Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / July 2006

I read that to overcome the lack of recombination in an invertion,
flies at each end of a cline can be crossed, but they must be
homosequential over the inverted region. What does this mean?

Hypothesis: Genes only account for the basic building blocks in a
biological organism. Epigenetic coding, determined by the environment,
accounts for a much larger part of the complexity of an organism.
Biological inheritence, then, is not only passed on by genes, but also

The Evolutionary Biology Lecture of the Week for July 24, 2006 is now
available at:
    http://aics-research.com/lotw/
The talks center primarily around evolutionary biology, in all of its

I've been running the latest build of Structure with a Windows XP GUI
on microsatellite data, but have stumbled across some weird issues:
1. Immediately after the initial install, the program seemed to run
well: 20k burn-in, followed by another 20k. Up to about 350 individuals

Aug 2005 paper, "New Look at DNA Hints at Origin of UV Damage:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/dnastack.htm
Excerpt:
COLUMBUS , Ohio – Chemists at Ohio State University have gained new insight

Atomic-resolution Structure Of A Ribozyme Yields Insights Into RNA Catalysis
And The Origins Of Life
Which came first, nucleic acids or proteins? This question is molecular
biology's version of the "chicken-or-the-egg" riddle. Genes made of nucleic

Scientists Discover A Genetic Code For Organizing DNA Within The Nucleus
DNA -- the long, thin molecule that carries our hereditary material -- is
compressed around protein scaffolding in the cell nucleus into tiny spheres
called nucleosomes. The bead-like nucleosomes are strung ...

This is probably a very naiive question and has probably been dealt
with, but I am interested in people's opinions on the matter.
Today, we have humans and we have apes, and the apes have been around
for a long time, since before the very first Hominins. Then we have

Please tell me to go away and read the FAQ if this sounds too silly.
Reading populist literature about evolutionary psychology, one
frequently encounters the premise that evolution of the human race
proceeds at a sufficiently slow pace, in terms of human timescales,

New Tool Cracks Genomic Code Quicker Than Ever
US and Australian scientists have pioneered a new hybrid method for genomic
sequencing that is faster and cheaper than state of the art technologies.
The breakthrough will be welcomed in medical and biotechnology circles where

The Evolutionary Biology Lecture of the Week for July 10, 2006 is now
available at:
    http://aics-research.com/lotw/
The talks center primarily around evolutionary biology, in all of its

This makes for interesting reading:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/07/13/darwinfinch_ani.html?category=animals&g
uid=20060713143030
Comments?
FWIW

Sometimes our anthropomorphic slant keeps us from
thinking straight.
Case in point is thinking that all life is composed of
single organisms. I think it is equally valid to see

For several months, I have been wasting part of my time trying to
understand "cost of substitution" from the viewpoint of population
genetics and/or information theory.  But recently, I was struck by the
idea of treating the count of advantageous alleles in an individual

Malcolm has several times asked ReMine to suggest the features of
a simulation model which would illustrate the limit on the rate
of substitution which Haldane argued must exist.  I think that
I can suggest just such a simple model.  It probably won't yield