Author Archives: DWN

Was this ‘the hottest summer’ ever? Not even close

Posted on September 19, 2018 by DWN

CFACT (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow) is a national, student-based nonprofit that believes in promoting prosperity, protecting liberty, and enjoying nature. Free markets, private property rights, and environmental stewardship are the keys to a prosperous society and constructive tomorrow for … Continue reading →

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At least eight separate evolutionary events gave rise to jellyfish eyes !!!

Posted on September 16, 2018 by DWN

During early evolution, as the animal-fungus ancestor diverged from the plant ancestor and then animals split off from fungi –– an obvious survival advantage would be to be able to “sense” one’s environment, i.e. any species able to see food, … Continue reading →

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New method now enables scientists to study gene expression in single cells (“RNA velocity”)

Posted on September 13, 2018 by DWN

When scientists (typically) determine “liver gene transcription, mRNA or protein level, or enzyme activity” –– the entire organ is homogenized and analyzed. Same with lung, kidney, brain, mammary or prostate gland, etc. However, each of these organs comprises multiple cell-types, … Continue reading →

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Bacterial death and population dynamics affect mutation-rate estimates and evolvability — in response to ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS

Posted on September 10, 2018 by DWN

The topic today is directly central to “gene-environment interactions.” Three decades ago, experiments in the lab of John Cairns showed that the effect of “environmental stress” on the mutation rate in bacteria can be remarkably strong (the “stress” they used … Continue reading →

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Only certain histone posttranslatinal modifications appear to qualify as “having an epigenetic effect” ???

Posted on September 8, 2018 by DWN

As often covered in these GEITP pages, multifactorial traits (e.g. phenotypes such as type-2 diabetes, drug efficacy, many dose-independent adverse drug reactions, autism spectrum disorder, cancer) represent the contributions of: [a] genetic predisposition (genotype; DNA-sequence changes); [b] epigenetic effects; [c] … Continue reading →

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Dual-spindle formation keeps the two parental genomes apart in 1-cell mammalian embryo

Posted on September 6, 2018 by DWN

Mammalian life begins with fertilization of the egg. Once the egg and sperm have fused, the parental chromosomes need to be combined. It was previously taught that a single microtubule-spindle is responsible for spatially combining the two genomes, and then … Continue reading →

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SLE in in leptin transgenic pigs ???

Posted on September 6, 2018 by DWN

For anyone interested in SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), this is a weird finding, maybe a paper worth investigating….. Symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are diagnosed in leptin transgenic pigs Junchen Chen, Weiqi Zeng, Weirong Pan, Cong Peng, Jianglin Zhang, Juan … Continue reading →

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The evolution of genome size in maize

Posted on September 5, 2018 by DWN

The full-length article about “genome size” [attached left pdf file] was shared with all of GEITP on Aug 31st, and that analysis is re-posted furthest below. The editorial commentary [attached right pdf file] was intended to accompany the full-length article. … Continue reading →

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The prehistoric peopling of Southeast Asia

Posted on September 4, 2018 by DWN

Anatomically modern humans are known to have expanded into Southeast Asia at least 65,000 years ago –– leading to formation of the Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherer tradition. Although Hòabìnhian foragers are considered to be the ancestors of present-day hunter-gatherers from mainland Southeast … Continue reading →

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A protestor’s change-of-heart sheds light on the public’s reservations about genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

Posted on September 3, 2018 by DWN

This [attached] article is a 1-page summary of a new book review (by José R. Dinneny, Dept of Biology at Stanford Univ). In Seeds of Science, author Mark Lynas has written this book in hopes of improving the “contentious debate … Continue reading →

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