Sandwalk

                                    Strolling with a skeptical biochemist

Thursday, October 18, 2018

The role of chance in evolution

›
I highly recommend this brief editorial by Naruya Saitou: "Chance, Finiteness, and History" (Saitou, 2018). Saitou is a strong pro...
16 comments:
Tuesday, October 16, 2018

John Mattick's latest attack on junk DNA

›
John Mattick is the most prominent defender of the idea that the human genome is full of functional sequences. In fact, he is just about the...
19 comments:
Saturday, October 13, 2018

The great junk DNA debate

›
I've been talking to philosophers lately about the true state of the junk DNA controversy. I imagine what it would be like to stage a g...
27 comments:
Tuesday, October 09, 2018

Alternative splicing and the gene concept

›
I just learned about a workshop scheduled for the end of this month. The topic is: Evolutionary Roles of Transposable Elements and Non-codin...
8 comments:
Monday, August 27, 2018

Who wants "A Sad Case: Owen vs Huxley" pamphlet and a possible Darwin letter?

›
A friend has a neighbor who's in possession of a pamphlet from 1863 on the Owen vs Huxley debate. The text of the pamphlet is here: A Re...
13 comments:
Friday, July 13, 2018

How many protein-coding genes in the human genome?

›
The three main human databases (GENCODE/Ensembl, RefSeq, UniProtKB) contain a total of 22,210 protein-coding genes but only 19,446 of these ...
16 comments:
Sunday, July 08, 2018

Nature falls (again) for gene hype

›
Nature is arguably the most prestigious science journal. Articles published in Nature are widely perceived to be correct, unbiased, and fa...
3 comments:

Disappearing genes: a paper is refuted before it is even published

›
Several readers alerted me to a paper that was posted on bioRxiv a few weeks ago (May 28, 2018). The paper claimed that the human genome co...
9 comments:
Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Press release from the Francis Crick Institute misrepresents junk DNA

›
Press releases have become a serious problem. I'm frequently upset whenever I read a press release covering a field I'm familiar wit...
25 comments:
Friday, May 18, 2018

Is lateral gene transfer (LGT) Lamarckian?

›
There's an interesting discussion going on about lateral gene transfer (LGT) in eukaryotes. LGT is the process by which DNA from one spe...
19 comments:
Thursday, May 10, 2018

Fixing carbon by reversing the citric acid cycle

›
The citric acid cycle 1 is usually taught as depicted in the diagram on the right. 2 A four-carbon compound called oxaloaceate is joined t...
3 comments:

Philosophers talking about genes

›
It's important to define what you mean when you use the word "gene." I use the molecular definition since most of what I write...
8 comments:
Saturday, April 07, 2018

Required reading for the junk DNA debate

›
This is a list of scientific papers on junk DNA that you need to read (and understand) in order to participate in the junk DNA debate. It...
5 comments:
Friday, April 06, 2018

I'm going to a birthday party!

›
It's Bruce Alberts' 80th birthday party in San Francisco. There will be food, wine, cake, and (probably) dancing but first you go t...

Cafe Scientific Mississauga: The Good, Bad, & Natural

›
Dan Riskin: The Good, Bad, & Natural: What Mother Nature says about morality? Thursday, April 12, 2018 7:30 - 10:00 pm The Franklin...
‹
›
Home
View web version
Powered by Blogger.