Evolution

Once I was traveling from north to south in a country of almost 6 to 7 hrs of journey by train which bring you out of the country in that time frame. Now the language will change also. As the train was in north of that country people were sitting quite and looking at sky or for that matter computer or just don’t know where. (In one country if you are in normal coach you can talk to anyone. If you are in sleeper coach to someone but if you are in first class AC you can talk to your self only as it is considered rude to ask what is your name where are you going and what is your income and how…

Some females will do anything to land a mate.    Biologists have described the evolution of the size of a female trait which males prefer when choosing a partner. The study in Evolutionary Biology shows that male cichlid fish prefer females with a larger pelvic fin and that this drives females to grow fins out of proportion with their body size. Sebastian Baldauf from the University of Bonn, Germany, worked with a team of researchers to study the effects of female ornamentation in the African cichlid fish Pelvicachromis taeniatus. He said, “In contrast to the well-known phenomenon…

Ronald Fisher, evolutionary biologist and statistician who introduced the method of maximum likelihood and the fiducial interval into life sciences, said basically that the more complex a plant or animal is, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. But there are well-adapted, complex organisms, orchids, humans, you name it, and confusion about 'cost of complexity' offers ammunition to proponents of Creationism, who hold that  intricacy could only arise only through the efforts of a divine designer and not natural selection.  A new analysis…

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution describes the survival of the fitter, the best adapted organisms, but biologist Gerard Jagers op Akkerhuis says it does not pay enough attention to the succession of living things during evolution and so has developed what he calls the ‘operator hierarchy’, a system based on the complexity of particles and of organisms, which can predict the next step in evolution: a technical life form, that can pass on its knowledge and experience to the next generation. Biology's take on the hierarchy of life has been pretty careless(!) up to now, says Jagers, and this hinders…

Recent studies have shown that si RNA (short interfering RNA exogenous or endogenous 19 to 25 nt (Nucleotides) has a role in regulating the gene expression. How the 21 nucleotide sequences of RNA have a regulatory function. It has been reported to have ds RNA form which could split the mRNA and thus influence the gene expression.For detials consult the Ref: P.DUNOYER, O.VOINNET, Trends Plant Science. 14:643 (2009)

Eusociality is the social structure where individuals cooperate to raise offspring.   How does it happen?   Some proponents have found the answer in kin selection theory, a 'gene's-eye' view of evolution made explicit by William Hamilton (1) in a pair of seminal papers and which sees organic evolution as a result of competition among genes for representation in the gene-pool -  organisms are simply vehicles that genes constructed to aid in propagation.Legendary evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson teamed up with mathematical biologists Martin A. Nowak and Corina E.…

If Octopus will be deciding the outcome of world football matches in future also it will not be a surprise. The reason is simple. People say all the 23 predictions that Octopus made came true. I dint follow them all but I believe what was shown in the most advanced global TV channels : they showed the octopus before and after the news. What is Octopus theory? It has three components: 1. Asking: we are asking an animal to predict the outcome of a football match (I am not sure if Octopus has ever seen a football match) 2. Start believing that taking food from particular box is signs of winning…

Bacteria perhaps have smallest chromosomes in organized fashion though they lack nuclear membrane. Their chromosomes were the first to be synthesized artificially. Artificially constructed chromosome should have the telomeric , centromeric and replication origin sequences . Bacterial artificial chromosomes (BAC) could be used to multiply selected portions of DNA. Yeast are eukaryote or perhaps smallest eukaryotes for which artificial chromosome has been synthesized. Mrs. Okazaki wife of famous Dr Okazaki of Okazaki fragments was still working on Human Artificial chromosome (HAC) when…

My talk on evolutionary imagery at the Centre For Inquiry. Here is a video posted by the Centre For Inquiry Canada of a talk I gave in Toronto a few months ago. Larry Moran was my gracious host, and there were some good discussions over beer not captured on camera. :-) The links mentioned in response to a question:Evolver ZoneUnderstanding EvolutionMy paper on phylogenetic trees, and one on natural selection.

Eiffel tower is one of the destination which I had visited in 1974. I visited again in 2010 . That time fees was less and it was per level 1st or 2nd or Top . Now its flat rate of Euro 13.50 or so per person irrespective to the height you want to climb. The lines were so long that we have to spend almost 2 hrs standing in que on 17th July 2010.  Lateron we knew that we could purchase the ticket on line also. The lifts were overcrowded and long que for going upto two floors. It was out of question to stand in que again to go to TOP  level in a smaller lift . We had come to see this…