On The Life Sciences Scene

Cancer And College, Or Cancer and Money

From

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33948/title/Cancer_and_college

"Highly educated people have reaped the benefits of cancer prevention and treatment. Death rates in this group have fallen, but people with less education have missed out on these gains."

Seems to me like hypocritical pseudoscientific misconception.

I suspect it's definitely and obviously and commonsensely not cancer and college but cancer and money. It simply happens that college is also and money...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Culture Drives Capability

From "Loud and clear"

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33933/title/Loud_and_clear

"Skulls of Neandertal ancestors show the prehistoric humans had a hearing capacity similar to present-day people, suggesting human speech could have originated much earlier than previously thought."

Indeed human speech may have originated earlier than some researchers contend; however and since speech, as well as every and of all biological functions, do not come about due to "capacity". The biological "capacity" evolves consequent to the survival-cultural-requirement drive of the organism.

A small difference...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Prion Proteins, 2008

I. The two faces of prion proteins

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/34119/title/The_two_faces_of_prion_proteins

- "Scientists are learning more about the protein behind mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, including how to interfere with the proteins' production in the brains of mice. "

- "It’s also a mystery how prions replicate — they seem to do it without DNA — and they are difficult to kill."

II. At Genesis replicating RNA-related oligomers replicated without DNA!

IMO there is a definite, even if yet vaguely understood, relationship between CJ and Life Genesis phenomena parallel to the likewise relationship between black-holes and biosphere phenomena.

Black-holes and Biosphere(s?) are both phenomena of constrained energy pockets within a universe of expanding energy.

CJ and Life Genesis are both phenomena of serendipitous occurrence of favourable energy potential, in the case of life genesis between incoming sun's radiation and RNA-related oligomers, and in CJ proteins replication between specific protein-forming-enzymes and enzymes-protein complexes:

III. Prions, Normal and Pathogenic.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=125

(A) Aug 15, 2004 DH, biologicalEvolution forum.

Re Scientific American July 2004, "Detecting Mad Cow Disease", SB Prusiner.

Genesis and replication modes of pathogenic prions curiously connote initial genesis and evolution of life, maybe from an RNA-related conformation. In both cases the process-enabling-moving circumstances are presence of the precursors of the Bingo Conformation plus a favorable energy balance.

Is it probable/possible, therefore, that the switch from normal to pathogenic prions is enabled and moved by a replacement of a component amino-acid such as tryptophane/niacin ?

(B) Aug 28, 2004 DH, biologicalEvolution forum.

The subject intrigues me because back in the early '50s I effected encephalomyelitis in fowls by inadequate levels of niacin or tryptophane and found that the minimal required level of these amino acids for the type of fowl was related to the physiology/weight/activity characteristics of the different fowl types.

My gut feeling (obviously not experimental evidence) is that PrPc to PrPSc conversion is indeed a "posttranslational conversion", initiated and maintained by a replacement of an amino acid, initiated and chain-reacting due to an energetically effected equation situation, on one side the PrPc precursors and on the other side the precipitating PrPSc.

Now I just read (The Scientist) updated reports that purified PrPSc do not replicate and that indeed various PrPSc's differ in amino acid component(s) .

Therefore it is required now to learn if tagged PrPc shows up in the PrPSc, or not, for finding if the PrPSc is formed from PrPc, or if it is formed instead of and to the exclusion of PrPc.

Also these data enhance the probability that the pathogenic PrPSc's include an adjunct "agent", lost upon PrPSc purification, that directs the preferred formation of PrPSc. end.

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Bird Brains Suggest How Vocal Learning Evolved?

It Did Not Evolve Via Pre-Existing Pathways, As You Suggest.

(posted earlier at physforum.co)

A. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311215702.htm

Quote:
Based on the data, we think that the brain has a pre-existing substrate, namely a forebrain motor pathway, that led to the evolution of similar vocal learning pathways in three different bird families," Jarvis said.

The connection between movement and vocal learning also extends to humans, Jarvis suggests. Human brain structures for speech also lie adjacent to, and even within, areas that control movement. "We can make a plausible argument that in humans, our spoken language areas also evolved out of pre-existing motor pathways," he said. These pathways, he believes, date back to the common ancestor of reptiles, birds and mammals, creatures called stem amniotes that lived about 300 million years ago."
end quote.

B. Is the view of Science dimmed by pre-Copernicus/Galileo cataract?
Or are 21st century scientists orthodox religious people?

"We can make a plausible argument that in humans, our spoken language areas also evolved out of pre-existing motor pathways," he said. """!

At some time "pre" there was not "existing", and sometime somehow the "existing" must have come into being...

When will 21st century Science realize that IT IS CULTURE THAT DRIVES EVOLUTION and not evolution that drives culture, that it is the daily experiences (culture) of life forms - the 2nd stratum genomes and 3rd stratum monocell communities and multi-celled organisms - that imprint the modifications ("mutations") in the primal stratum life organisms, the genes!

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

nullTS1019153 wrote:

When will 21st century Science realize that IT IS CULTURE THAT DRIVES EVOLUTION and not evolution that drives culture, that it is the daily experiences (culture) of life forms - the 2nd stratum genomes and 3rd stratum monocell communities and multi-celled organisms - that imprint the modifications ("mutations") in the primal stratum life organisms, the genes!

Dov Henis

For Better Attention :

IT IS CULTURE THAT DRIVES EVOLUTION and not evolution that drives culture.

It is the daily experiences (culture) of life forms - of the 2nd stratum genomes and of the 3rd stratum monocell communities and multi-celled organisms - that imprint the modifications ("mutations") in the primal stratum life organisms, the genes!

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Monocells Community And Multicelled Organism Profiled Genetically Alike

Of course. Both are doing best to survive.

This rational and very interesting approach is presented at

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111275&org=NSF&from=news

The report includes also this interesting info:

Nowhere is the principle of "strength in numbers" more apparent than in the collective power of microbes: despite their simplicity, these one-cell organisms, that number about 5 million trillion trillion strong (no, that is not a typo) (5x10^30 by the American system. Dov) on Earth, affect virtually every ecological process, from the decay of organic material to the production of oxygen... and viruses are known to be ten times more abundant than even microbes...

Fwd by Dov Henis

Yeast, worms and people may age by similar mechanisms

(posted also in physforum.com)

Because genes are organisms and age too...

A. Yeast, worms and people may age by similar mechanisms...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/cshl-got030608.php

"Nearly all organisms experience aging".

B. And the organisms genes do not "experience aging"?

Right you are. "Nearly all organisms experience aging".
But why "nearly"?

Not only yeast, worms and people. Also genes and the interdependent-genes-communes, genomes. These are organisms, too. It is their "lifehood" that makes us and all life forms "alive".

By plain common sense, my favorite scientific approach, they should also be "experiencing aging"...

C. The aging of genes should be contributing to aging of organisms...

Since genomes are cooperative communes of interdependent genes there are many genes that "modulate aging" to smaller or larger extent at various time-rates depending on circumstances and environment and.... various things happen to them or affect them and impair their functionalities and ....

Suggesting,

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Evolution Does Not "Tend To Do" anything

(posted also in physorg forum)

Some remarks re some of the statements in the abstract report "Insights From Genes Unique To Humans", at

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/wuso-fsh032108.php

Each and every properly conducted research project adds information and data to the store of our knowledge, regardless of the rational of the plan of the research or of the conclusions attributed to its results; this work not excepted:

1) "Evolution, Stahl notes, naturally tends to retain genes involved in the most important components of metabolism".

Evolution does not "tend do do" anything. Evolution doe not have an active ubiquituous existence anywhere and is NOT A LAW OF NATURE. Evolution is plainly and simply one of a variety of systemized observations-accounts of processes and events. In genetics, evolution - modifications - of genes, the primal life stratum, is driven by the culture of the genome, the second stratum organisms, and by the culture of the third stratum organisms which are the monocellular communities and the multi-celled organisms.

2) Are "humans-only genes" and "hominoids genes" interchangeable terms?

I wonder...

3) "...interesting for evolutionary biologists to try to develop a sense for where these humans-only genes come from," Stahl says. "The building blocks of these genes may be present but not active in earlier species."

I.e. somehow, sometime back, those "building blocks", those just-right-dedicated Lego pieces, were installed and fixed to be dormant until at a later sometime, somehow their collection became active, to assume specific function(s)...to become active genes...

Again, science must be rescued from the middle-ages conceptions...

suggesting,

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Bigger brains go with more variety in body size?

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/34186/title/Brains_for_a_change

"Outsized brains may have sped up evolution of body size in birds" ?

NO, NO, NO.

What YES?

YES More variety in body size goes with bigger brain!

Evolution of body size variety in birds has been bringing about bigger sized brain!

A small difference...

Again and again and again :

It is not physiological evolution that drives culture, which is modes of life and phenotypic varieties.

It is culture that drives physiological evolution. Variety of modes of life brings about also bigger size brain...the individuals face new challenges...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

How Decisions Are Made Within The OCM (outer cell membrane)

(posted also in physorg)

A. From "Bistable Cell Division Switch":

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/dumc-ast032108.php

This switch is part of a critical pathway that controls cell division, production of new cells. Before a cell starts to divide, it goes through a checklist to make sure everything is in order. If the checklist uncovers something wrong, it can halt the process. But once a cell passes a "restriction point", there’s no turning back, no matter the consequences. The switch controls this milestone and is key to cell growth.

The switch is part of the Rb-E2F signaling pathway. Rb, or retinoblastoma, is a key tumor suppressor GENE, and E2F is a protein, a GENE TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR that governs the expression of all the genes essential for cells to grow. This wiring diagram is fundamentally the same in different organisms, to regulate their growth.

The cellular pathway that includes the switch is found in all multi-cellular life, from plants to people. A decision within the cell triggers the pathway when an external chemical signal to grow is received.

B. Who decides to do cell division or, generally, to do any thing, within the OCM, the outer cell membrane?

Let's leave aside the many decision-related questions such as when and how a need for a decision is prompted, how decisions are instructed and executed. Let's apply ourselves now ONLY to the question WHO makes the decision.

I conjecture that the genome behaves not as being presided by a decider PG, a President Gene, but by innate complete credence to each and every member of the cooperative genome commune of its genes membership, thus accepting a priori the decision of the individual member, but But BUt BUT coupling this with a very elaborate system of crisscross checklisting of this decision by other members of the genome.

Conjecturing,

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=372

Why Music Touches-Moves Us

(Nov 11, 2005 DH,biologicalEvolution forum)

Music is a human cultural-artifactual elaboration of creatures' vocal communication which is an extension-elaboration of >24 wks-old in-womb fetus' and of newborns' intimate safe/coddle/sooth experiences. Both 'touch' and 'hear' senses are founded on mechanical sensing processes involving in-cell ions leakage forming electrical action potentials interpreted neurologically.

I suggest/conjecture that the same neurological constellation may be handling both 'touch' and 'hear' senses, being of commom mechanisms and differing essentially only in switch-on modes, and that this evolves in all vocal creatures in conjunction with in-womb safety, followed with baby codling/handling and vocal soothing/communicating, and later also with intimate emotional implications. Hence music has 'engulfing-touching-emotional' connotation and personal music orientation has also childhood-ethnic rootings.

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Human Brain Language Wiring

(posted also in physorg)

Science Must Refresh Concept Of Evolution

A. Unique Human Brain Language Feature Sheds Light On Human Language Evolution

http://www.physorg.com/news125500956.html

"DTI now makes it possible to understand how evolution changed the wiring of the human brain to enable us to think, act and speak like humans."

B. Come On, Science Technicians, Rethink, Refresh Concepts!

It is NOT that the Uniquely Human Brain Wiring ENABLED US to think, act and speak like humans.

It is that our innitiation and application of thinking and speaking lead to the expansion and modification, by our genome, of the uniquely human brain wiring, that enabled further development of these survival capabilities!

This difference in comprehension is not a minor difference. It is a major prime difference in the conception and understanding of what evolution is and how we fit in it!

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Chirality In Life, The Earliest Surviving Darwinian Evolution Evidence

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14988&st=180&#entry327715

Chirality In Life Still Awaits Elucidation?

A. From "...key to life before its origin on Earth?"

http://www.physorg.com/news123440279.html#tab

When scientists synthesize these molecules in the laboratory, half of a sample turns out to be “left-handed” and the other half “right-handed.” But the amino acids that are the building blocks of terrestrial proteins are all “left-handed,” while the sugars of DNA and RNA are “right-handed.” The mystery as to why this is the case, “parallels in many of its queries those that surround the origin of life...”

Thanks to the pristine nature of this meteorite, we were able to demonstrate that other extraterrestrial amino acids carry the left-handed excesses in meteorites and, above all, that these excesses appear to signify that their precursor molecules, the aldehydes, also carried such excesses,” Pizzarello said. “In other words, a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a long cosmic lineage.”

B. From "Allosteric, chiral-selective drug binding to DNA"

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/97/22/12032.pdf

(Allosteric: of, relating to, undergoing, or being a change in the shape and activity of a protein, as an enzyme, that results from combination with another substance at a point other than the chemically active site)

DNA is polymorphic and exists in a variety of distinct conformations. Duplex DNA can adopt a variety of sequence-dependent secondary structures that range from the canonical right-handed B form through the left-handed Z conformation. Multistranded triplex and tetraplex structures are now known to exist. All of these unique conformations may play important functional roles in gene expression.

C. Chirality in life still awaits elucidation?

Firstly, reasearch findings should be stated scientifically correctly. In A above NOT "a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a long cosmic lineage”, but YES "a molecular conformation dominant in Earth life may have broader distribution and additional cosmic presence.”

Next, re in A above "the mystery as to why this is the case", my conjecture about the probable reasons for the prevailing chirality:

Darwinian evolution started at life's day one, with the genesis of the first organisms, the replicating oligomers, pre-archaea genes. It started under yet-unknown energetic conditions, by a serendipitous accident, with oligomeric (RNA?) conformations, in a soup containing all their essential molecular progenitors. These conformations happened to absorb the amounts of energy enabling their polymerization, to lengths precipitated as determined by the nature and conditions of the soup.

The sugars and the nitrogen-based compounds that, together with the phosphates, are the components of the genes-organisms, are chiral. There probably is an energetic advantage in homochirality and chiral homogeneity for the self-replication of biopolymers.

This serendipitous accident set up a matrix-field of energy with a potential extended between its source, the sun radiation and the precipitating organisms. This was the genesis of the ongoing formation and maintenance of Earth's biosphere.

And since thus the biosphere started it could only evolve in more favorable energetic directions and towards stabler components. Survival. After all this is already the process of life evolution...

This is a scientifically plausible conjecture that elucidates chirality in life...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

What Life Is Not And what Life Is

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14988&st=210&#entry336122

A. Definition of life that "truly captures the essence of what all living things actually are and do"?

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2008/04/life-defined.html

This "new definition of life" seems to me like an engineer's definition of a train:

"Life is a thermodynamically open chemical system with a semi-permeable boundary. It contains an information-based complex system with emergent properties, part of which drives a metabolism based on a proton gradient. The said gradient generates the necessary potential difference across the semi-permeable boundary. The information is heritable and coded in such a way as to allow variation and thus evolution."

B. "life Is Destined To Become More Complex"?

http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2008/3/17/ruleevolution.html

Seems to me that Earht's life is NOT "destined to become more complex" but that it evolves to enhance and maintain the energy stored in Earth's biosphere, Plain And Simple, and that like other temporarily constrained energy pockets (f.e. black holes)it will eventually undergo "energetic evolution".

C. "Viruses arose from the cellular domain...not long after the archaea"

http://www.physorg.com/news124097235.html

"The new analysis also indicates that viruses emerged not long after the archaea, with the superkingdoms eukarya and bacteria following much later – and in that order. This finding may influence the ongoing debate over whether viruses existed prior to, or after, the emergence of living cells, Caetano-Anolles said."

D. Repeating ad absurdum plain common-sense science comprehensions

1. http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14988&st=165&#entry320236

"Base Darwinistic" evolution starts at Life's day one, with pre-Archaea Genes, with the genesis on the still-not-biotic Earth of pre-genomed pre-celled genes.

2. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=372

Viruses, Too, Are Bona Fide Organisms. Evolution is in the direction of more effective survivability; this is not always the direction of more complexing for coping with changing environments and competition. In a stable nutritious environment, like in Earth's oceans, coping with vital requirenments, evolution, is in the opposite direction, simplify tooling and means.

It is plain common sense that viruses, even Viroids and Virusoids, nothing more than single strands of DNA or RNA, sometimes only 200-300 nucleotides long, are organisms as alive as we are, evolved at life genesis era and selected for survival in forms, composition and capabilities by living, and even replicating, off their richer kin. Smart little buggers.

3. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=409

Factors Involved In Extended Historical Darwinism:

- Earth Life Is A Real Virtual Affair; it pops in and out of existence in its matrix, which is the energy constrained in Earth's biosphere .

- Genes are organisms, originally independent individuals and later interdependent members of genes communes, genomes, all continuously undergoing evolution directed towards survival as long as possible, for maintaining Earth's biosphere at a bio state as long as possible.

- "Culture" (= the totality of ways of the organisms' dealing with its environment: reaction to, manipulation of, exploitation of) is a ubiquitous biological entity, the major effector of genetic evolution, of capabilities and attributes selected for survival.

- The major course of natural selection is not via "random mutations followed by survival", but via interdependent, interactive and interenhencing selection of biased replication routes by genes at their alternative-splicing-steps junctions, effected by the cultural feedback of the third life stratum multicells organism or monocells community to their second and prime strata genome and genes organisms.

- Evolution of life is but a minute component of the evolution of the universe. Cosmic evolution is the evolution of energy. Life, like all objects and processes and natural laws in the universe, are - since none in exsistence at singularity - products of evolution and are continuously further evolving. Everything in the cosmos is fractal, rehappens on many scales, and is continuously evolving. Each and every system in the universe continuously evolves within the total universal evolution and all the systems' evolutions are intertwined and within it life's evolution is the evolution of genes-genomes, in an eventual losing attempt to survive, to maintain - as long as possible - pockets of constrained energy that would otherwise and anyhow eventually expand and dilute with the whole mass and energy of the cosmos...

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Puzzled why even Darwinians do not comprehend that Darwinism starts all the way back with Life's day one, with the pre-archaea not-yet-genomed-celled genes...

Come On, Upgrade To 21st Century Comprehension!

A.
"Protein links metabolism and circadian rhythms"

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/34438/title/Protein_links_metabolism_and_circadian_rhythms

"Scientists have known for ages that metabolism is tied to the body's daily rhythms. Two new studies suggest how."

"body rhythms are governed by molecular clocks that take about a day to complete a full cycle, hence the name circadian clock. The clocks are composed of proteins whose concentrations or levels of activity rise and fall like the tide."

B. The "clocks are composed of proteins"...

See "Evolution Of Sleep?"

Re http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uops-swh011108.php

Again and again. The need of organisms for sleep has not "evolved".

It is instilled in the 3rd-stratum organisms, the mono-cell and multi-cell organisms, via the innate characteristics of their 1st-stratum organisms, the genes, members of their genome commune, the 2nd stratum organisms.

Genes are the constitutional prime-base-organisms. Yes, genes are organisms, members of their genome commune, and a "biological clock" is an innate characteristics of genes.

Please look at the brief "Origin Of Circadian Rhythm", at

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=14988&st=135&#entry301299

or at

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=230

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

New Discovery!

Gene-environment interaction in yeast gene expression!

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0060083&ct=1

Unbelievable!

Unexpected!

Culture Is Biology, It Imprints Genetics, Drives Evolution!...

It Is Culture That Drives Evolution!...

Gee! Some scientists are beginning to get a glimpse into life beyond the pre- Copernicus/Gallileo conceptions...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Re The Structure Of The Genome

A. Researchers used the gene encoding IgH, immunoglobulin heavy chain locus, generator of diverse kinds of antibodies, to demonstrate the structure of the genome.

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/04-083DImageAntibody.asp

“The resulting structure shows that the antibodys gene is organized into ‘flower-like’ structures that are connected by linkers. These flowers contain the various parts that ultimately generate the wide variety of antibodies. This is the first time that geometry has been used to determine the structure of a genetic locus. Ultimately, the same approach should be used to elucidate the structure of the entire human genome.”

B. Relevant terms:

Exon : the polynucleotide sequence that codes information for protein synthesis and that is copied and spliced together with other such sequences to form messenger RNA.

V(D)J : B cells synthesize and secrete antibodies, high-affinity immunoglobulins. Somatic hypermutation is a mechanism for achieving diversification of immune responses in mature B cells. Antibody genes are modified in such cells in germinal centers, in a part of the lymph node where lymphocyte proliferation and maturation takes place and where T-cells are "educated" to recognize target antigens, invaders. The mutations are effected by recombination of the variable (V), diversity (D), and joining (J) segments of the gene, thus altering immunoglobulin expression.

The (1) subnuclear location and (2) chromatin state of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain (IgH) locus have been implicated in the control of V(D)J recombinations.

C. Background: Genes that Control the Immune System, Antibody genes, structure of the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus (Igh)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IGH%40&oldid=196689267

D. The genome "stores genetic information"?

The work report refers to "...the genome is the most essential part of the cell for storing and accessing genetic information..."

This to me is like stating "... the team of astronauts is the most essential part of the space station for storing information about the constitution and functionalities of the space station...".

Strange conception of, and reference to an organism, the genome, within its organ the OCM, its outer cellular membrane... the space station is considered the living organism whereas the team of astronauts is considered an information storage installation...

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Why Researchers Are Stumped By The Drug Addiction Scene

A. From http://www.physorg.com/news127559887.html

"...it’s ironic that humans and other mammals don’t merely tolerate the toxins, but can crave them and even develop dependencies on them."

B. From http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14988&st=195&#entry331389

"Don't apply anthropomorphic thinking-expectations. Apply genomorphic behaviour expectation.

From genomorphic considerations it is 'Survival At ALL circumstances', both with and without insectiside, is best and should be selected. And in the genome cooperative community survival is best when there is cooperation-synergism between individual genes. There is "on test, careful" native genes-cooperation with a single "new, stranger" in the community and more "acceptance", cooperation, when two different strangers are implanted in the community."

C. Remeber, two interdependent organisms are involved in drug addiction,

one is the plant that produces the toxin and the other is the addict.

So where is the irony?

In the case of "drug addiction", from the genomorphic considerations of the plant producing the toxin the more toxin seekers-cravers the more enhanced its own survivability.

Whereas in regards to the toxin seekers-cravers, obviously since they do not feed back a rejection-damage to their genome, their base prime organism, why should their genome-genes select an uncalled-for "defense modification-mutation"?.

In view of the present human "culture" our genome is not yet conditioned to select a specific toxin-defense gene capability... it may eventually do so, but it will take, as nature goes, many many more years...

Suggesting,

Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

Genetics, Epigenetics And ET Alien Scientists

A. I find this abstract ironically amusing:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/esf-ctu041008.php

"...unravel how genes are regulated and shed light on how cells become different..."

"...biology’s most challenging goals, understanding how epigenetic marks contribute to regulation of gene expression..."

B. A good explanation of epigenetics, and dictionary definitions

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/11/1345

epi·gen·e·sis: 1: development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore through a series of processes in which unorganized cell masses differentiate into organs and organ systems; also : the theory that plant and animal development proceeds in this way —

epi·ge·net·ic: 1 a: of, relating to, or produced by the chain of developmental processes in epigenesis that lead from genotype to phenotype after the initial action of the genes b: relating to, being, or involving changes in gene function that do not involve changes in DNA sequence

C. The ET alien team's report

I'm reminded of the story about the report of the first ET alien team who circled Earth and observed the goings-on on its surface. They reported home that the main Earth organisms are various forms of mobile configurations moving on circular organs, containing small in-and-out-going parasites.

D. Cells are not organisms

The outer cell membranes (OCM) are organs. The compositions, structures, shapes and functional capabilities of these organs are very elaborate, but they are still organs. It is not the cells that are the organisms. The organisms, their "parasites", are the genomes that design and construct the OCMs and utilize them.

E. The universe and life are fractal

Everything in the universe, including life, is fractal and evolves fractally. Earth life started with not-yet-genomed nor-celled genes. Its earliest edition of genomed-celled construction were the Archaea (archae=ancient, primitive). Had the pre-Archaea genes become "parasites" in their OCM? The OCM became necessary for its designers-inhabitants for surviving changes in their circumstances.

Sometime in the future humanity may have to, fractally, repeat the feat of the archaea...to learn to survive in hostile circumstances in enclosures. Would'nt it be ironically amusing?...

For the rational common-sense progress of human culture humanity would be better off to free itself from old conceptions-traditions and further promote its scientific cognition.

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1

On Natural Selection

(Feb 10 2008, in physorg forum)

A. "Comparing Patterns of Natural Selection across Species Using Selective Signatures"

http://genetics.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0040023

Author Summary

"Natural selection promotes the survival of the fittest individuals within a species. Over many generations, this may result in the maintenance of ancestral traits (conservation through purifying selection), or the emergence of newly beneficial traits (adaptation through positive selection). At the genetic level, long-term purifying or positive selection can cause genes to evolve more slowly, or more rapidly, providing a way to identify these evolutionary forces. While some genes are subject to consistent purifying or positive selection in most species, other genes show unexpected levels of selection in a particular species or group of species—a pattern we refer to as the “selective signature” of the gene. In this work, we demonstrate that these patterns of natural selection can be mined for information about gene function and species ecology. In the future, this method could be applied to any set of related species with fully sequenced genomes to better understand the genetic basis of ecological divergence."

B. From "Life, Tomorrow's Comprehension"

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=372

Chapter II

Natural Selection Is A Two Level Interdependent Affair

1) Evolution ensues from genome/genes modifications ("mutations"), inherently ever more of them as new functional options arise for the organism.

2) Modifications of genome's functional capabilities can be explained by the 3rd-stratum, cellular organisms' culture-life-experience feedbacks, via its genome, its 2nd-stratum organism, to the relevant gene(s), it's prime-stratum organism. The route-modification selection of a replicating gene, when it is at its alternative-splicing-steps junctions, is biased by the feedback gained by the genome. THIS IS HOW EVOLUTION COMES ABOUT.

3) The challenge now is to figure out the detailed seperate steps involved in introducing and impressing the 3rd-stratum organism's experiences (culture) feedbacks on its founding parents' genome's genes, followed by the detailed seperate steps involved in biasing-directing the genes to prefer-select the biased-favored splicing.

4) I find it astonishing that only very few persons, non-professional as well as professional biologists-evolutionists, have the clear conception that selection for survival occurs on two interdependent levels - (a) during the life of the second-stratum progeny organism in its environment, and (b) during the life of its genome, which is also an organism. Most, if not all, persons think - incorrectly - that evolution is about randomly occurring genes-genome modifications ("mutations") followed with selection by survival of the progeny organism in its environment. Whereas actually evolution is the interdependent , interactive and interenhencing selection at both the two above levels.

end chapter II

Dov Henis

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1