Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / May 2005

What is the current best theory for the formation of the first cell on
earth?
(And while we are on the subject,  I find it disturbing that
scientists are saying the first DNA strands were carried to the earth

[As this post inadvertantly was made a subthread of another, I am
reposting it so that it will be its own thread and not get tangled
with the other one].
This is a new thread intended to explore how we can model substitution

How does evolution take place?

All hail to thee, eternal spiritual Sun, who burns forever yet is not
consumed!
Life needs an energy source. However the first life may well have used the
temperature gradient caused by volcanic vents to power chemical reactions.

What if there was a heat cycle such that it just matched
the denaturing and annealing of double stranded RNA.
I've been thinking about that and here are two ideas that come to mind:
1. At some point the cycle will be such that the A-U pair with 2 h-bonds,

Science strives for complete objectivity in looking for
the origin of life. They go to extremes to make sure no
reason is allowed for life - it must be a non directed,
random fluke, and only those hypotheses that accept that

I would like to invite you to our "Theory of Aging" Ecology & Evolution
University of Chicago seminar (Tuesday noon, May 24) :
-------------------------------------------
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

DNA Study Yields Clues on First Migration of Early Humans
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: May 13, 2005
By studying the DNA of an ancient people in Malaysia, a team of geneticists

I have proposed the Darwinian maximand: Total Darwinian Fitness for
discussion within sbe. This is defined as the total number of fertile
forms reproduced into one population by each parent. I offer the
following extracts of a paper by Van Valen who is famous for his "Red

[As this post inadvertantly was made a subthread of another, I am
reposting it so that it will be its own thread and not get tangled
with the other one].
This is a new thread intended to explore how we can model substitution

You have a seaweed that can float on the ocean
and take in sunlight at near the surface.  In
some places there might be a loss of nutrients,
but the plant itself can hold in nutrients and

Nature 435, 201-205 (12 May 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03484
Advanced optics in a jellyfish eye
Dan-E. Nilsson1, Lars Gislén2, Melissa M. Coates1, Charlotta Skogh1 and
Anders Garm1

I would like to know what is the best approach you could use to find
prospective genes, using an available genome. Im interested in finding
novel genes that could provide useful information for resolving family
level relationships in a group of insects. I basically want to use the

joe@removethispart.gs.washington.edu (Joe Felsenstein) wrote:

reproductive

Charter
sci.bio.evolution will be dedicated to discussions of evolutionary
biology. These include, but are not limited to: Natural selection,
genetic drift, mutation, gene flow, recombination, interactions of the