Last week, I wrote a bit about maternal genes, specifically bicoid, and described how this gene was expressed in a gradient in the egg. Bicoid is both a transcription factor and a morphogen. The gene product regulates the activity of other genes, controlling their pattern of expression in the embryo. Today I thought I’d get more specific about the downstream targets of bicoid, the gap genes.
In my previous comments about maternal effect genes, I was talking specifically about one Drosophila gene, bicoid, which we happen to understand fairly well. We know its sequence, we know how it is controlled, and we know what it does; we know where it falls in the upstream and downstream flow of developmental information in the cell. So today I’m going to babble a bit more about what bicoid is and does, and how it works.
In developmental biology, and increasingly in evolutionary biology, one of the most important fields of study is deciphering the nature of regulatory networks of genes. Most people are familiar with the idea of a gene as stretch of DNA that encodes a protein in a sequence of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs, and that’s still an important part of the story. Most people may also be comfortable with the idea that mutations are events that change the sequence of As, Ts, Gs, and Cs, which can lead to changes in the encoded protein, which then causes changes in the function of the protein. These are essential pieces in the story of evolution; we do accumulate variations in genes and gene products over time.
Today, we have a little something for the neuroscientists, and something for the atheists. Godless neuroscientists are especially fortunate.
You may recall that distressing story of discrimination against atheists in Oklahoma—it worked out well in the end, but the family involved was raked through the coals first. I recently received some email that is purportedly written by the defendant in that case, Chuck Smalkowski. I haven’t been able to get more information to verify it, but it doesn’t seem to be anywhere else on the web, and the mail does trace back to an origin in Hardesty, OK, so I’m accepting it as legitimate. It’s Smalkowski’s own perspective on the events in his trial.
I’m not a fan of Adam Corolla by any means, but he just had best interview with Coulter ever. This is a great tactic, and I hope more talk show people follow his example.
Like rats deserting a sinking ship…atheism is in trouble. We’ve lost a beloved leading light of atheism, a highbrow master of humanist ethical conduct, a highly principled representative of secularism. One of our own has converted to Christianity. Oh, how shall we bear it? The Christians will be trumpeting this news ecstatically.
Alas. Larry Darby, holocaust denier, racist sleazebag, and opportunistic maggot, has embraced Jesus.
So…is this you?
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I expected the world to end, but maybe this means I have to wait until I’ve harvested 666,666,666 souls for Satan now.
DarkSyde interviews Brent Rasmussen of UTI today. The interview is good, but skip the comments—they descend into the usual mush-mouthed yammering about dictionary definitions of “agnostic” and “atheist,” ignoring the fact that for all practical purposes they’re exactly the same, and they’re both going to get burned at the stake for apostasy and heresy when the theocracy comes.
I’ve decided that when I invent my time machine, my first stop is going to be 19th century England, where I shall slap Tom Huxley upside the head and tell him that he’s being a waffling coward by inventing a word that’s going to paralyze freethinkers for the next 150 years or more. Then I’m going to go on to the Cambrian.
Oh, and being a godless conservative isn’t that unusual—witness the Corsair and the Commissar.
In superficial morphology, surprisingly little. The lizard looks a little more friendly to me.
The lizard is probably a little less concerned about where other lizards put their hemipenes, though, and certainly isn’t at all worried about this:
Benedict, a German, has made combating a Europe of empty churches and religious apathy a priority of his papacy. Vatican officials have declared that such former Catholic bedrocks as Spain are in need of what they call a “new evangelization.”
Empty churches and religious apathy? What an excellent idea! I’m thinking we need to begin some secular evangelization over here in the States.
(Facts)