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Responding to Skeptic Magazine: Does the T-urf13 gene really refute irreducible complexity?


Evolution News
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:24 UTC
Drought. Corn suffering.
© Pixabay.com
Biologist Arthur Hunt is a professor in Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Since 2007 he has been claiming to have refuted Michael Behe's thesis that irreducible complexity cannot arise by mindless evolutionary processes. Specifically, he points to an example that he maintains is an instance of an irreducibly complex system arising from scratch. The example is a mitochondrial gene called T-urf13, which encodes an ion-gated channel called URF13 that is specific to the mitochondria of maize (the corn plant Zea mays L). In January of this year, Hunt published a revised article online, which can be accessed and downloaded here. And now in a review of Behe's new book, Darwin Devolves, published in Skeptic Magazine, biologist Nathan Lents at John Jay College, drawing on Hunt's article, confidently proclaims that T-urf13 is a "clear example of random tinkering accomplishing exactly what [Behe] claims it cannot." Is that so?

Hunt's article begins:
There has been a spate of interest in the blogosphere recently in the matter of protein evolution, and in particular the proposition that new protein function can evolve. The original version of this essay followed a review of this subject by Long et al. Briefly, the various mechanisms discussed in the review include exon shuffling, gene duplication, retroposition, recruitment of mobile element sequences, lateral gene transfer, gene fusion, and de novo origination. Of all of these, the mechanism that received the least attention was the last - the de novo appearance of new protein-coding genes basically "from scratch". A few examples are mentioned (such as antifreeze proteins, or AFGPs), and long-time followers of ev/cre discussions will recognize the players. However, what I would argue is the most impressive of such examples is not mentioned by Long et al.
The Nature Reviews Genetics article Hunt cites, authored by Manyuan Long and his colleagues back in 2003 (Long et al., 2003), has already been discussed here and refuted at length, as well as in Stephen Meyer's 2013 book Darwin's Doubt (Meyer, 2013).
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Info

Blue light could soon be used to treat superbug infections


EurekAlert!
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:03 UTC
Mohamed Seleem, a professor of microbiology
© Purdue University/Rebecca Wilcox
Mohamed Seleem, a professor of microbiology in Purdue's College of Veterinary Medicine, researches antimicrobial resistance and infectious disease.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterium that causes infection in various parts of the body, is often called a "superbug" thanks to its ability to dodge many common antibiotics. Although most MRSA infections aren't serious, some can be life-threatening, sometimes resulting in amputation of the infected appendage.

Rather than rolling the dice with a multi-drug combination or wasting precious time trying to determine which medicine to prescribe, doctors could soon use a new method for disarming the superbugs: light therapy.

Researchers at Purdue University and Boston University have discovered that exposing the bug to blue light can render it defenseless against antiseptics as mild as hydrogen peroxide. The findings were published in the journal Advanced Science.

"This new tool can treat any superficial wound infected with MRSA, which are typically very difficult to treat," said Mohamed Seleem, a professor of microbiology at Purdue's College of Veterinary Medicine. "The device itself is very small and easy to use. We're hoping that in the next few years, anyone could carry it around in their purse."
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V

Chinese hackers make Tesla drive into oncoming traffic


RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:34 UTC
tesla
© REUTERS / Alexandria Sage
Researchers from Keen Labs in China, one of the most widely respected cybersecurity research groups in the world, have successfully hacked a Tesla Model S autopilot system and forced the car to drive into an oncoming lane.

The wiley white hat hackers developed different forms of attack to confuse and disrupt the Tesla autopilot lane recognition system.

In the first method, Keen researchers added a large number of patches to the dividing line on the road itself to blur it. While it did fool the autopilot, the researchers deemed it too conspicuous to be of any practical, if malicious, use in the real world.

However, a more subtle approach proved far more effective: using just three strategically placed stickers, the researchers were able to create a "fake lane."

For instance, when the stickers were placed at an intersection, hackers could fool the Tesla into thinking the lane continued into what was actually the oncoming lane.
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Satellite

Military analyst: New spy satellite to give India 'considerable advantage' over China and Pakistan


RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 03:05 UTC
IndiaSatellite
© EMISAT/ISRO
The EMISAT radar imaging reconnaissance satellite will allow India to "easily" unveil the electronic warfare capabilities of potential adversaries, thus giving it an edge over Pakistan and China, a military analyst told RT.

"A leading space power - and India is aspiring to be one - simply has to have all types of space reconnaissance in its possession," Mikhail Khodarenok, military analyst and retired colonel in the Russian missile defense forces, told RT.

The EMISAT satellite, which was delivered to orbit by the Indian-made PSLV C-45 on Monday, is a counterpart of the American Lacrosse/Onyx spy satellite. Radar imaging reconnaissance satellites like these "intercept radio signals and identify which radio-electronic systems are used in the designated area," establishing their location, schedule of operations, and the frequencies they use, Khodarenok explained. "They're designed to unveil potential enemies' radars, anti-aircraft missile shield capabilities and air traffic controls."
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Bulb

Watch Russian special forces take 'hallucination-inducing' shield into action


RT
Tue, 02 Apr 2019 19:19 UTC
hallucination shield filin light fun
© YouTube / Russia’s Defense Ministry
It not only provides protection in close quarters combat, but it can also make the enemy hallucinate. Russian special forces using an armored shield with a state-of-the-art light suppression system have been caught on video.

In mid-March, the arrival of a Russian warship with a Filin light gun onboard near British shores caused a meltdown in the UK tabloids. The papers shocked their readers with details of the device's hallucination and vomit-inducing effects, forgetting to mention that the system was designed for defense purposes, and didn't cause irreversible damage to eyesight.

Now, it turns out that similar suppression means, but of a smaller scale, can be also be successfully employed by the troops during combat.

Comment: Compare the relatively harmless, defensive weapon produced by Russia with what America is conjuring up: US marines reveal plans for plasma 'crowd control' weapon that screams, burns, blinds and kills from 3,000 feet away

See also:

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Cow Skull

Hot air! Methane warming caused by livestock exaggerated by 400%

Barry Brill
Watts Up With That
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 00:00 UTC
cows
The IPCC's AR5 estimated the global warming caused by a tonne of livestock methane would be 28 times that of a tonne of carbon dioxide. New research destroys that estimate.

The war on meat has been gathering pace amongst our Western elites. The Economist makes a detailed case for "plant-based food" in the interests of quelling climate change -
The FAO calculates that cattle generate up to two-thirds of the greenhouse gases from livestock, and are the world's fifth largest source of methane. If cows were a country, the United Herds of Earth would be the planet's third largest greenhouse-gas emitter.
These calculations are based on figures supplied by the IPCC's AR5, which contends that the global warming potential (GWP) of methane over 100 years is no less than 28 times the global warming it expects to be caused by an equivalent weight of carbon dioxide. This estimate is up from the GWP of 21 put forward in the IPCC's previous report.
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Brain

New study on pre-natal brain development blows up old ideas about girls and boys

Leonard Sax M.D., Ph.D.
Psychology Today
Wed, 27 Mar 2019 17:39 UTC
boy girl baby sex differences
© Stock
Is gender a mere tool of the patriarchy? Or is it hardwired prior to birth?

If there are superstar scholars, Berkeley professor Judith Butler is a superstar. She is best known for pioneering the idea that "male" and "female" are merely social constructs. She writes that "because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all." For this insight, she has been rewarded with an avalanche of scholarly honors and prizes, including the Mellon Prize, which carries with it a $1.5 million cash award. (By comparison, the Nobel Prize gets you just $1.1 million.)

Butler is a professor of comparative literature, not a neuroscientist, but her ideas about gender have become widely accepted worldwide in the nearly 30 years since the publication of her book Gender Trouble. In 2017, Cordelia Fine, professor of historical and philosophical studies at the University of Melbourne, published a book titled Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the myths of our gendered minds Following Butler, Fine asserted that any claims that women and men differ significantly in brain or behavior are simply myths perpetuated by the heteronormative patriarchy. Fine's book promptly received the Royal Society's prestigious prize for best science book of the year.
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2 + 2 = 4

Mathematician Granville Sewell: Devolution is natural, evolution is not

Granville Sewell
Evolution News
Mon, 01 Apr 2019 17:54 UTC
Japan car factory
© Toru Hanai / Reuters
I know many other mathematicians and engineers who share my low opinion of Darwinism, but most are reluctant to express their views publicly because they feel that the issue is simply outside their area of expertise and they will not be taken seriously. I also tend to defer to specialists on scientific issues outside my discipline - until those specialists try to tell me something clearly absurd, for example, that unintelligent forces alone could have reorganized the basic particles on Earth into computers and airplanes and Apple iPhones. Then I don't hesitate to jump into the debate. I have done so, for example, in a 2000 Mathematical Intelligencer opinion piece, "A Mathematician's View of Evolution," and in a 2017 Physics Essays article, "On 'Compensating' Entropy Decreases."

A Very Simple Principle

It is really not necessary to be a biochemist or a paleontologist to understand the main issue in the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design. That is because it is a very simple principle, as I keep emphasizing: natural (unintelligent) causes do not create order (or information). They destroy it. That is the main theme of the first half of my video "Why Evolution Is Different."

Comment: More from Behe himself:

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Robot

Killer robots already exist

Mark Ryder
The Conversation
Wed, 27 Mar 2019 11:28 UTC
Killer Robots
© Mykola Holyutyak/Shutterstock
Humans will always make the final decision on whether armed robots can shoot, according to a statement by the US Department of Defense. Their clarification comes amid fears about a new advanced targeting system, known as ATLAS, that will use artificial intelligence in combat vehicles to target and execute threats. While the public may feel uneasy about so-called "killer robots", the concept is nothing new - machine-gun wielding "SWORDS" robots were deployed in Iraq as early as 2007.

Our relationship with military robots goes back even further than that. This is because when people say "robot", they can mean any technology with some form of "autonomous" element that allows it to perform a task without the need for direct human intervention.

These technologies have existed for a very long time. During World War II, the proximity fuse was developed to explode artillery shells at a predetermined distance from their target. This made the shells far more effective than they would otherwise have been by augmenting human decision making and, in some cases, taking the human out of the loop completely.

So the question is not so much whether we should use autonomous weapon systems in battle - we already use them, and they take many forms. Rather, we should focus on how we use them, why we use them, and what form - if any - human intervention should take.
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Comet 2

Asteroid G6478 now has two tails and scientists think it's breaking apart

Dave Mosher
Business Insider
Thu, 28 Mar 2019 20:59 UTC
6478 Gault

Thanks to an impressive collaboration bringing together data from ground-based telescopes, all-sky surveys and space-based facilities — including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope — a rare self-destructing asteroid called 6478 Gault has been observed.
In space, no one can hear an asteroid scream. But astronomers just used the Hubble telescope to see one destroying itself.

A 2.5-mile-wide asteroid called 6478 Gault was first discovered in 1988, and it seemed like many of the other 800,000 known space rocks.

But in January, astronomers saw something strange in survey telescope images: Gault had become "active" and sprouted a big, bright tail - much like a comet's - that stretched more than 500,000 miles long. A dimmer second tail was found several weeks later.

Some space rocks that initially look like asteroids are later found to be comets when they pass close to the sun. The boost in solar energy can warm up ice and other frozen compounds hidden under layers of dust, turning those materials into gases and leading the rock to spew out comet debris to form a long, glowing tail.


Comment: As noted in Something only EU can explain: Asteroid 6478 Gault 'suddenly sprouts a comet-like tail':
It IS a 'comet' because the only difference between an asteroid and a comet is that the latter is glowing from electrical discharge.

Gault didn't seem to fit the bill, though, since it lurks about 214 million miles away from the sun in a fairly circular orbit between Mars and Jupiter. In other words, it never swung close to the sun. So scientists wondered if another space rock had collided with Gault, splashing its dusty guts all over space.

Comment: Scientists are documenting a lot of 'rare' activity which they are struggling to explain because, despite the advance in technology which can monitor space rocks, their current theories have yet to incorporate the electro-magnetic nature of space: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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