Hermann Joseph Muller (1890 - 1967) won the Noble Prize for showing that X-rays could induce mutations in Drosophila melanogaster. He was able to isolate and map specific mutations caused by X-rays showing that these were stable genetic changes.

For a brief description of the technique, see Hermann Muller Invented Balancer Chromosome.

The significance of Muller's work is described in the presentation speech on the Nobel rize website.

THEME:
Nobel Laureates

It was known, already at the turn of the century, that apparently sudden changes may appear spontaneously in the hereditary mass, which result in changes in the characteristics of the organism. We now know that these changes may be of different types, and among them occur also disturbances in individual genes. These are very rare, however. Even in such a convenient experimental object as the banana fly, introduced by Morgan, where the generations succeed each other rapidly, and thousands of flies can be examined, it is only seldom that mutations are observed. Muller grappled with the task of trying to change the frequency of mutations. He first created procedures, technically extremely elegant, by which the mutation frequency could be measured exactly. When this task - which took several years - had been completed, the effect of different agents on the frequency of mutations was investigated, and the discovery for which the Nobel Prize is now awarded was made, viz. that irradiation with X-rays evokes large numbers of mutations. Experiments could be arranged, for instance, so that nearly 100 per cent of the offspring of irradiated flies showed mutations. Thus a possibility had been created for the first time of influencing the hereditary mass itself artificially.

This discovery aroused a great sensation already when it was first published in 1927 and rapidly led to a great deal of work of different kinds and in the most varied directions. The mechanism of the effect of rays was studied by many research workers, with Muller at their head. Greatly simplified X-ray irradiation, as also ionizing irradiation, could be likened in general to a shower of infinitely small (even compared with the individual cell) but highly explosive grenades, which explode at different spots within the irradiated organism. The explosion itself (or the fragments it throws up) tears the structure of the cell to pieces or disturbs its arrangement. If such an explosion happens to take place in or close to a gene, its structure, and therewith also its effect on the organism, may be changed.

Muller's discovery of the induction of mutations by means of rays has been of tremendous importance for genetics and biology in general.

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The Christian Man's Evolution

 
A posting on the Scientific American website describes the view of Francisco J. Ayala, a man who was ordained as a Dominican priest who is also an excellent scientist [The Christian Man's Evolution: How Darwinism and Faith Can Coexist .

Here's an excerpt ...

Ayala graduated in physics at the University of Madrid, then worked in a geneticist’s lab while studying theology at the Pontifical Faculty of San Esteban in Salamanca, Spain. By his ordination in 1960 he had already decided to pursue science instead of a ministerial role. At the monastery Darwinism had never been perceived as an enemy of Christian faith. So a year later, when Ayala moved to New York City to pursue a doctorate in genetics, the prevailing U.S. view of a natural hostility between evolution and religion was a shock.

Ever since, Ayala has attempted to address religious skepticism about Darwin’s theory. At first, he recalls, his scientific colleagues were wary and took the position that researchers should not engage in religious discussions. By 1981, when the Arkansas legislature voted to give creationism equal time in schools, the mood began to change. The National Academy of Sciences prepared an amicus curiae brief for a Supreme Court case on the Louisiana “Creation Act” and asked Ayala to lead the effort. The booklet became the 1984 Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences.

For the second edition in 1999 Ayala presented the idea of incorporating the words of some theologians but recalls, “I was almost eaten alive.” In the third edition, published this year, one section features statements by four religious denominations and three scientists on the compatibility of evolution with religious beliefs.

I've already commented on the National Academys' sellout to political correctness and on the fact that Ayala was Chair of the committee [Richard Dawkins on the Michael Reiss Affair] [National Academies: Science, Evolution and Creationism]. The fallacy here is something called The Doctrine of Joint Belief.

That's not what I want to comment on today. I want to draw your attention to the use of "Darwinism" in the title of the article and to "Darwin's theory" in the body of the article. The author, Sally Lehrman¹, should know better. If she's going to write for Scientific American then she better learn that the correct terms are "evolution" and "evolutionary theory." The editors of Scientific America should know better, but then what can you expect from a magazine that has fallen so far from its heydays in the 60s and 70s?

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1. "Sally Lehrman teaches journalism in the public interest at Santa Clara University."

Hermann Muller Invented the Balancer Chromosome

Since writing about Balancer Chromosomes, I've gotten several email messages pointing out things I missed. Thanks to everyone who responded. It's what makes this blog worthwhile.

Quite a few readers pointed out that balancer chromosomes were invented a very long time ago by Hermann Muller. Muller won the Nobel Prize in 1946 for discovering mutagenesis by X-rays.

Dale Hoyt, a fly geneticist, sent me a description of Muller's experiment and he has given me permission to post it.

The first Nobel laureate who used balancers in his work was Hermann J. Muller. He used a strain of D. melanogaster that was heterozygous for an X-chromosome inversion. This suppresses crossing over between the normal X and the X carrying the inversion during meiosis. A single crossover within the inverted segment will generate a "bridge" at meiosis I, causing the non-crossover chromatid to preferentially segregate to the future ovum. In Muller's work the inverted X was marked with the dominant eye shape mutation, Bar, and carried a recessive lethal allele.¹ A female heterozygous for the marked inverted chromosome and a "wild type" chromosome will produce only 1/2 the normal number of male progeny and they will all be wild type. This is because 1/2 the males die because they receive the Bar chromosome and are hemizygous for the lethal. The inversion heterozygosity prevents recombination between the Bar locus and the lethal locus. Muller used this stock, called "ClB", to show that X-irradiation increased the frequency of mutation to lethal genes on the X-chromosome. Irradiated male flies were individually mated to the ClB females. Their Bar-eyed female offspring (heterozygous for the inversion and the irradiated X-chromosome) were mated to their brothers. If no males were produced from this cross then the irradiated male transmitted an X chromosome with a lethal mutation. It was easy to score the crosses—just look at the bottle and if there were no males then Muller knew that he had a radiation induced lethal.

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1. l(1)C, associated with the left breakpoint of the inversions. Presumably the break disrupts a gene required for viability. The gene must be known by now.

[Photo Credit: WIRED]

The Lactose Paradox

The lac operon in E. coli consists of three genes (lacZ, lacY and lacA) transcribed from a single promoter. The lacZ gene encodes the enzyme β-galactosidase, an enzyme that cleaves β-galactosides. Lactose is a typical β-galactoside and the enzyme cleaves the disaccharide converting it to separate molecules of glucose and galactose. These monosacharides can enter into the metabolic pool of the cell where they can serve as the sole source of carbon.

LacY encodes a famous transporter called lactose permease. It is responsible for importing βgalactosides. The lacA gene encodes a transacetylase that is responsible for detoxifying the cell when it takes up poisonous β-galactosides.

[from The Lac Operon]

Transcription of the lac operon begins when RNA polymerase binds to the P_lac promoter. The long polycistronic mRNA (wavy line) is translated to produce the three proteins.

In the absence of lactose, transcription of the lac operon is blocked by a repressor protein that binds to two sites (O₁ and O₂) preventing RNA polymerase from transcribing the operon [Repression of the lac Operon].

When the bacteria encounter lactose, transcription of the lac operon is induced but since the operon has a weak promoter not much protein will be produced as long as glucose is present. Glucose is always the preferred carbon source. In the absence of both glucose and lactose the operon is maximally induced by the activator CRP-cAMP.

Lactose induces transcription by causing a change in the structure of the repressor so that it no longer binds to DNA. When that happens, RNA polymerase can transcribe the operon.

Here's the paradox. Lactose can't enter the cell unless it's transported across the membrane by the permease and the permease can only be made if the lac operon is transcribed. Furthermore, lactose itself doesn't bind to the lac repressor causing it to detatch from its binding sites. Instead, the actual inducer is allolactose, a modified form of lactose that can only be synthesized inside the cell by the enzyme β-galactosidase. β-galactosidase can only be synthesized if the operon is transcribed.

This is known as the "lactose paradox." It seems you can't induce the operon unless there's allolactose present and the only way to get allolactose is to take up lactose via the permease and convert it to allolactose via β-galactosidase.

The "paradox" was explained many decades ago when it was discovered that the lac operon is transcribed at least once whenever the lac repressor dissociates from its binding sites. The lac repressor is a highly specific DNA binding protein that binds very tightly to O₁ and O₂. But no protein can bind forever. When it dissociates, an mRNA is made and some permease and some β-galactosidase is synthesized. The repressor quickly re-binds and transcription is blocked.

The effect of this "escape" synthesis is that there will always be a few molecules of permease and a few molecules of β-galactosidase inside the cell. When the cell encounters lactose in the medium enough can be taken up and converted to allolactose to induce the operon.

A paper published in this week's issue of Science looked at the number of permease molecules that had to be present in order to induce transcription of the lac operon and discovered that there had to be about 300 molecules present. Some bacterial cells had fewer molecules of permease, by chance, so the repressor remained bound to DNA. Other cells had more than 300 molecules of permease so transcription of the operon was induced and many more molecules of permease were synthesized (Choi et al. 2008).

This is an interesting result but it might not be worth blogging about except for one thing. Our friendly IDiot DaveScot decided to use this paper to prove that evolution is wrong!! You can read all about it on Panda's Thumb: Scientific Vacuity of ID: Lactose Digestion in E. coli.

There's one more wrinkle to this story. Lactose is probably not the main substrate for β-galactosidase and it's quite likely that a typical E. coli cell never sees lactose. When they're not inside a human gut, E. coli cells won't ever encounter lactose. Even when they're living inside a friendly human, it will most often be an adult and throughout most of evolutionary history human adults did not consume milk. E. coli usually does not make up a significant proportion of the bacteria in nursing infants.

So, what is the real product of β-galactosidase and the real inducer of the lac operon? It's likely to be various other β-galactosides such as β-galactosyl glycerol. These are common breakdown products of plant membranes. They are transported efficiently by the permease but they can also be transported by a galactose permease that is always present in the bacteria membrane. Furthermore, β-galactosyl glycerol is a direct inducer of the lac operon. It binds directly to lac repressor so there's no need to convert it to something else (Egel, 1988).

While there may be a "lactose paradox" there is no "β-galactosyl glycerol paradox."

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Choi, P.J., Cai, L., Frieda, K., and Xie, X.S. (2008) A stochastic single-molecule event triggers phenotype switching of a bacterial cell. Science 322:442-6. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1161427]

Egel, R. (1988) The "lac" operon: an irrelevant paradox? Trends in Genetics 4:31.

Adoptees use DNA to find surname

 
This is an example of a real ethical problem. You might be surprised to learn that there aren't all that many "real" ethical problems. Most of the ones that are proposed are pseudo-ethical problems.

In this case, an article from BBC News describe how Adoptees use DNA to find surname.

Male adoptees are using consumer DNA tests to predict the surnames carried by their biological fathers, the BBC has learned.

They are using the fact that men who share a surname sometimes have genetic likenesses too.

By searching DNA databases for other males with genetic markers matching their own, adoptees can check if these men also share a last name.

This can provide the likely surname of an adoptee's biological father.

Why is this an ethical problem? Because it (potentially) involves a conflict between the wishes of two individuals. The adoptee wants to know who his biological parents are and the biological parents may wish to remain unknown.

As far as I'm concerned, the wishes of the biological parents have to be respected but with the widespread use of commercial DNA testing services, this wish can be circumvented by a determined adoptee.

Incidentally, these tests are also going to reveal who isn't your father, and that's also a problem.

There are many blogs acting as cheerleaders for the new commercial DNA testing services. One of them, The Genetic Genealogist seems to think that finding out who your father is, or isn't, is a good thing. That blog even points to a commercial company runnnig a program for adoptees with a success rate of more than 30% [More On Revealing Surnames Using Genetic Genealogy].

I think it's about time we started to think about the consequences.

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Gairdner Awards 2008

 
This is the week of the Gairdner awards. It's an excellent opportunity for undergraduates to see and hear some outstanding scientists. This week's lineup includes the 2008 winners and returning winners from past years.

Samuel Weiss: Adult neural stem cells
Victor Ambros: MicroRNA pathways in animal development
Gary Ruvkun: The tiny RNA pathways of C. elegans
Nahum Sonenberg: Translational control in biology and medicine
Harald zur Hausen: Infections as cancer risk factors
Ralph M. Steinman: Dendritic cells: A vehicle for vaccine development
Alan Bernstein: Progress towards an HIV vaccine
Sydney Brenner: An introduction
Craig Mello: RNAi from mechanism to medicine
Eric Olson: MicroRNa control of heart development and disease
George Church: Reading and writing genomes
Douglas Hanahan:Micro-RNA signatures in tumorigenesis
James S. Thomson: Exiting the pluripotent state, and back again
Gordon Keller: Directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells
Cynthia Kenyon: Genes and cells that regulate the lifespan of C. elegans
Leonard Guarente: Sirtuins, aging and diseases

The Gairdner Foundation presents a two-day symposium entitled "Minds That Matter" at the University of Toronto featuring academic lectures by Gairdner winners past and present, and other leading medical scientists. Attendance is open to anyone and is free of charge. All lectures are given at the Medical Sciences Auditorium on the University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto.

TORONTO - UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO CAMPUS - MACLEOD AUDITORIUM
Date: Thursday, October 23, 2008

9:00 a.m.
Welcome: Dr. John Dirks, President, The Gairdner Foundation

Chair: Catharine Whiteside, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Vice Provost Relations with Healthcare Institutions, University of Toronto

9:10 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Freda Miller, Senior Scientist, Developmental & Stem Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto

Speaker: Dr. Samuel Weiss, Gairdner Laureate 2008, Professor of Cell Biology & Anatomy & Pharmacology & Therapeutics, Director Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CA

Lecture: Adult neural stem cells: From basic science to therapeutic applications

9:50 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Howard Lipshitz, Professor & Chair, Department of Molecular Genetics, Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Developmental Biology, University of Toronto, ON, CA

Speaker: Dr. Victor Ambros, Gairdner Laureate 2008, Professor of Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

Lecture: MicroRNA pathways in animal development

10:30 a.m.Break

10:45 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Craig Smibert, Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto

Speaker : Dr. Gary Ruvkun, Gairdner Laureate 2008, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Lecture: The tiny RNA pathways of C. elegans

11:25 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Tony Pawson, University Professor, University of Toronto, Programme in Molecular Biology & Cancer, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital

Speaker: Dr. Nahum Sonenberg, Gairdner Laureate 2008, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and McGill Cancer Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, CA

Lecture: Translational control in biology and medicine

12:05 p.m. LUNCH

1:00 p.m.
Chair: Dr. Jack Gauldie, University Professor, Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine, McMaster University, Director, Centre for Gene Therapeautics, Hamilton

1:05 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Joan Murphy, Head of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, UHN, Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Toronto

1:10 p.m.
Speaker: Prof. Harald zur Hausen, Gairdner Laureate 2008, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

Lecture: Infections as cancer risk factors

1:40 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Michael Julius, Vice President Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. Ralph M. Steinman, GairdnerLaureate 2003, Henry G. Kunkel Professor & Sr. Physician,The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA

Lecture: Dendritic cells: A vehicle for vaccine development

2:20 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Janet Rossant, Chief of Research & Senior Scientist, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, CA

Speaker: Dr. Alan Bernstein, Gairdner Wightman Laureate 2008, Executive Director, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, New York, NY, USA

Lecture: Global solutions for global challenges: Progress towards an HIV vaccine

3:00 p.m. Dr. John Dirks
Conclusion

ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY: MICRO RNA'S, STEM CELLS AND AGING

TORONTO - UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO CAMPUS - MACLEOD AUDITORIUM
Friday, October 24, 2008

9:00 a.m.
Welcome: Dr. John Dirks, President & Scientific Director, The Gairdner Foundation
Professor Paul Young, Vice President Research, University of Toronto, CA

Chair: Dr. Michael Hayden, Canada Research Chair in Human Genetics & Molecular Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C.

Speaker: Dr. Sydney Brenner, Gairdner Laureate 1978 & 1991, Nobel Laureate 2002, Distinguished Professor, The Salk Institute, San Diego, CA, USA

Lecture: An introduction

9:30 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Martin Simard, Laval University Cancer Research Centre, Quebec City, Montreal, CA

Speaker: Dr. Craig Mello, Nobel Laureate 2006, Gairdner Laureate 2005, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

Lecture: RNAi from mechanism to medicine

10:10 a.m. Break

10:30 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. David MacLennan, Gairdner Laureate 1991, Banting Best Department of Medical Research, University of Toronto, Charles H. Best Institute, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. Eric Olson, Professor, Molecular Biology, Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, Texas

Lecture: MicroRNa control of heart development and disease

11:10 a.m.
Introduction: Dr. Steve Scherer, The Center for Applied Genomics, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. George Church, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, Boston, MA, USA

Lecture: Reading and writing genomes

11:50a.m. LUNCH

12:45 p.m.
Chair: Dr. Michael Tyers, CH Waddington Professor of Systems Biology, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, ScotlandIntroduction: Dr. Samuel Aparicio, Professor of Breast Cancer Research, UBC/BCCA, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver, BC

Speaker: Dr. Douglas Hanahan, Diabetes, and Comprehensive Cancer Centres, UCSF, San Francisco

Lecture: Micro-RNA signatures of the stages in multi-step tumorigenesis

1:25 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Brenda Andrews, Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. James S. Thomson, Professor of Anatomy, University of Wisconsin Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Center, Wisconsin, USA

Lecture: Exiting the pluripotent state, and back again

2:05 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Andras Nagy, Senior Investigator, Developmental Molecular Geneticist, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. Gordon Keller, Senior Scientist, Division of Stem Cell & Developmental Biology, Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, CA

Lecture: Directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells to functional tissues

2:45 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Peter Lewis, Vice Dean, Research & International Relations, Faculty of Medicine, Professor of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, CA

Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, Director, Hillblom Center for Biology of Aging, UCSF, San Francisco, CA

Lecture: Genes and cells that regulate the lifespan of C. elegans

3:25 p.m.
Introduction: Dr. Jacques Drouin, Chair in Molecular Genetics, Intitut De Recherches Cliniques De Montreal, Montreal, Quebec

Speaker: Dr. Leonard Guarente, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Lecture : Sirtuins, aging and diseases

4:10 p.m.
Conclusion: Dr. John H. Dirks

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Monday's Molecule #93

 
What's going on here? Your task is to identify the experiment that led to this result. It's a short step from there to this week's Nobel Laureate(s). You just need to switch species.

Here's a hint: This week's Nobel Laureate(s) and last week's Nobel Laureates have something in common.

You need to describe what you see in the figure as accurately as possible. Then identify the Nobel Laureate(s).

The first one to correctly identify the figure and name the Nobel Laureate(s), wins a free lunch at the Faculty Club. Previous winners are ineligible for one month from the time they first collected the prize. There are four ineligible candidates for this week's reward: Brad Hersh of Clemsen University, Alex Ling of the University of Toronto, Haruhiko Ishii, and Bill Chaney of the University of Nebraska.

THEME:

Nobel Laureates
Send your guess to Sandwalk (sandwalk (at) bioinfo.med.utoronto.ca) and I'll pick the first email message that correctly identifies the molecule and names the Nobel Laureate(s). Note that I'm not going to repeat Nobel Laureate(s) so you might want to check the list of previous Sandwalk postings by clicking on the link in the theme box.

Correct responses will be posted tomorrow. I reserve the right to select multiple winners if several people get it right.

Comments will be blocked for 24 hours. Comments are now open.

UPDATE:The figure shows the result of an experiment where human cells in culture were irradiated with X-rays (Scherthan et al. 2008). There are two obvious chromosomal rearrangements. Breaks and deletions are common in X-ray treated cells. The Nobel Laureate is Hermann Muller who won the prize for creating mutants using X-rays. He worked with Drosophila melanogaster. Only one person got this one right and that person is ineligible.

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[Figure Credit: The figure is from Scherthan et al. (2008)]

Scherthana, H., Hieberb, L., Braselmannb, H., Meinekea, V., and Zitzelsberger, H. (2008) Accumulation of DSBs in γ-H2AX domains fuel chromosomal aberrations. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 371:694-697. [doi:10.1016/j.bbrc.2008.04.127]

Periannan Senapathy Publishes in PLoS ONE

 
I first encountered Periannan Senapathy on the sci.bio.evolution newsgroup. He was promoting the idea that the various animal phyla arose independantly rather than from descent from a common ancestor.

Here's one of his early postings on sci.bio.evolution from Feb. 13, 1995"

As a molecular biologist and genome researcher, I have enjoyed following the many ongoing debates in this and other forums over evolution theory -- both as a whole, and various aspects thereof. My own work in genome mechanics and genetic molecular structures has yielded much evidence pertaining to these debates, and over the years I have published several of my findings in PNAS, J Molec Biol, J Biol Chem, Nucleic Acids Research, Science and other journals.

Until recently I have published these findings separately, although clearly they are all related. Now, however, I am publishing a single unified theory that incorporates all of these pieces -- and an enormous body of other evidence as well. This new unified theory proposes a radically alternative explanation for the origin and diversity of life on Earth, asserting that most of Earth's organisms must have originated independently in one primordial pond, and that the natural-selection mechanism described by evolution theories could have produced only minor variations among essentially similar species. These conclusions surely will provoke a lively debate in the scientific community, but a fair reading of the theory will show that it easily explains all of the available evidence -- molecular, biochemical, organismal and fossil -- and notably accommodates all of the contra-evolution evidence that has dogged evolutionists since Darwin.

His ideas were eventually published in 1994 in a book with the following provocative title: "Independent Birth of Organisms. A New Theory that Distinct Organisms Arose Independently from the Primordial Pond, Showing that Evolutionary Theories are Fundamentally Incorrect." The book was published by "Genome Publications."

Periannan Senapathy owns a company called "Genome International Corporation" which funds his work. The PLoS paper, for example, is funded by "Genome International Corporation" and the disclaimer reads, in part, "This project is purely an academic project, fulfilling the academic interest of the corresponding author, who owns the company." I don't know if the book is self-published.

The research article in PLoS ONE is ..

Regulapati, R., Bhasi, A., Singh. C.K., and Senapathy, P. (2008) Origination of the Split Structure of Spliceosomal Genes from Random Genetic Sequences. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3456 [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003456]

It address an old problem about the origin of introns. The consensus among scientists these days is that introns arose late and they are derived from insertions of self-splicing RNA's into coding regions. These were subsequently copied into DNA and integrated into the genome. The similarity between Group II introns and spliceosomal introns lends strong support to this model.

The fact that bacteria have very few introns is consistent with the idea that introns arose late in evolution. As is the fact that introns positions are not highly conserved, as one might expect if they arose early.

The Senapathy paper tries to make the case that introns are primitive and the human genome, with lots of introns, is more primitive than bacterial genomes, which have lost their introns.

Speaking of losing, this issue was resolved over ten years ago when the last holdouts for "introns early" conceded defeat. Senapathy has not come up with anything that even remotely rejuvenates that losing position.

On a more troubling note, it's beginning to look as if PLoS ONE is attracting the kooks who find it easy to get their work published in that forum. It won't be long before I stop reading papers, and abstracts, from PLoS ONE.

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It's the Sequence, Stupid!

The latest issue of Science has an article summarizing the research done by Wilson et al. (2008). The "perspectives" article, by Hilary A. Coller and Leonid Kruglyak has a provocative title It's the Sequence, Stupid!. The Wilson et al. paper casts doubt on one of the current fads in molecular biology, namely the claim that there's something called "epigenetics" that trumps DNA sequence when it comes to determining gene expression.

Here's the abstract from the Wilson et al. (2008) paper. You be the judge.

Homologous sets of transcription factors direct conserved tissue-specific gene expression, yet transcription factor–binding events diverge rapidly between closely related species. We used hepatocytes from an aneuploid mouse strain carrying human chromosome 21 to determine, on a chromosomal scale, whether interspecies differences in transcriptional regulation are primarily directed by human genetic sequence or mouse nuclear environment. Virtually all transcription factor–binding locations, landmarks of transcription initiation, and the resulting gene expression observed in human hepatocytes were recapitulated across the entire human chromosome 21 in the mouse hepatocyte nucleus. Thus, in homologous tissues, genetic sequence is largely responsible for directing transcriptional programs; interspecies differences in epigenetic machinery, cellular environment, and transcription factors themselves play secondary roles.

Grab some popcorn and a beer and sit back in your easy chair to watch how the evo-devo people talk themselves out of this one.

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Wilson, M.D., Barbosa-Morais, N.L., Schmidt, D., Conboy, C.M., Vanes, L., Tybulewicz, V.L.J. Fisher, E.M.C., Tavaré, S., and Odom. D.T. (2008) Species-Specific Transcription in Mice Carrying Human Chromosome 21. Science 322: 434-438. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1160930]

The Powerful 7%

 
Here's the result from a US Gallup Poll taken in May, 2007 [Religion].



Only 7% are potential atheists. How powerful are those people? PZ Myers has the answer from an article by Melanie Phillips on the financial crisis in America [Pharyngula: You mean it's all my fault?].

I see this financial breakdown, moreover, as being not merely a moral crisis but the monetary expression of the broader degradation of our values - the erosion of duty and responsibility to others in favour of instant gratification, unlimited demands repackaged as 'rights' and the loss of self-discipline. And the root cause of that erosion is 'militant atheism' which, in junking religion, has destroyed our sense of anything beyond our material selves and the here and now and, through such hyper-individualism, paved the way for the onslaught on bedrock moral values expressed through such things as family breakdown and mass fatherlessness, educational collapse, widespread incivility, unprecedented levels of near psychopathic violent crime, epidemic drunkenness and drug abuse, the repudiation of all authority, the moral inversion of victim culture, the destruction of truth and objectivity and a corresponding rise in credulousness in the face of lies and propaganda -- and intimidation and bullying to drive this agenda into public policy.

Makes you feel very sorry for the 93% who are being manipulated, doesn't it?

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Death to Apostates?

 
There was a conference in the UK where a number of former adherents of Islam talked about the fact that rejecting Islam is a very serious offense. Apostates can be killed.

A.C. Graying wrote an article about the conference. It was published in The Guardian and you can read it on RichardDawkins.net.

Now Nesrine Malik has responded in Friday's issue of The Guardian [Death for apostasy?].

Here's part of what she says ...

As a Muslim who has lived most of my life in Muslim countries, this picture is hard to recognise. I have several friends and family members who are non-believers and apart from some efforts to return them to the straight and narrow or at least go through the motions of religious observance, they have not come into any physical danger. A close friend – hitherto religious – only recently sent me a long, tortured email detailing his journey away from Islam and from all religion; he expressed no fears for his life or safety, merely trepidation at the prospect of acclimatising to this new God-free world view.

Although the Council of Ex-Muslims and AC Grayling depict the threat to life and limb as an indisputable fact, in reality there are differences of opinion among Muslim scholars (ostensibly the hard core of the religion) regarding the death penalty for apostates.

This is not to say that Muslim governments – and Arab ones in particular – have a tolerant view of apostasy but the death threat is invoked only rarely and more for political reasons rather than religion ones: to set an example or to save face as a proxy punishment for challenging the social or political status quo. While this is in no way acceptable, it is an extension of the general lack of enshrined civic human rights and evolved political institutions and processes – a historical, social and geo-political reality in many Muslim countries that makes a mockery of any comparison to the experience of those renouncing Christianity or Judaism.

It's of little comfort to an ex-Muslim to learn that there is disagreement within the Muslim community about whether they should be put to death or not. They take only a little more comfort from the fact that the death penalty is only used "rarely."

I admire Nesrine Malik for stating that killing apostates is "in no way acceptable" but she weakens her case a great deal by making excuses. Just because killing apostates is part of a larger intolerant viewpoint is an explanation, but not an excuse. Personally, I don't much care how the members of a cultural group run their lives but I draw the line when they interfere with others. People who leave the group are making a choice and they should be left alone.

Malik claims that many ex-Muslims try to make themselves into martyrs by claiming they have been threatened with death. They are just using "the emotive power of 'death for apostasy' to serve their own ends, be they personal or political." That may or may not be true—it probably is—but that's not the point.

The point is that outspoken Muslims like Nesrine Malik should make their opposition to 'death for apostasy' much clearer than just throwing away a phrase like "no way acceptable" to be immediately followed with a reason why it's understandable.

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The Toronto Star Editorial Cartoon

 
Today's editorial cartoon in The Toronto Star is worth sharing. If Canadians were allowed to vote in the US Presidential elections, the McCain people would have waved the white flag months ago.

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The Toronto Star Opposes PR, Again

 
I don't get it. Why are the editors of The Toronto Star against proportional representation? Their reasoning doesn't make sense.

Last year the editorial board opposed the Ontario referendum on electoral reform. Their arguments were so stupid and factually incorrect that "Public Editor" Kathy English was obliged to defend the newspaper's editorial opinions [The Toronto Star Defends Its Editorial Policy on MMP].

She didn't do a very good job.

Today The Star has an editorial opposing any proportional electoral system. The paper notes that a nationwide proportional system of voting would have given a different distribution of seats than the result of last Tuesday's election. They note that the Green party would have probably gotten a number of seats.

The editorial states, correctly, that we can't just recalculate the results based on Tuesday's voting because if we had voted under a proportional system people wold have voted differently. They say ...

Furthermore, the analysis is backward looking – transposing last week's results onto a new system. In all likelihood, if Canada had a system of proportional representation, the outcome would be very different, given the demographical and geographical diversity of the country. The pro-life Christian Heritage Party, for example, might win enough votes to get seats. And new parties might emerge to win seats – say, an Alberta First party or even ethnic parties.

So Harper might be kept in power by entering a coalition with pro-life and Alberta First parties. Now that, indeed, is a scary prospect.

This is scary. It looks like the editors of The Star are afraid of proportional voting because (horrors!) some people might elect MP's who truly represent their points of view.

Now we certainly can't have that in a democracy, can we?

The scare tactics are not based on rational analysis of what happens in other countries. Most Western democracies have moved into the 21st century and they find it beneficial to let the people have their say. Sticking with an unfair first-past-the -post system only breeds disillusionment and bitterness with a system that disenfranchises a majority of voters. (Voter turnout on Tuesday dropped below 60%.)

It's time for The Toronto Star to find new editors—ones who are as progressive as the newspaper they work for. The current editors are clearly not up to the job.

But maybe we shouldn't expect too much from editors who put Madonna on the front page under a banner about a rape probe.

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Barack Obama Is my Cousin!

 
George Bush and I share a common ancestor. This isn't as surprising as it might seem. Just about anyone in North America who has relatives from the British Isles will be able to trace some of their ancestors back five or six hundred years if they dig hard enough.

There's an excellent chance that you can connect at some point to several well-known lineages, usually those involving kings and queens. In my case I eventually hook up with Mary Stewart (1380 - 1458) who is the daughter of Robert III, King of Scotland. She married George Douglas (1376 - 1402).

George Bush descends from Mary's sister Elizabeth Stewart who married James Douglas, brother of George Douglas [The Ancestry of George Bush].¹

Now, most of you might not be too excited about being related to George Bush but here's the good news ... I'm also related to Barack Obama according to Obama and Bush related.

That's pretty cool. It explains a lot.

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1. It's possible that Bush descends from Beatrice Sinclair and not Elizabeth Stewart—the website is confusing. Even if this is an error there are several other connections.

If you build it, will they follow?

I'm going to subject you to one of my pet peeves.

The University of Toronto is in the process of replacing all its pathways. I really like the new style of path even though it's probably very expensive. It will improve the look of the university.

That's not the peeve. Look at the photograph below. It shows the newly completed paths leading up from the subway stop on the corner of University and College (behind me). The ramp is the easiest access to my building. Several hundred people a day walk up the path from the subway stop and up the ramp into the building.

When the stone masons were building the path I mentioned that the old pathway didn't align with the much newer ramp and, consequently, people were cutting across the grass in order to save time. That's why the grass is worn away at the base of the ramp. The guys who were laying the stones agreed that the fancy new path should at least clip off the corner by the lamp post to encourage people to follow it.

They were overruled by their supervisor who claims he doesn't have the authority to move or change the paths. So they simply replaced the old paved pathway with the nice new stone blocks and moved on.

How ridiculous. My pet peeve is this. You should build pathways where people actually walk and not where you want them to walk.

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What Questions about Evolution Can Students Safely Ask?

 
Denyse O'Leary is upset about the fact that students who challenge evolution may be perceived as being unworthy [Intelligent design and popular culture: What questions about evolution can students safely ask?].

She was impressed with the suggestions made by some photographer so she reproduced them on her blog. Here's what Densye O'Leary thinks will stump the average Professor. This is just for amusement on a Friday afternoon.

Don't argue against him. Agree with him. Then ask a question like one of those below:

1. I’d like to shut up those stupid IDers once and for all. Please tell me where I can find a book that shows clearly all the transitional fossil forms between fish and amphibians or reptiles and birds or some such major transition. I’d like to see it spelled out in detail with pictures and measurements and explanations of each fossil so I can crush those idiots.

2. I know that evolution is the most solidly proven theory in all of science, so please show me the mathematical proof of how random changes create information. I’m sure there must be one because this is a fundamental truth of evolution.

3. I know that in any system like life on earth that is open and receives outside energy the system will steadily grow more and more complex but I don’t really understand the physics of this. Could you explain it to me?

Just in case you've forgotten, this is what passes as the best evidence for Intelligent Design Creationism. We should think up a name to describe these people.

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Jonathan Wells reviews the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus Experiment

In his book, Icons of evolution, Jonathan Wells has ten chapters devoted to refuting evolution. This is typical behavior for an Intelligent Design Creationist. There's no mention anywhere in the book of positive evidence for intelligent design.

One of the chapters is "Four-Winged Fruit Flies." The main point of the chapter is that most of the Drosophila developmental mutations are lethal or extremely deleterious so they can't be transitional states in evolution. Yet, according to Wells, the textbooks are full of misleading statements claiming that morphological mutations supply the raw material for evolution. Wells says that there's no evidence for any beneficial mutations in spite of the fact that they have been looked for.

Yet the evidence cited in these textbooks falls far short of supporting those sweeping claims. To be sure, biochemical mutations lead to antibiotic and insecticide resistance, and human beings carrying the sickle-cell trait are more likely to survive malaria as infants. But only beneficial morphological mutations can provide the raw materials for morphological evolution, and evidence for such mutations is surprisingly thin. As we have seen, four-winged fruit flies do not provide the missing evidence, despite their current popularity.

If textbook-writers have no good examples of beneficial morphological mutations, it's not because biologists haven't been looking for them About the time that Lewis was studying Ultrabithorax, German geneticists Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus were using a technique called "saturation mutagenesis" to search for every possible mutation involved in fruit fly development. They discovered dozens of mutations that affect development at various stages and produce a variety of malformations. Their Herculean efforts earned them a Nobel prize (which they shared with Lewis), but they did not turn up a single morphological mutations that would benefit a fly in the wild. [my emphasis]

The experiment that was performed by Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus was designed to detect recessive lethal mutations that affected development. These kind of mutations are likely to identify genes that are essential for development. I described the experiment in a separate posting [Balancer Chromosomes].

Note that the experiment was specifically designed to detect deleterious mutations—lethal being about as deleterious as you can get. It could not possibly have detected beneficial mutations, as Wells claims, since these would have been discarded early on when the mutant lines were established.

Was the true purpose of the experiment a well-kept secret known only to insiders? Hardly. Everyone who read the papers knew that the screen was for recessive lethals. In her Nobel lecture Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard says,

In 1979, Eric Wieschaus and I, at that time in the EMBL, Heidelberg, had developed the methods for the large scale screening for embryonic lethal mutations in Drosophila. The screening procedure focused on the segmented pattern of the larval epidermis (8). In this and subsequent screens, a number of new genes acting in the embryo and required for the formation of a morphologically normal larva were discovered (9-11).

Should Wells have known this? You be the judge.

Wells has a Ph.D. in biology, molecular and cell biology, from the University of California, Berkeley (USA). He worked on embryology and evolution as a graduate student and subsequently as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Carolyn Larabell at Berkeley. He published two papers on development in 1996 and 1997.

It's safe to assume that Wells understands the basic principles of genetics and developmental biology.

Could Wells have misunderstood the purpose of the Nüsslein-Volhard & Wieschaus experiment? No, Wells may be an IDiot but he's not that stupid. When Wells makes an issue of the fact that Nüsslein-Volhard & Wieschaus did not find any beneficial mutations there's only one rational conclusion: Wells was deliberately misrepresenting the truth.

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[Photo Credit: Jonathan Wells from Conservapedia]

Way to Heaven

 
This woman was greeting people at the subway stop outside of the Pharmacy Building on the university campus. You don't see this very much aroound here so I thought I take a picture.

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