Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / March 2006

Here are three more ideas that just might be clues to the origin.
1. The atmospheric mix that Miller suggested, seems to be shifting
to one with heavy CO2. "Its prebiotic levels may have been
as much as one hundred times higher. A predictable consequence

Book Review of
The RNA World (3rd edition)
Edited by Raymond F Gesteland, Thomas R Cech & John F Atkins
Nature Genetics 38, 393 (2006)

Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould archive
Note: I don't think Mayr was lying when he stated, "I find it totally
miraculous that at the age of ninety-five I can suddenly remember a
name of which I had not thought of for eighty years! There is no doubt

This quote prompted some ideas that might be
clues to the origin. Comment welcome.
"For the (DNA) polymerase to begin its task, part of the
molecule on which it is working must be double-stranded.

3 March 2006
It's Life Jim, But How Do We Know It?
By Rusty Rockets
While SETI continues to scan the sky for that elusive broadcast from an

I just read EO Wilson's "Consilience: The Unity Of Knowledge" and
thought, My God, he's talking about the Glass Bead Game.  It was all
there: the language to unify knowledge, the importance of connections,
the glass beads themselves which are inate concepts that are the fruit

Consilience
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, 332 pp.
Dale Jamieson

Is anybody working on the possibility that the specimens of H. erectus
found in the Georgia Republic area represent a species between H.
habilis and H. erectus?
Any possible discoveries of H. habilis and Australopithecus specimens in

AICS Research, Inc. is pleased to present a Lecture of the Week, and
you're welcome to subscribe to a weekly announcement newsletter if you
wish. The talks will center primarily around evolutionary biology, in
all of its aspects: cosmology, astronomy, planetology, geology,

Science 17 February 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5763, pp. 965 - 969
Review
Reproductive Social Behavior: Cooperative Games to Replace Sexual Selection

This from Oct. 2004 Astronomy Now.
(Because phosphorus is essential to life and relatively
rare compared to the other building blocks C, H, O, N)
"Where did all the excess phosphorus come from? Pasek

On another thread, Bill Morse made that argument that mimicry
in butterflies is one example of near-perfect adaptation in
at least one aspect of organism phenotype.  As evidence, he
offered plate 8k of Sean Carroll's 'Endless Forms Most Wonderful'

I wonder if someone here can help me.  I'm trying to find out what
specific thing researchers look at when determining how far back a
certain human gene or mutation occurred.  There is an article in this
month's National Geographic about human migration, but it doesn't hit

Dear S.B.E. Readers:
I posted "Death of Metaphysics and the Rise of Reductionism" and
dismayingly nobody bothered to respond. Perhaps that will be the case
here. However, surely how science, especially the life sciences and the

Mr. Stonjek:
I'm glad you post to s.b.e. Your posting of excerpts of articles and
accompanying URLs
are of interest to some professionals and non-professionals alike. You