I can take it no more. I wanted to dig deeper into the good stuff done by the ENCODE consortium, and have been working my way through some of the papers (not an easy thing, either: I have a very high workload this term), but then I saw this declaration from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. …
Category Archive: Molecular biology
May 07 2012
How was the vertebrate/arthropod LCA segmented?
Vertebrates are modified segmented worms; that is, their body plan is made up of sequentially repeated units, most apparent in skeletal structures like the vertebrae. Arthropods are also modified segmented worms. Look at a larval fly, for instance, and you can see they are made up of rings stacked together. So here’s a simple and …
Apr 25 2012
Modular gene networks as agents of evolutionary novelty
A while back, I told you all about this small piece of the biochemistry of the fly eye — the pathways that make the brown and red pigments that color the eye. I left it with a question: if even my abbreviated summary revealed considerable complexity, how could this pathway evolve? Changing anything produces a …
Dec 19 2011
Steve Pinker’s hair and the muscles of worms
I’ve been guilty of teaching bean-bag genetics this semester. Bean-bag genetics treats individuals as a bag of irrelevant shape containing a collection of alleles (the “beans”) that are sorted and disseminated by the rules of Mendel, and at its worst, assigns one trait to one allele; it’s highly unrealistic. In my defense, it was necessary …
Dec 05 2011
Techniques to go with the tools
So you read that cool summary of how to build a molecular biology lab for $500. But wait, you don’t know what you’d do with the mobio toys! Here’s how to correct that: go to a workshop. THE MICHAEL SMITH LABS AND ADVANCED MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LAB PRESENTS OUR MOLECULAR BIOLOGY WORKSHOPS 2012 WINTER/SPRING Session. ONE …
Dec 04 2011
Mad scientists, start drooling
The future is arriving fast. Here are the instructions for assembling a $500 home molecular biology laboratory — you can do it! And it’s getting cheaper all the time! The widespread and increasing availability of second-hand professional laboratory equipment or inexpensive new commercial surrogates means that it is now unchallenging to set up a fully …
Dec 02 2011
My turn at Skepticon
Yeah, I gave a talk at Skepticon like several other rascals here at Freethoughtblogs. Now, even if you didn’t make the pilgrimage to Springfield, Missouri, you can watch it too. It’s a straight science talk with several swipes at creationism, so unfortunately, I don’t think it will make any ice cream salesmen cry. (Also on …
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