You are a mutant, and your genome is full of junk. What’s the problem?

These kinds of calculations are always handy. Larry Moran estimates the number of novel mutations you carry: the textbooks say about 300, he calculates something over 120. So next time a creationist tells you all mutations are deleterious, just tell him he’s a mutant himself with somewhere around a few hundred random nucleotide changes from either of his parents. What Larry doesn’t mention in this estimate, but I know he’s familiar with the idea, is that most of those mutations will be neutral: about 95% will fall into junk DNA, many won’t affect the amino acid sequence of any proteins, others may cause slight changes in the protein sequence that don’t detectably affect the phenotype.

In the category of utterly baffling pronouncements from scientists, Larry also chastises John Greally for misrepresenting junk DNA in an interview with Ira Flatow. I could scarcely believe it myself, but I listened to the interview, and Greally actually seems to be conflating regulatory sequences with junk, and Flatow introduces the story as suggesting that junk DNA may all have a function. He also claims that if you have a mutation in a gene, the “gene is dead” and will have no function. None of this is correct. It’s bizarre—I think Larry and I are fairly familiar with the genetics literature, and there’s nothing to support these contentions and quite a bit to contradict them.

It’s good to be home, especially when welcomed by Natalie Angier

I’m home from our vacation, and our painfully tiring redeye flight from Seattle, and I get a treat right as I step through the door: a copy of Natalie Angier’s The Canon(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) arrived in the mail while I was away. What did I do? Right after we got all the luggage into the house, I flopped down on the bed with it and read it until the lack of sleep caught up with me — and it’s good enough that I actually made it through the first two chapters before passing out. It’s a passionate and enthusiastic survey of basic principles in science, and it’s fun to read.

Then I discovered that onegoodmove had a video interview of Angier talking about her book. She’s very good; check it out. She’s the kind of science journalist I want to see more of, and everyone should go out and buy her book to encourage her to do more.

One annoyance: several of the commenters at onegoodmove seem to be of the concern troll variety. Here’s this smart, fluent, talented writer who is also a world-class science geek and atheist, and they start picking over her appearance and body language — it’s rather dismaying, in particular since her gestures are no more flamboyant than those of her (male) interviewer. I’ve long thought that Natalie Angier would make an excellent spokesperson for godless science, and wondered why we don’t see more of her … and I wonder if part of the reason is that the same troglodytes who grunt in disgust at the sight of someone who doesn’t respect their sky-god are also appalled at the sight of a woman speaking confidently about high geek factor subjects and also dismissing their primitive superstitions.

Now this is how to critique Ken Ham’s creation “museum”

This video is one of the most effective criticisms of Ham’s horrible little monument to ignorance in Kentucky — it’s a geological tour of the rocks the “museum” is built upon. It seems the creationists chose to build on some beautifully fossil-rich Ordovician layers.

It convinces me that if I were in the Cincinnati area I’d rather kick around in the hills around the area than to waste my time in a pile of bunk.

Here’s a useful datum to settle arguments with your spouse

Who’s chattier, men or women? This is a simple study that strapped microphones onto subjects that turned on for 30 seconds every 12.5 minutes so that the investigators could do word counts. Here’s the final tally of the average number of words spoken per day:

Men: 15,669 ± 8343

Women: 16,215 ± 7301

There’s no significant difference between the two.

Mehl MR, Vazire S, Ramírez-Esparza N, Slatcher RB, Pennebaker JW (2007) Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men? Science 317:82.

A day on the town

Skatje has posted photos from our zoo trip yesterday, and they include the scariest butterfly you’ll ever see. It’ll give you nightmares.

We also visited the Pike Place Market, among other things. We have now discovered the secret way to Skatje’s heart, for all of you fanbois out there: “bright orange pants up to his nipples”. I was wondering how he talked her into actually trying some smoked salmon.

Our Friday itinerary

Here are our goals for today:

  • We’re going to spend the morning screwing around downtown, and are going to be at the Seattle Center International Fountain around noon.

  • Skatje wants to go to the zoo, so we’ll do that in the afternoon. Then around sixish we’ll be peckish and I tried to find a place not far from Woodland Park, and could not resist the idea of the Jolly Roger Taproom in Ballard. So that’s where we’ll try to be.

Keep in mind we’ll be stumbling about in an unfamiliar city and struggling to find parking, so timeliness is unlikely to be one of our virtues.

Oh, no…of all the blue-nosed asinine laws. We showed up at the pub, and unfortunately, absolutely no minors are even allowed inside, lest they might see an adult consuming a beverage that contains 3% alcohol. This put us in a spot, and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t quite persuade myself that I could sit inside and meet a few nice people while my daughter (who is chronologically only almost 17) sat outside on the sidewalk. So my apologies to any of you who might have showed up earlier this evening.