Genome size + Cambrian Explosion = Nonsense squared.

I really am thinking about writing a Sokal-style paper for a physics journal to see if they’ll accept it.

The Cambrian explosion triggered by critical turning point in genome size evolution
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2010 Jan 11. [Epub ahead of print]
Li DJ, Zhang S

The Cambrian explosion is a grand challenge to science today and involves multidisciplinary [...]


Quick catch up.

I just got back from a conference + mini-vacation, and haven’t been able to post while I was away. It seems some important papers came out while I was offline. For more, see these summaries already available in blogtown.

Endogenous (non-retro) virus evolution:

Original paper
Not Exactly Rocket Science
ERV
NeuroLogica
The Loom (and NYT)

Substantial differences in Y-chromosomes of [...]


Does junk DNA protect against mutation?

One of the most common hypotheses that I hear with regard to possible non-coding DNA function is that it serves to protect genes against mutation. Junk DNA, according to this proposal, is there to provide a defensive shield against mutagens (usually this includes UV, ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, viruses, and/or oxygen radicals). I [...]


Science by press release, but still interesting...

No paper out yet, and not even any details made available, but this looks interesting:

Reduced genome works fine with 2000 chunks missing

To put a figure on how much of our DNA is non-essential, Vrijenhoek and his colleagues screened the genomes of 600 healthy students, searching for chunks of DNA at least 10,000 base pairs [...]


Quotes of interest - ERVs.

It has been quite some time since the last update to the Quotes of interest series on junk DNA. Most of the posts have sought to demonstrate that the exhausting cliché that scientists dismissed possible functions for non-coding DNA until recently is false. Therefore, I have provided many quotes indicating that many (if [...]


Quotes of interest -- Alu again.

I discussed the early papers involving the discovery of Alu elements in a previous post in the series. Unlike some transposable elements that are capable of autonomous transposition, Alu elements do not encode the requisite enzymes and depend on those of other sequences such as LINE-1 elements. Alu is restricted to primates, and [...]


Quotes of interest -- satellite DNA in the news.

I have already made note of some of the coverage of noncoding DNA that appeared in Science during the 1980s, and as a sequel to that earlier installment of the series, I want to talk about the coverage in Nature from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Because SINEs, LINEs, pseudogenes, and introns were [...]


Quotes of interest -- SINEs and LINEs.

I am hopeful that our exploration of the peer-reviewed scientific literature and related news stories in scientific journals from the 1960s to the 1990s convincingly reveals that those who claim that junk DNA was “long dismissed as irrelevant” have it exactly backwards. Throughout this period, but especially before the non-adaptationist (though not exclusive) alternative [...]


Quotes of interest -- beware single citations and non-citations.

As readers who have been following the Quotes of interest series will know, I have been arguing that from the discovery of repetitive DNA until at least the mid-1980s, the general expectation was that it must somehow be functional for the organism. By 1989 or 1990, we start to see claims that noncoding sequences [...]


Quotes of interest -- 1970s edition (part one).

I have argued that prior to 1980, when the selfish DNA hypothesis was proposed, it was taken more or less as a given by most biologists that noncoding DNA had some function(s), even if the specific adaptive significance of these sequences had yet to be demonstrated. This was based on simple Darwinian, adaptationist logic: [...]