Processamento da informação em circuitos genéticos: mero acaso, fortuita necessidade ou design inteligente?

sábado, maio 29, 2021

Engineering in the biological substrate: information processing in genetic circuits

Publisher: IEEE


Illustration of the electrochemical interface for gene-circuit-based sensors.

Abstract:

We review the rapidly evolving efforts to analyze, model, simulate, and engineer genetic and biochemical information processing systems within living cells. We begin by showing that the fundamental elements of information processing in electronic and genetic systems are strikingly similar, and follow this theme through a review of efforts to create synthetic genetic circuits. In particular, we describe and review the "silicon mimetic" approach, where genetic circuits are engineered to mimic the functionality of semiconductor devices such as logic gates, latched circuits, and oscillators. This is followed with a review of the analysis, modeling, and simulation of natural and synthetic genetic circuits, which often proceed in a manner similar to that used for electronic systems. We conclude by presenting examples of naturally occurring genetic and biochemical systems that recently have been conceptualized in terms familiar to systems engineers. Our review of these newly forming fields of research demonstrates that the expertise and skills contained within electrical and computer engineering disciplines apply not only to design within biological systems, but also to the development of a deeper understanding of biological functionality. This review of these efforts points to the emergence of both engineering and basic science disciplines following parallel paths.

Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE ( Volume: 92, Issue: 5, May 2004)

Page(s): 848 - 863

Date of Publication: 19 April 2004

ISSN Information:

INSPEC Accession Number: 8021891


Publisher: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

Subscription or payment needed/Requer assinatura ou pagamento: IEEE 

Como as células consertam membranas com vazamento: mero acaso, fortuita necessidade ou design inteligente?

sexta-feira, maio 28, 2021

Sealing holes in cellular membranes

Yan Zhen, Maja Radulovic, Marina Vietri, Harald Stenmark

Author Information

Yan Zhen1,2, Maja Radulovic1,2, Marina Vietri1,2 and Harald Stenmark *,1,2,3

1Centre for Cancer Cell Reprogramming, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

2Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway

3Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

*Corresponding author. Tel: +47 22781818; E-mail: stenmark@ulrik.uio.no 

Holes in the plasma membrane can be sealed by patching, endocytosis, budding, macrophage-mediated membrane removal or reduction in membrane tension.

Abstract

The compartmentalization of eukaryotic cells, which is essential for their viability and functions, is ensured by single or double bilayer membranes that separate the cell from the exterior and form boundaries between the cell’s organelles and the cytosol. Nascent nuclear envelopes and autophagosomes, which both are enveloped by double membranes, need to be sealed during the late stage of their biogenesis. On the other hand, the integrity of cellular membranes such as the plasma membrane, lysosomes and the nuclear envelope can be compromised by pathogens, chemicals, radiation, inflammatory responses and mechanical stress. There are cellular programmes that restore membrane integrity after injury. Here, we review cellular mechanisms that have evolved to maintain membrane integrity during organelle biogenesis and after injury, including membrane scission mediated by the endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT), vesicle patching and endocytosis.


FREE PDF GRATIS: EMBO J

A existência de não religiosos céticos da evolução darwinista ou proponentes do design inteligente

segunda-feira, maio 24, 2021

Are there Non-Religious Skeptics of Darwinian Evolution and Proponents of Intelligent Design?

Dec 4, 2014

Article ID: JAF6362 | By: Casey Luskin

SYNOPSIS

Honest truth seekers and agenda-driven atheists rarely pose the same questions, but both ask whether any nonreligious scientists and scholars challenge neo-Darwinism and/or support intelligent design (ID).

A logical response explains that an argument holds merit apart from the religious (or nonreligious) beliefs of the person arguing. Darwinism may be flawed regardless of whether its critics are religious. Rejecting an argument because of the personal religious beliefs of the arguer commits the genetic fallacy.

Nonetheless, many find it rhetorically persuasive to learn about atheists and agnostics who challenge materialistic accounts of origins. These nonreligious scientists and scholars who doubt modern Darwinian theory include former U.S. National Academy of Sciences biologist Lynn Margulis, medical professor Raymond Tallis, Rutgers cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor, New York University philosopher and legal scholar Thomas Nagel, and Princeton-trained mathematician David Berlinski—all of whom have publicly challenged neo-Darwinism and/or sympathized with ID.

Significantly, many of these scholars have faced harsh reactions from fellow nonbelievers. Margulis observes that those who attack Darwin become “persona non grata,” and Fodor has faced pressure to suppress his doubts “in public.” This demonstrates academic intolerance toward Darwin-skeptics, and leads one to wonder how many other atheists would challenge Darwinism if they had the academic freedom to do so.

At Discovery Institute, where I am employed, we receive many e-mails asking about evolution and intelligent design (ID), specifically whether there are nonreligious scientists and scholars who challenge modern neo-Darwinian theory and/or support ID.

As might be expected, a certain percentage of questioners merely want to taunt us with objections they think we can’t answer. But this question is posed not just by angry Internet critics but also by thoughtful truth seekers.

Of course, there are good answers to the query. The primary response is strictly logical. An argument must stand or fall on its own merits, and scrutinizing the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) of a person making an argument commits the genetic fallacy. After all, if Darwinian theory is flawed, those weaknesses remain, whether they are expounded by the Pope or the Devil.

Nonetheless, there is something inherently persuasive about a person with no philosophical bias predisposing them toward a particular viewpoint, adopting that position. Many find it convincing to learn about atheists or agnostics who doubt naturalistic accounts of origins. Thus, the second part of my response is rhetorical, as it recounts nonreligious scientists and scholars who challenge neo-Darwinism and/or sympathize with ID—often in the face of great pressure to conform to the materialist party line.


RAYMOND TALLIS

Raymond Tallis is a professor of medicine at the University of Manchester, a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a self-described “atheist humanist.”1 His 2011 book, Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis, and the Misrepresentation of Humanity critiques the scientism that has invaded the study of consciousness, as well as Darwinian explanations for the origin of the human mind.

Tallis coins the term “neuromania” to describe an ongoing media crusade telling the public that each “new discovery” has finally demonstrated a purely material explanation for consciousness. “Part of the attraction of Neuromania,” he writes, “comes from the belief that it is brand new and that it has grown out of the latest discoveries in the laboratory.”2 But Tallis calls the view that “there must be an organ in the body where the soul or mind or consciousness is to be found” an “enduring myth.”3

Darwinitis

Tallis believes that evolutionary psychologists also overextend their arguments. Though he maintains he has “no quarrel with Darwinism,”4 he critiques those who have “Darwinitis”—the tendency to explain everything in Darwinian terms. Tallis illustrates how Darwinitis leads evolutionary psychologists to propose plausible-sounding hypotheses that are completely false:

Consider the recent claim that evolutionary psychology can explain why pink is associated with femininity and blue with masculinity. Women in prehistory were the principal gatherers of fruit and would have been sensitive to the colours of ripeness: deepening shades of pink. Men, on the other hand, would have looked for good hunting weather and sources of water, both of which are connected with blue. In fact, in Victorian Britain blue was regarded as the appropriate colour for girls (being associated with the Virgin Mary) and pink for boys (being a watered down version of the “fierce” colour red). Colour preferences are therefore scarcely rooted in the properties of brain shaped in the Pleistocene epoch. They are historically, not biologically, determined; but don’t expect an evolutionary psychologist to spot that.5

As a self-described “good Darwinian,”6 Tallis understands natural selection to be a “blind watchmaker,” that cannot select for future goals. But he acknowledges what few Darwinians will admit—that blind selection cannot explain the goal-directed nature of human consciousness: “Darwinism, therefore, leaves something unaccounted for: the emergence of people like you and me who are indubitably sighted watchmakers….Isn’t there a problem in explaining how the blind forces of physics brought about (cognitively) sighted humans who are able to see, and identify, and comment on, the ‘blind’ forces of physics…?”7

Tallis recognizes “the failure to explain any form of consciousness, never mind human consciousness, in evolutionary terms.”8 But he is hardly the only atheist who questions Darwinian explanations.


LYNN MARGULIS

A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and once the wife of Carl Sagan, biologist Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) is not the first person one might expect to critique neo- Darwinian theory vocally. But that’s exactly what she did. In an interview shortly before her death, Margulis explained, “Neo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change—led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.” Echoing the arguments of many ID proponents, Margulis maintains that “new mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.”9 In a 2003 book co-authored with Dorion Sagan (the son of Carl), she elaborates:

This Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric. Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement….Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation.10

Some Darwin defenders have cited Margulis’s eminence as evidence that critics have freedom to express their views. Margulis doesn’t agree, noting that “anyone who is overtly critical of the foundations of his science is persona non grata.”11 Other atheists who challenge Darwin have made similar observations.

Read more here: Equip

Especialista da Universidade Princeton afirma: as teorias de Darwin foram "distorcidas" por seu racismo e sexismo!

sexta-feira, maio 21, 2021

“The Descent of Man,” 150 years on

Agustín Fuentes

Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.

afuentes2@princeton.edu

Science 21 May 2021:

Vol. 372, Issue 6544, pp. 769





In 1871, Charles Darwin tackled “the highest and most interesting problem for the naturalist…the descent of man.” Challenging the status quo, Darwin deployed natural and sexual selection, and his recently adopted “survival of the fittest,” producing scenarios for the emergence of humankind. He explored evolutionary histories, anatomy, mental abilities, cultural capacities, race, and sex differences. Some conclusions were innovative and insightful. His recognition that differences between humans and other animals were of degree, not of kind, was trailblazing. His focus on cooperation, social learning, and cumulative culture remains core to human evolutionary studies. However, some of Darwin's other assertions were dismally, and dangerously, wrong. “Descent” is a text from which to learn, but not to venerate.

Darwin saw humans as part of the natural world, animals that evolved (descended) from ancestral primates according to processes and patterns similar for all life. For Darwin, to know the human body and mind, we must know other animals and their (and our) descent with modification across lineages and time. But despite these ideal frames and some innovative inferences, “Descent” is often problematic, prejudiced, and injurious. Darwin thought he was relying on data, objectivity, and scientific thinking in describing human evolutionary outcomes. But for much of the book, he was not. “Descent,” like so many of the scientific tomes of Darwin's day, offers a racist and sexist view of humanity.
...

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O neodarwinismo ainda ronda com frequência a teoria da evolução!!!

Neo-darwinism still haunts evolutionary theory: A modern perspective on Charlesworth, Lande, and Slatkin (1982)

Zachary B. Hancock, Emma S. Lehmberg, Gideon S. Bradburd

First published: 17 May 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14268

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.14268

ABSTRACT

The Modern Synthesis (or “Neo-Darwinism”), which arose out of the reconciliation of Darwin's theory of natural selection and Mendel's research on genetics, remains the foundation of evolutionary theory. However, since its inception, it has been a lightning rod for criticism, which has ranged from minor quibbles to complete dismissal. Among the most famous of the critics was Stephen Jay Gould, who, in 1980, proclaimed that the Modern Synthesis was “effectively dead.” Gould and others claimed that the action of natural selection on random mutations was insufficient on its own to explain patterns of macroevolutionary diversity and divergence, and that new processes were required to explain findings from the fossil record. In 1982, Charlesworth, Lande, and Slatkin published a response to this critique in Evolution, in which they argued that Neo-Darwinism was indeed sufficient to explain macroevolutionary patterns. In this Perspective for the 75th Anniversary of the Society for the Study of Evolution, we review Charlesworth et al. (1982) in its historical context and provide modern support for their arguments. We emphasize the importance of microevolutionary processes in the study of macroevolutionary patterns. Ultimately, we conclude that punctuated equilibrium did not represent a major revolution in evolutionary biology – although debate on this point stimulated significant research and furthered the field – and that Neo-Darwinism is alive and well.

Keywords

Evolutionary theory Gould macroevolution microevolution punctuated equilibrium species selection

Publication History

Accepted manuscript online:

17 May 2021

Manuscript accepted:

14 May 2021

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

FREE PDF GRATIS: Evolution

O design da natureza: a biologia da sobrevivência

quinta-feira, maio 20, 2021

 

Issue

MATEC Web Conf.

Volume 301, 2019

The 13th International Conference on Axiomatic Design (ICAD 2019)

Article Number 00023

Number of page(s) 10


Published online 02 December 2019

MATEC Web of Conferences 301, 00023 (2019)

Nature's Design's: The Biology of Survival

Pam Mantri* and John Thomas

Cognitive Tools Ltd. LLC, P.O. Box 695; 255 North Ave; New Rochelle, NY 10801, USA

* Corresponding author: pammantri@cogtools.com


This figure was uploaded by John Thomas

Abstract

Life has existed on earth for at least 3.95 billion years. All along, the flame of life has been successfully passed on from generation to generation, and species to species across an immense temporal span. This includes at least five mass-extinction events that wiped out over 70% of all species in each such biotic crisis. Against such immense odds, life has learned to thrive despite repeat assaults. And the ingenuity embedded within natures designs has been an integral part of this inspiring story. For example, the ancient bacterial flagellum is powered by the Mot Complex which is part of a perfectly circular nanoscale rotary engine. It is obvious that nature came upon the wheel much before human arrival (i.e., at least as far back as 2.7 billion years). Many are the design lessons that may be gleaned from studying nature. This paper looks at the immense evolutionary design-laboratory that nature evolves its designs within, and frames it alongside an Axiomatic/Complex-Adaptive/Stigmergic Systems perspective.

Key words: Axiomatic Design / Biological Systems / Stigmergy; Emergence / Complex Adaptive System / Evolution

© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2019

Licence Creative CommonsThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

FREE PDF GRATIS: MATEC Web Conf. 

Teleologia, a amante que os biólogos evolucionistas se recusam desfilar publicamente!!!




Evolution ‘On Purpose’: Teleonomy in Living Systems

Living systems exhibit an internal teleology, the full implications of which have not been explored. This meeting will address various aspects of this phenomenon, including its scope and meaning, and its many forms and facets.


Date: 28th - 29th June 2021
Organiser: Linnean Events
events@linnean.org
Registration: Register on eventbrite.co.uk

Although it is now widely accepted that living systems exhibit an internal teleology, or teleonomy, the full implications of this distinctive biological property have yet to be explored. This online conference will seek to address various aspects of this important phenomenon, including the origins and history of the teleonomy concept, its scope and meaning, and its many forms and facets. Possible topics may include: an historical review of teleological thinking; teleology (and entelechy) versus teleonomy in evolutionary theory; the nature of teleonomy (who/what is in control, and how?); agency and teleonomy; semiotics and teleonomy; modelling teleonomic processes; teleonomy in the genome, in epigenesis, in physiology, and in behaviour; teleonomy and natural selection; teleonomy in human evolution; and, especially significant, how teleonomy has influenced the evolutionary process.

The Programme Committee includes Peter Corning, Eva Jablonka, Stuart Kauffman, Denis Noble, Samir Okasha, James Shapiro, Dick Vane-Wright, and Denis Walsh.

The organisers are Peter Corning (pacorning@complexsystems.org), Dick Vane-Wright (dickvanewright@gmail.com), and Padmaparna Ghosh (Linnean Society).

The full programme of 20 presentations, with abstracts and brief biographies, is now available here.

A Zoom link will be emailed to registered attendees 48 hours before the start of the event. Please note:

No questions or comments will be possible during or immediately after talks.

Registered attendees may pose questions (until 25 June, 2021) to each of the speakers regarding their talks via the e-mails that are provided with each abstract. The speakers may choose to respond during their talks, by personal e-mail messages, or not at all.

Some talks will be pre-recorded for the conference, for the convenience of speakers who are in remote time zones.

All talks will start at the time advertised, even if the previous talk ends early.

Attendees will have a choice about watching the talks. They are free to attend and leave the conference and return at their convenience, since all talks will be recorded as given and will be accessible online.

Registered attendees will have an opportunity to offer a commentary of up to three minutes on the second day, 29 June, during the first ‘evening’ hour (5:30–6:30 PM GMT, 6:30–7:30 BST). Application messages must be received by 25 June, and must be accompanied by a brief summary of your remarks, addressed to organiser Peter Corning at: pacorning@complexsystems.org. Dr. Corning will select the relevant comments and assign an order to the speakers. You will be notified if/when you will be recognized to speak.

In the last hour of the second day, comments/rejoinders will be allowed on a first come-first served basis. A summary of these comments may be used for the journal publication.

There is a commitment to publish one, or perhaps two sets of papers based on the conference (one to go to the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, potentially for a special issue).

+++++

Interesting excerpt/Excerto interessante:

Denis Walsh, University of Toronto

Title: “Teleophobia”

ABSTRACT: 

Teleology—the explanation of phenomena by appeal to the goals that they subserve— is widely thought to have been expunged from biology. The reasons generally offered for the putative banishment of teleology are numerous and varied—historical, conceptual, theoretical, metaphysical—and they are all wrong. There is no defensible reason for the teleophobia that holds contemporary biology in its grip. Furthermore, teleophobia has had a demonstratively deleterious effect on the development of evolutionary theory. It has aided and abetted the marginalisation of organisms from evolutionary thinking. Organisms, I argue, are natural purposes. The pursuit of organismal purposes makes a difference to the dynamics of evolution that can only be fully explained teleologically. Teleology must thus form an indispensable part of the evolutionary biologist’s methodological toolkit.

Free PDF Gratis: The Linnean Society

Splicing alternativo durante o desenvolvimento de órgãos de mamíferos: mero acaso, fortuita necessidade ou design inteligente?

terça-feira, maio 04, 2021

Alternative splicing during mammalian organ development

Pavel V. Mazin, Philipp Khaitovich, Margarida Cardoso-Moreira & Henrik Kaessmann

Nature Genetics (2021)


Fig. 1: Developmental AS atlases.

Abstract

Alternative splicing (AS) is pervasive in mammalian genomes, yet cross-species comparisons have been largely restricted to adult tissues and the functionality of most AS events remains unclear. We assessed AS patterns across pre- and postnatal development of seven organs in six mammals and a bird. Our analyses revealed that developmentally dynamic AS events, which are especially prevalent in the brain, are substantially more conserved than nondynamic ones. Cassette exons with increasing inclusion frequencies during development show the strongest signals of conserved and regulated AS. Newly emerged cassette exons are typically incorporated late in testis development, but those retained during evolution are predominantly brain specific. Our work suggests that an intricate interplay of programs controlling gene expression levels and AS is fundamental to organ development, especially for the brain and heart. In these regulatory networks, AS affords substantial functional diversification of genes through the generation of tissue- and time-specific isoforms from broadly expressed genes.