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Moore’s Law, The Origin Of Life, And Dropping Turkeys Off A Building

I’ve already mentioned the nonsensical paper “published” in (surprise, surprise) arXiv in...

Genome Reduction In Bladderworts Vs. Leg Loss In Snakes

In one sense, I am happy that there is enough interest in the concept of “junk DNA” (and by...

Send This To Anyone Who Writes Or Reports On A Badaptationist Story

...

Another Just-So Story, This Time About Fists

“It is demonstrable,” said he, “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as...

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T. Ryan GregoryRSS Feed of this column.

I am an evolutionary biologist specializing in genome size evolution at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Be sure to visit Evolver Zone

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Kudos on the placozoan genome!

Kudos on the placozoan genome!

Aug 21 2008 | comment(s)

Trichoplax adhaerens is a bizarre little animal with a decidedly simple morphology. (You can see some here). There has been some question as to the relationship between this critter and other animal groups, but mitochondrial sequences (Dellaporta et al. 2006) and, as of this week, a complete nuclear genome sequence (Srivastava et al.
And the junk DNA train rolls on...

And the junk DNA train rolls on...

Aug 15 2008 | comment(s)

This appeared in my weekly automated journal search. I have ordered the paper as I can't find an online copy, but the abstract pretty much covers what the argument will be. Same old pre-1980s adaptationist idea presented as radically novel.
Mallik, M. and Lakhotia, S.C. 2008. Noncoding DNA is not "junk" but a necessity for origin and evolution of biological complexity. Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy Section B - Biological Sciences 77 (Sp. Iss.): 43-50. All eukaryotic genomes contain, besides the coding information for amino acids in different proteins, a significant amount of noncoding sequences, which may or may not be transcribed.

"Intelligent design is not a theory" says DI fellow.

Aug 10 2008 | comment(s)

The Panda's Thumb (PT) has a short post giving a quote from Michael Medved, a new fellow at the Discovery Institute (DI) (which promotes intelligent design, or ID). In it, Medved notes that intelligent design is not a theory itself, but merely a challenge to evolution. We already knew that, of course, and other ID advocates have made similar statements before1. What interested me was my reaction to seeing the PT post. My first thought was, "Ok, but what's the context?".
TravelBlogue, or How to live vicariously through one's student.

TravelBlogue, or How to live vicariously through one's student.

Aug 07 2008 | comment(s)

The first post at Genomicron was called "My grad student made me do it", and explained that a then-newly-arrived PhD student in my lab was a blogger and got me interested in blogging. He is still a blog author, and most recently has posted a very enjoyable series about his travels from more or less the bottom to the top of the USA/Canada parts of North America looking for aquatic creatures. I personally did not get to go anyplace exciting this summer, but it has been great having the option to live vicariously, especially as he was most recently at one of the coolest (literally?) places on Earth: Devon Island in the high Arctic.
Blogs by scientists

Blogs by scientists

Aug 05 2008 | comment(s)

In case you aren't reading them yet, take a minute to check out these relatively new blogs by scientists: BdellaNea A blog about leeches -- Mark Siddall (American Museum of Natural History) Evolutionary Novelties A blog about evolution, with a soft spot for ostracod(e)s and eyes -- Todd Oakley (University of California Santa Barbara) The Rough Guide to Evolution A blog loosely accompanying a soon to be released book of the same name -- Mark Pallen (University of Birmingham) Chance and Necessity A blog about evo with a twis
A Pronounced Affection For Parasites

A Pronounced Affection For Parasites

Jul 24 2008 | comment(s)

According to Peter Olson of the Natural History Museum in London, "All free-living organisms host one or more parasites." This can be taken two ways, both of them generally true: a) that each individual multicellular organism hosts at least one individual parasite within its body, and b) that each free-living species plays host to at least one species of parasite that attacks it exclusively. Consider this second point for a moment. For each free living species there is one or more (usually several more) parasite species -- that is, as a category (polyphyletic, obviously), parasites may very well be the most diverse types of organisms on the planet.