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Discerning life's origins: The line between natural and artificial has become more blurry


Evolution News
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 23:47 UTC
topiary octopus plant garden
© Doko Jozef Kotulič
Topiary animals and decorative hedge in Karlova Ves, Bratislava.
In 2010, Craig Venter's lab embedded text and images into the DNA of a bacterium. Would a future investigator be able to tell? It would take special tools to see the insertion, but the difference should be detectable. What if bioengineers invent new genes that use the cell's translation machinery to build non-natural proteins? This is already coming to pass with CRISPR/Cas9 methods. If the insertion were made in an embryo, all the adult cells would inherit the change. The line between natural and artificial is getting more blurry.

In a sense, the new bioengineering developments are similar in principle to longstanding cases of artificial interference in nature, as in agriculture, camouflage, or construction of simple dwellings with available materials like grass or fallen branches. The Design Filter takes into account what chance and natural law can do. There will always be difficult cases; ID errs on the side of non-intelligent causes when the degree of specified complexity is borderline. But now, specified complexity exists in both "natural" DNA and DNA altered by human intelligence. There should be ways to distinguish between human intelligent causes and non-human intelligent causes, whether those be space aliens, spirit beings, or a transcendent Creator.
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Info

Men are the weaker sex!

Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
American Council on Science and Health
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 16:57 UTC
Chromosomes
© Human Origin Project
Women have two X chromosomes (homogametic sex), while men have an X and a Y (heterogametic sex). The "unguarded X hypothesis" suggests that as our chromosomes age, men don't have a backup plan when their X begins to falter, having a Y leaves that X unprotected. Alternatively, there is the "toxic Y hypothesis," where the Y acts as a bit of a rogue adversely altering gene expressions and mutations. A group of researchers considered the life-span across all the species where two genes created homogametic or heterogametic genders. Their data set included 229 species, 99 families, 38 orders and eight classes [1]

Across a wide range of species including us mammals, insects, reptiles, and ray-finned fish (fish whose fins are supported by a bony infrastructure), the homogametic gender on average lives 17.6% longer.

As it turns out, in birds, moths, and butterflies, the male is homogametic (noted as ZZ), and the female is heterogametic (ZW). Again, the homogametic gender lives longer. So it seems that the unguarded X hypothesis contains some truth.

The second finding by the researchers suggests a limit to the effect of an unguarded X.

"...that when males are heterogametic sex they die 20.9% earlier than their female counterparts, but when females are the heterogametic sex, they die only 7.1% earlier than their male counterparts."
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Better Earth

Ice Ages related to changes in Earth's tilt - study

Lito Vilisoni Wilson, University of Melbourne
Phys.org
Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:26 UTC
Cave
© Linda Tegg
Galleria delle Stalattiti, Corchia Cave.
New University of Melbourne research has revealed that ice ages over the last million years ended when the tilt angle of the Earth's axis was approaching higher values.

During these times, longer and stronger summers melted the large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, propelling the Earth's climate into a warm 'interglacial' state, like the one we've experienced over the last 11,000 years.

The study by Ph.D. candidate, Petra Bajo, and colleagues also showed that summer energy levels at the time these 'ice-age terminations' were triggered controlled how long it took for the ice sheets to collapse, with higher energy levels producing fast collapse.

Comment: The real dynamics driving Ice Ages will continue to be poorly understood until mainstream science factors in particularly significant variables including but not limited to cosmic catastrophes and electric universe theory. For more, see: Also check out SOTT radio's: Adapt 2030 Ice Age Report: Interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Pierre Lescaudron

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Blue Planet

Dinosaur 'stomping ground' discovered on Scotland's Isle of Skye

James Rogers
New York Post
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:09 UTC
Jurassic
© REUTERS
An artist's rendering of dinosaurs living on what is now Scotland's Isle of Skye 170 million years ago during the Jurassic Period.
Experts have discovered a 'dinosaur stomping ground' on the Isle of Skye off the northwest coast of Scotland.

The research was led by University of Edinburgh paleontologist Paige dePolo as part of her master's study. Her fellow University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte also participated in the project.

The paleontologists' research is revealed in a paper published in the journal Plos One.

"Thrilled to announce our latest dinosaur discovery from the Isle of Skye in Scotland: two new Jurassic-aged tracksites, with dozens of tracks, some made by dinosaurs we didn't know lived here!," tweeted Brusatte, who is also an author of the research paper.

Comment: See also:

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Telescope

Very Large Telescope observes exoplanet where iron evaporates on its day side and falls as 'rain' on its night side


PhysOrg
Wed, 11 Mar 2020 21:22 UTC
artist impression iron rain exoplanet WASP-76b
© ESO/M. Kornmesser
Artist's illustration shows a night-side view of the exoplanet WASP-76b. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400 degrees Celsius, high enough to vaporise metals. Strong winds carry iron vapour to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets. To the left of the image, we see the evening border of the exoplanet, where it transitions from day to night.
Researchers using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed an extreme planet where they suspect it rains iron. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400 degrees Celsius, high enough to vaporise metals. Strong winds carry iron vapour to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets.

"One could say that this planet gets rainy in the evening, except it rains iron," says David Ehrenreich, a professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He led a study, published today in the journal Nature, of this exotic exoplanet. Known as WASP-76b, it is located some 640 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces.

This strange phenomenon happens because the 'iron rain' planet only ever shows one face, its day side, to its parent star, its cooler night side remaining in perpetual darkness. Like the Moon on its orbit around the Earth, WASP-76b is 'tidally locked': it takes as long to rotate around its axis as it does to go around the star.
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Microscope 1

Scientists discover how new coronavirus unlocks and invades human cells

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 20:52 UTC
coronavirus
© Shutterstock
A new understanding of how the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, gets into human cells could help researchers develop drug treatments or vaccines for the coronavirus.
Scientists have revealed the first picture of how the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 binds with human respiratory cells in order to hijack them to produce more viruses.

Researchers led by Qiang Zhou, a research fellow at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China, have revealed how the new virus attaches to a receptor on respiratory cells called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, or ACE2.

"They have pictures all the way down at the level of the atoms that interact at the binding interface," Thomas Gallagher, a virologist at Loyola University Chicago who was not involved in the new research but studies coronavirus structure, told Live Science. That level of information is unusual at this stage of a new virus outbreak, he said.

Comment: More practical information. Bottom line: Get plenty of rest, vitamin C, stay hydrated, and wash your hands!



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Galaxy

How the North Star defies astronomers models

Rafi Letzter
Live Science
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 20:32 UTC
Polaris
© Shutterstock
A long-exposure image shows stars appearing to whirl around Polaris, the north star, which appears fixed in the sky.
People have watched the North Star for centuries. The bright star, also known as Polaris, is almost directly above Earth's North Pole and serves as a landmark in the sky for travelers without a compass. It's also Earth's closest cepheid, a type of star that pulses regularly in diameter and brightness. And Polaris is part of a binary system; it's got a dimmer sister, known as Polaris B, that we can watch circling it from Earth.

"However, as we learn more, it is becoming clear that we understand less" about Polaris, wrote the authors of a new paper on the famous star.

The problem with Polaris is that no one can agree on how big or distant it is.

Comment: See also:

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Info

New method to grow human blood vessels

Angel Mendez
University of Minnesota Medical School
Mon, 09 Mar 2020 17:57 UTC
New Blood Vessels
© University of Minnesota Medical School
A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School recently proved the ability to grow human-derived blood vessels in a pig — a novel approach that has the potential for providing unlimited human vessels for transplant purposes. Because these vessels were made with patient-derived skin cells, they are less likely to be rejected by the recipient, helping patients potentially avoid the need for life-long, anti-rejection drugs.

Daniel Garry, MD, PhD, and Mary Garry, PhD, both professors in the Department of Medicine at the U of M Medical School, co-led the research team and published their findings in Nature Biotechnology last week.

"There's so many chronic and terminal diseases, and many people are not able to participate in organ transplantation," said Daniel, who is also a heart failure and transplant cardiologist. "About 98 percent of people are not going to be eligible for a heart transplant, so there's been a huge effort in trying to come up with strategies to increase the donor pool. Our approach looked at a pig."

Because of similarities between human and pig physiology, scientists have historically studied pigs to discover treatments for health issues, including diabetes. Before researchers engineered human insulin, doctors treated patients with pig insulin.

"Our discovery has made a platform for making human blood vessels in a pig," said Daniel. "This could allow us to make organs with human blood vessels that would be less apt to be rejected and could be used in patients in need of a transplant. That's what typically causes rejection — the lining of the blood vessels in the organs."
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Galaxy

Almost 140 new minor planets found beyond Neptune

Michelle Star
Science Alert
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:16 UTC
minor planets
A project to map dark energy in the southern sky has brilliantly exceeded its parameters. It turns out, the Dark Energy Survey has also been adept at identifying really small objects all the way out past Neptune.

In its first four years of data, astronomers have successfully identified 316 minor planets, 139 of which are totally new.

The discoveries were made after an intensive re-analysis of said data, using new techniques that could help to find more minor planets in the far reaches of the Solar System, scientists say. They might even aid in the search for the mysterious Planet Nine, thought to be lurking out there in the dark.

The Dark Energy Survey itself is officially over. It ran between August 2013 and January 2019, collecting five and a half years' worth of infrared and near-infrared data on the southern sky. It was studying a range of objects and phenomena such as supernovae and galaxy clusters to try to calculate the acceleration of expansion of the Universe, thought to be influenced by dark energy.
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Telescope

Researchers pose new theory about ice giants Neptune and Uranus' peculiar magnetic fields


Sputnik
Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:27 UTC
Uranus
© NASA
Uranus
When NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft arrived to study planets Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s, it found that both ice giants boasted unusual magnetic fields, offset from the axis they rotate around. Subsequent studies suggest a bizarre state of water with both solid and liquid properties might offer a solution to the mystery.

New research conducted by a team of scientists might possibly have offered a solution to the mystery surrounding ice giants Uranus and Neptune's bizarre magnetic field.

The two planets' magnetic fields are offset from their physical centre and strongly tilted in relation to their rotational axes - 47° on Neptune and 59° on Uranus.
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