LMU chemists have discovered an efficient mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of a vital class of such compounds.
Feldman creates mathematical models that reveal how cultural traditions can affect the evolution of a species.
A machine that speeds up evolution is revolutionizing genome design and selection of designer microbes.
For 50 years, evolutionary theory has emphasized the importance of neutral mutations over adaptive ones in DNA. Real genomic data challenge that assumption.
Different African killifish species vary extensively in their lifespans—from just a few months to several years. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne investigated how different lifespans have evolved in nature and discovered a fundamental mechanism by which detrimental mutations accumulate in the genome causing fish to age fast and become short-lived. In humans, mutations accumulate mainly in the genes that are active in old age.
How do the communities of microbes living in our gastrointestinal systems affect our health? Carnegie’s Will Ludington was part of a team that helped answer this question.
For nearly a century, evolutionary biologists have probed how genes encode an individual’s chances for success—or fitness—in a specific environment.
In order to reveal a potential evolutionary trajectory biologists measure the interactions between genes to see which combinations are most fit. An organism that is evolving should take the most fit path. This concept is called a fitness landscape, and various mathematical techniques have been developed to describe it.
The most probable mainstream non-invasive way to transfer human consciousness in the intermediate future, with initial stages in the 2030s, could be the convergence of optogenetics, nanotechnologies, neuroengineering, Cloud exocortex and an array of neurotechnologies allowing to connect our wetware directly to the Cloud.
Initially, each of us will have a personal exocortex in the Cloud, the third non-biological “de-cerebral” hemisphere, which will be in constant communication with the other two biological brain hemispheres.
At some point, this “third hemisphere,” will have a threshold information content and intimate knowledge of your biology, personality and other physical world attributes in order to seamlessly integrate with your persona as a holistic entity.
Few Christians realize the extent to which the evolutionary world view conflicts with the Biblical world view. While many attempt to keep a foot in each camp, acknowledging Christ as Savior yet holding evolution to be a fact of history, Christianity and evolution cannot both be true. Evolution is, at its very essence, an atheistic explanation of the world around us. Not all adherents of evolution are atheists, but certainly the leading proponents of evolution recognize that the concept leaves no room for the workings of God in nature.
Consider the following oft-repeated quote from Sir Julian Huxley, who, until his recent death, was perhaps the world’s leading spokesperson for evolution and who, from his position as head of UNESCO at the United Nations, did much to unite the world under an evolutionary, humanistic banner.
Darwin pointed out that no supernatural designer was needed; since natural selection could account for any known form of life, there was no room for a supernatural agency in its evolution … we can dismiss entirely all ideas of a supernatural overriding mind being responsible for the evolutionary process.[1].
