Science & TechnologyS


Bullseye

Crime of evolution: Grasses are 'stealing' genes from neighbors, apparently


Uncommon Descent
Wed, 20 Feb 2019 19:14 UTC
Alloteropsis semialata
© WikipediaAuthorities are warning to be on the lookout for this grass. It might just steal your genes.
For some reason, horizontal gene transfer is described as a way that they "cheat evolution":
Scientists have found evidence that some species of grasses are stealing genes from their neighbors to help them adapt, effectively bypassing millions of years' worth of evolution...
Did the plants have some kind of obligation to develop the genes themselves, assuming they even could?
Now researchers at the University of Sheffield have found that, surprisingly, some grasses are also running a "counterfeit genes" ring. The discovery was made by studying the genome of Alloteropsis semialata grass, and comparing it to the genomes of 150 other grass species. The similarity of certain DNA sequences showed that they had been acquired laterally from their natural neighbors.
How are the genes "counterfeit?"

Comment: For more on horizontal gene transfer and why it doesn't fit nicely into the (neo-)Darwinian worldview, see Perry Marshall's Evolution 2.0. Maybe genomes are selfish, after all? The only problem is, to be selfish one must first have a degree of agency. And there is no agency in evolution, at least according to the doctrinaire priests of Saint Darwin.

Read More...
Info

'Von Braun' space station planned by private aerospace company

Matt Williams
Universe Today
Wed, 20 Feb 2019 17:24 UTC
Von Braun Space Station
© Universe Today
Since the end of the Apollo-era, one of the main goals of NASA, Roscosmos and other space agencies has been the development of technologies that will enable a long-term human presence in space. These technologies will also help when it comes time to mount renewed missions to the Moon, to Mars, and other locations in the Solar System. Over the past few decades, these efforts have yielded Mir and the International Space Station (ISS).

In the coming years, these efforts will also lead to the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway and commercial space stations - like the Bigelow B330. And if private aerospace companies like the Gateway Foundation get their way, we'll also have a spaceport in orbit around Earth. The company recently posted a video showing exactly what this rotating wheel space station will look like, and how companies like SpaceX could help build it.

The company's concept is known as the Gateway, a rotating space station based on designs proposed by German rocket scientist and space architect Werner von Braun. These designs were featured in a series of articles in the national magazine Collier's during the 1950s titled, "Man Will Conquer Space Soon!" For this reason, the company has named their proposed design the Von Braun station.
Read More...
Info

New moon discovered around Neptune

Andrew Griffin
MSN News
Wed, 20 Feb 2019 09:07 UTC
Neptune
© Provided by Independent Digital News & Media Limited
Scientists have found an entirely new moon in our own solar system - and it had been hiding in plain sight.

The new object, named Hippocamp, has been discovered floating around Neptune. It is the planet's smallest moon, and behaves very strangely, in ways that could shed light on how it first formed.

Hippocamp had already been captured in previous images of the nearby planet. But astronomers' technical abilities were not enough to actually spot it, and only now has the tiny world actually been noticed and catalogued.

When the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune in 1989, it spotted six small inner moons orbiting the planet. Each of them is very small, and much younger than Neptune, probably having formed soon after the planet's largest moon called Triton arrived.

But new research shows that there had been another, unnoticed and tiny, moon floating near the planet. That takes the total number of moons around Neptune to 14 and sheds new light on the huge planet.
Read More...
Nebula

Ghostly planetary nebula glows in stunning new VLT image


Sci-News.com
Tue, 22 Jan 2019 16:16 UTC
ESO 577-24 nebula
© ESOESO 577-24 was imaged by the FOcal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The FORS2 instrument captured the bright, central star, Abell 36, as well as the surrounding planetary nebula. The red and blue portions of this image correspond to optical emission at red and blue wavelengths, respectively. An object much closer to home is also visible in this image — an asteroid wandering across the field of view has left a faint track below and to the left of the central star. And in the far distance behind the nebula a glittering host of background galaxies can be seen.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released an absolutely beautiful photo taken by its Very Large Telescope (VLT) of a planetary nebula called ESO 577-24.

ESO 577-24, also known as IRAS F13378-1937 or 2MASS J13404134-1952553, resides approximately 1,400 light-years away from Earth.

It was discovered as part of the National Geographic Society-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey in the 1950s, and was recorded in the Abell Catalogue of Planetary Nebulae in 1966.

The dazzling nebula is the remains of a dead giant star that has thrown off its outer layers, leaving behind a small, intensely hot dwarf star.

This diminished remnant will gradually cool and fade, living out its days as the mere ghost of a once-vast red giant star.

Read More...
Info

Scientists decode Great White Shark genome


Nova Southeastern University
Wed, 20 Feb 2019 01:38 UTC
Great white Shark
© Composite adapted from Pixabay
Fort Lauderdale/Davie, Fla. - The great white shark is one of the most recognized marine creatures on Earth, generating widespread public fascination and media attention, including spawning one of the most successful movies in Hollywood history. This shark possesses notable characteristics, including its massive size (up to 20 feet and 7,000 pounds) and diving to nearly 4,000 foot depths. Great whites are also a big conservation concern given their relatively low numbers in the world's oceans.

In a major scientific step to understand the biology of this iconic apex predator and sharks in general, the entire genome of the white shark has now been decoded in detail.

A team led by scientists from Nova Southeastern University's (NSU) Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center and Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, completed the white shark genome and compared it to genomes from a variety of other vertebrates, including the giant whale shark and humans.

The findings are reported in the 'Latest Articles' section of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Decoding the white shark's genome revealed not only its huge size - one-and-a-half times the size of the human genome - but also a plethora of genetic changes that could be behind the evolutionary success of large-bodied and long-lived sharks.

The researchers found striking occurrences of specific DNA sequence changes indicating molecular adaptation (also known as positive selection) in numerous genes with important roles in maintaining genome stability ­­- the genetic defense mechanisms that counteract the accumulation of damage to a species' DNA, thereby preserving the integrity of the genome.
Read More...
Cow

Isotopes found in Neanderthal bones suggest they were meat eaters


Phys.org
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 17:29 UTC
Neandertal Tooth
© MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/ A. Le CabecTooth of an adult Neandertal from Les Cottés in France. Her diet consisted mainly of the meat of large herbivore mammals.
An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests at least some Neanderthals were mainly fresh meat eaters. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes testing protein samples discovered in Neanderthal bones and what they found.

Ever since scientists discovered the extinct species of human we now know as Neanderthal, our view of them has been changing. Initially, it was believed they were much less intelligent than us, had few if any skills, and in general, were more ape-like than human. And that included their diet-big apes are vegetarian, so it seemed logical to conclude that Neanderthal were, as well. But research over the years has shown them to be far more sophisticated than researchers first realized-they even managed to mate with modern humans. One remaining mystery is why they vanished. In this new effort, the researchers have not found any evidence to solve that mystery, but they have found evidence that suggests Neanderthals were neither vegetarians nor scavengers content to eat meat killed by other animals.

Comment: Considering the many similarities between Neanderthal and Homo sapien, it probably shouldn't be so surprising that, like humans (up until very recently anyway), meat constituted the primary source of nutrition in their diet:

Read More...
Gem

Garnets found to be honeycombed with intricate tunnel patterns - researchers speculate they are biologically caused


Geology IN
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 20:24 UTC
tunnels in garnets
© Ivarsson et al, 2018Garnet crystal with distinct tubular structures. and Microphotograph of network of tubular structures originating at garnet surface.
Experts discovered strange tunnel-like patterns inside the gem stones - used in rings and necklaces - that they believe may have been created by a form of fungus.

Complex systems of microscopic tunnels found inside garnet crystals from Thailand are most likely the result of microorganisms making their homes inside these minerals, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Magnus Ivarsson of the University of Southern Denmark and colleagues.

Endolithic organisms are those that live inside a substrate, be it mineral, wood, bone, or some other material. Some microbes move into pre-existing cavities while others dig their own way in, but this behavior is unexpected in highly resistant minerals like garnet.
Read More...
Galaxy

New map of the Universe reveals 300,000 more galaxies


AFP
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
galaxy
© AFP/File / Joseph EIDThe study used radio astronomy to look at a segment of sky and found 300,000 previously unseen light sources thought to be distant galaxies
The known Universe just got a lot bigger.

A new map of the night sky published Tuesday charts hundreds of thousands of previously unknown galaxies discovered using a telescope that can detect light sources optical instruments cannot see.

The international team behind the unprecedented space survey said their discovery literally shed new light on some of the Universe's deepest secrets, including the physics of black holes and how clusters of galaxies evolve.

"This is a new window on the universe," Cyril Tasse, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who was involved in the project, told AFP.

"When we saw the first images we were like: 'What is this?!' It didn't look anything at all like what we are used to seeing."
Read More...
Info

Exotic spiraling electrons discovered


Sci News
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 19:46 UTC
Spiraling Electrons
© Hsiang-Hsi (Sean) Kung / Rutgers University-New BrunswickThe two types of chiral surface excitons are on the right and left side of the image. They are generated by right- and left-handed light (photons in blue). The excitons consist of an electron (light blue) orbiting a ‘hole’ (black) in the same orientation as the light. The electron and hole are annihilated in less than a trillionth of a second, emitting light (photons in green) that could be harnessed for lighting, solar cells, lasers and electronic displays.
Rutgers University's Professor Girsh Blumberg and colleagues have discovered an exotic form of electrons that spin like planets. Named chiral surface excitons, it consists of particles and anti-particles bound together and swirling around each other on the surface of solids.

"Chiral refers to entities, like your right and left hands, that match but are asymmetrical and can't be superimposed on their mirror image," said team member Hsiang-Hsi (Sean) Kung, a graduate student at Rutgers University.

"Excitons form when intense light shines on solids, kicking negatively charged electrons out of their spots and leaving behind positively charged 'holes'."

The electrons and holes resemble rapidly spinning tops.

The electrons eventually spiral towards the holes, annihilating each other in less than a trillionth of a second while emitting a kind of light called photoluminescence.
Read More...
Chart Pie

The impossible protein: Research confirm's Doug Axe on the rarity of functional proteins

Brian Miller
Evolution News
Mon, 18 Feb 2019 16:57 UTC
Saraha desert
© Luca Galuzzi, via Wikimedia Commons
In a previous article I described the evidence that cooption faces insurmountable mathematical challenges in explaining the origins of such complex molecular machines as the bacterial flagellum. Some of my argument relies on the evidence that novel proteins are exceedingly difficult to evolve. In discussions with critics, several important questions were raised which led me to further research studies addressing the effect of mutations on protein stability. I found that the consistent results of key studies decisively confirm the conclusion of Doug Axe that most natural proteins are too rare to evolve through an undirected search.

Accumulating Mutations

As I noted earlier, evolutionists argue that each protein comprising a flagellum resulted from the duplication of an existing gene which then continuously mutated until it stumbled upon a new flagellar function. However, research over the past several years has shown this claim to be implausible. Understanding why will require a few steps of analysis. To begin, experiments on such model proteins as β-lactamase and HisA demonstrate that their activity declines increasingly rapidly as mutations that change amino acids accumulate, and the mutations' deleterious effects also increase.

As a specific example, the Tokuriki and Tawfik study demonstrated the following effects of accumulating mutations:
  • After only a few random mutations (1-2) under weak selection, around a third of subsequent changes to a protein completely disable it.
  • After several more mutations accumulate (5-6), the protein is inactivated by slightly under two-thirds of subsequent changes.
  • After random alteration of less than 10 percent of the protein's initial sequence, it becomes permanently nonfunctional (fitness approaches zero).
The corresponding rarity (ratio of functional to nonfunctional amino acid sequences) can be calculated working backwards. The number of sequences that differ from an optimal one by a given number of amino acids increases almost exponentially with the number, so a random search would find a barely functional sequence long before an optimized one. Therefore, estimating the upper limit for the probability of a successful trial must focus on this neighborhood of sequence space (map of all possible sequences).
Read More...