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Pleiotropy
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- August 21, 2010
- 05:39 AM
- 88 views
Report from Alife XII: life's origin, and its evolution
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
When I say 'artificial life', what do you think of? I think of life-like systems in computers, mainly, but at the Alife 12 conference in Odense, Denmark that I am currently at, a large part of the presentation are really about chemistry. Many people might be surprise if they knew just how many people are working on the problem of getting chemicals to behave like life. That is, work on the origin of life is booming. ... Read more »
Costanzo, M., Baryshnikova, A., Bellay, J., Kim, Y., Spear, E., Sevier, C., Ding, H., Koh, J., Toufighi, K., Mostafavi, S.... (2010) The Genetic Landscape of a Cell. Science, 327(5964), 425-431. DOI: 10.1126/science.1180823
- August 3, 2010
- 06:36 PM
- 62 views
The tragedy of the commons
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
While working on the last bits of my thesis, "Genetic and Ecological Models of Adaptive Evolution", I came upon Garrett Hardin's 1968 article [1], The Tragedy of the Commons (Wikipedia). It's really a great piece, which coined the term that is now an established and important notion in biology and elsewhere.... Read more »
Garrett Hardin. (1968) The Tragedy of the Commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243-1248. DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.1243
West, S., Diggle, S., Buckling, A., Gardner, A., & Griffin, A. (2007) The Social Lives of Microbes. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 38(1), 53-77. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.38.091206.095740
- July 29, 2010
- 09:36 PM
- 92 views
Phytoplankton are disappearing, so we're all going to suffocate
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Phytoplankton is responsible for about half of the total amount of oxygen produced by all plant life. That would make a 1% yearly reduction of phytoplankton a really negative outcome of global warming, don't you think?... Read more »
Boyce, D., Lewis, M., & Worm, B. (2010) Global phytoplankton decline over the past century. Nature, 466(7306), 591-596. DOI: 10.1038/nature09268
- July 20, 2010
- 02:55 AM
- 49 views
Requirements for becoming a professor in ecology and evolution
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Oh boy! If you're thinking about landing a tenure track job or similar in ecology or evolutionary biology, here's a kicker for you.
A study of 181 recently hired faculty members shows that to be competitive in ecology and evolutionary biology, the requirements are stiff as hell.... Read more »
Marshall, J., Buttars, P., Callahan, T., Dennehy, J., Harris, D., Lunt, B., Mika, M., & Shupe, R. (2009) Letter to the Editors. Israel Journal of Ecology and Evolution, 55(4), 381-392. DOI: 10.1560/IJEE.55.4.381
- July 19, 2010
- 03:00 AM
- 84 views
Some more junk DNA shown to have function
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Drosophila junk DNA found to have a regulatory function.... Read more »
Kondo, T., Plaza, S., Zanet, J., Benrabah, E., Valenti, P., Hashimoto, Y., Kobayashi, S., Payre, F., & Kageyama, Y. (2010) Small Peptides Switch the Transcriptional Activity of Shavenbaby During Drosophila Embryogenesis. Science, 329(5989), 336-339. DOI: 10.1126/science.1188158
- July 15, 2010
- 02:14 PM
- 112 views
Creation science validates evolution, too
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
A method used by creation scientists validates evolution... Read more »
SENTER, P. (2010) Using creation science to demonstrate evolution: application of a creationist method for visualizing gaps in the fossil record to a phylogenetic study of coelurosaurian dinosaurs. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02039.x
- July 1, 2010
- 03:19 AM
- 100 views
Multicellular origin at 2.1 billion years ago
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
New fossils found in Gabon might push back the origin of multicellular life. By about 200 million years.... Read more »
Albani, A., Bengtson, S., Canfield, D., Bekker, A., Macchiarelli, R., Mazurier, A., Hammarlund, E., Boulvais, P., Dupuy, J., Fontaine, C.... (2010) Large colonial organisms with coordinated growth in oxygenated environments 2.1 Gyr ago. Nature, 466(7302), 100-104. DOI: 10.1038/nature09166
- May 9, 2010
- 04:03 AM
- 204 views
Neanderthals and humans got fiddly
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
The big news this week in evolution is of course the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, and the evidence that humans carry some DNA from our extinct cousins. The paper was published in Science yesterday, and has a total of 56 authors, including team leader Svante Pääbo.... Read more »
Green RE, Krause J, Briggs AW, Maricic T, Stenzel U, Kircher M, Patterson N, Li H, Zhai W, Fritz MH.... (2010) A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome. Science (New York, N.Y.), 328(5979), 710-22. PMID: 20448178
- April 14, 2010
- 09:45 PM
- 225 views
Bad mutations are good for you
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Bonus: homemade video included!
Years ago I was vexed by creationists claiming that because most mutations (that aren't neutral) are deleterious, and only few are beneficial, then evolution cannot happen, because for every beneficial mutation there are many deleterious, thus, goes the inference, making adaptation impossible. (See GLOSSARY OF EVOLUTION below.) This understanding totally ignores selection, and the fact that not all individuals would be hit by deleterious mutations. And eve........ Read more »
Weinreich DM, Delaney NF, Depristo MA, & Hartl DL. (2006) Darwinian evolution can follow only very few mutational paths to fitter proteins. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5770), 111-4. PMID: 16601193
Ortlund EA, Bridgham JT, Redinbo MR, & Thornton JW. (2007) Crystal structure of an ancient protein: evolution by conformational epistasis. Science (New York, N.Y.), 317(5844), 1544-8. PMID: 17702911
- February 10, 2010
- 03:21 PM
- 272 views
Ancient brains revealed by microRNA?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Detlev Arendt's lab at EMBL looks at the evolution of the central nervous system in Bilateria. A brand new letter in Nature, Ancient animal microRNAs and the evolution of tissue identity, explores the link between the birth of ancient microRNAs and body plan evolution.... Read more »
Christodoulou F, Raible F, Tomer R, Simakov O, Trachana K, Klaus S, Snyman H, Hannon GJ, Bork P, & Arendt D. (2010) Ancient animal microRNAs and the evolution of tissue identity. Nature. PMID: 20118916
- January 31, 2010
- 08:15 PM
- 312 views
Both robust and evolvable
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Mutational robustness does not imply low evolvability.... Read more »
Draghi JA, Parsons TL, Wagner GP, & Plotkin JB. (2010) Mutational robustness can facilitate adaptation. Nature, 463(7279), 353-5. PMID: 20090752
- December 31, 2009
- 12:12 PM
- 289 views
Adaptation is fast and effective in a fungus
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Watching adaptation - the process of organisms and populations increasing their fit to the environment - is not easily observed in nature, and when it is, it is often hard to tell what the details of the process are. Crucially, the mutations (and by "mutation" I mean any change to the genome) are mostly unknown, leaving us to guess what kind of genomic changes are responsible for shaping life through evolution.... Read more »
Schoustra SE, Bataillon T, Gifford DR, & Kassen R. (2009) The properties of adaptive walks in evolving populations of fungus. PLoS biology, 7(11). PMID: 19956798
- November 10, 2009
- 03:09 PM
- 279 views
B:III evidence for evolution (which is just a theory)
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Having trouble with your eyes? Well, then, let me have a look at it, because I have read stuff about eyes. I'll be prescribing glasses. Contact lenses don't work, because I don't understand how they can be made, so don't wear those. Got worms in your eyeball? Let me get a knife...... Read more »
William E. Smiddy. (2009) Evolution: Theory, Not Fact. ARCH OPHTHALMOL, 127(11), 1552-1553. info:/
Ebell MH, Siwek J, Weiss BD, Woolf SH, Susman J, Ewigman B, & Bowman M. (2004) Strength of recommendation taxonomy (SORT): a patient-centered approach to grading evidence in the medical literature. American family physician, 69(3), 548-56. PMID: 14971837
- October 14, 2009
- 01:19 AM
- 329 views
Genomic obesity
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
You don't usually think of plants as being fat, but they do really have an issue - at least on the genomic scale. Their genomes can be huge.
They expand their genome size with the help of transposable elements - sequences of DNA that copy and insert themselves somewhere else in the genome.... Read more »
Hawkins JS, Proulx SR, Rapp RA, & Wendel JF. (2009) Rapid DNA loss as a counterbalance to genome expansion through retrotransposon proliferation in plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 19815511
- August 23, 2009
- 04:00 AM
- 496 views
Darwin was wrong about the human appendix being vestigial
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
"Ever since Darwin"™ it has been thought that the human vermiform appendix doesn't serve a function any more, but that the function was lost, and the remnant lingers on - something that is easily explained by evolution, but not so easily explained by creationism.
Then a research team from Duke University came along and changed all that.... Read more »
Randal Bollinger, R., Barbas, A., Bush, E., Lin, S., & Parker, W. (2007) Biofilms in the large bowel suggest an apparent function of the human vermiform appendix. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 249(4), 826-831. DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.08.032
Smith HF, Fisher RE, Everett ML, Thomas AD, Randal Bollinger R, & Parker W. (2009) Comparative anatomy and phylogenetic distribution of the mammalian cecal appendix. Journal of evolutionary biology. PMID: 19678866
- August 18, 2009
- 03:35 PM
- 580 views
Cladistics does not resolve hobbit controversy
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Homo floresiensis (nicknamed "the hobbit") is the name given to a hominin species whose remains were discovered in 2004 on the island of Flores, Indonesia. But do the bones represent a new species at all, or were they, mundanely, anatomically modern humans with some pathological disorder that caused them to have smaller brains (~400 cc) and be shorter (106 cm) than humans (~1130 cc and 147 cm, average for women and indonesian women, respectively)?... Read more »
Argue D, Morwood M, Sutikna T, Jatmiko, & Saptomo W. (2009) Homo floresiensis: A cladistic analysis. Journal of human evolution. PMID: 19628252
- August 17, 2009
- 03:15 PM
- 681 views
Bottle feeding simulates child loss
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Bottle feeding practices and hospital procedures that simulate child loss may increase the risk of postpartum depression and fall within a growing number of medical issues that could benefit from an evolutionary perspective.... Read more »
Gallup Jr., G., Nathan Pipitone, R., Carrone, K., & Leadholm, K. (2009) Bottle feeding simulates child loss: Postpartum depression and evolutionary medicine. Medical Hypotheses. DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.07.016
- August 6, 2009
- 10:17 PM
- 633 views
Darwin's theory can handle the landscape
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Cue the fitness landscape. A multi-dimensional function for organism fitness (ability to reproduce) as a function of the genotype*. A population moves "uphill" when it can to maximize fitness, akin to physical systems, which always moves to minimize its energy.... Read more »
Weissman DB, Desai MM, Fisher DS, & Feldman MW. (2009) The rate at which asexual populations cross fitness valleys. Theoretical population biology, 75(4), 286-300. PMID: 19285994
- July 30, 2009
- 03:53 AM
- 476 views
Organic foods aren't more nutritious
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
So if you purchase organically grown food (crops and meat) because you think they are more nutritious, then you might be disappointed to learn that there is no evidence that it is.In a huge survey of the literature on organic food from the last 50 years, the overall message is that no difference in nutritional value is to be found between organically and conventionally grown foods. [1] (By the ... Read more »
Dangour, A., Dodhia, S., Hayter, A., Allen, E., Lock, K., & Uauy, R. (2009) Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.28041
Pettersson, I., & Berg, C. (2007) ENVIRONMENTALLY RELEVANT CONCENTRATIONS OF ETHYNYLESTRADIOL CAUSE FEMALE-BIASED SEX RATIOS IN XENOPUS TROPICALIS AND RANA TEMPORARIA. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 26(5), 1005. DOI: 10.1897/06-464R.1
- June 17, 2009
- 06:31 PM
- 735 views
Orangutans to replace chimpanzees as our closest relative?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
New evidence that the closest living relative of humans is the orangutan, and not the chimpanzee.... Read more »
John R. Grehan1 and Jeffrey H. Schwartz. (2009) Evolution of the second orangutan: phylogeny and biogeography of hominid origins. Journal of Biogeography. DOI: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/jbi_2141.pdf
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