03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Encapsulation Serves a Purpose
The quintessential example of the open ideal showed up in Freeman Dyson’s otherwise wonderful piece about the future of synthetic biology in the New York Review of Books. MIT bioengineer Drew Endy, one of the enfants terribles of synthetic biology, opened his spectacular talk at Sci Foo with a slide of Dyson’s article. I can’t express the degree to which I admire Freeman, but in this case, we see things differently.
Dyson equates the beginnings of life on Earth with the Eden of Linux. Back w... 1 
notes
notesUsing the promise of synthetic biology as an illustration, Lanier explains why the ability to infinitely trade ideas or genes results in normalized unremarkableness.
21 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Evolution is No More Irreligious Than Birth Through Biolo...
I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be
denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them
is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of
man as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through
the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of
the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction [the pattern
of development]. 1 notes
notesDarwin challenges the religious to explain why being related to primates is any worse than being conceived through sexual intercourse.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Speciesization in a Test Tube
We can even see the origin of new, ecologically diverse bacterial
species, all within a single laboratory flask. Paul Rainey and his colleagues
at Oxford University placed a strain of the bacteria Pseudomonas fluorescens
in a small vessel containing nutrient broth, and simply watched
it. (It’s surprising but true that such a vessel actually contains diverse
environments. Oxygen concentration, for example, is highest on the
top and lowest on the bottom.) Within ten days—no more than a few
hund...Folksonomies: evolution experiment
Folksonomies: evolution experiment
1 notes
notesBacteria evolve into different species in order to adapt to the different environments at the bottom and top of a test tube.
06 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Are There Bacteria Species?
It may very properly be asked whether the attempt to define distinct species, of a more or less permanent nature, such as we are accustomed to deal with amongst the higher plants and animals, is not altogether illusory amongst such lowly organised forms of life as the bacteria. No biologist nowadays believes in the absolute fixity of species ... but there are two circumstances which here render the problem of specificity even more difficult of solution. The bacteriologist is deprived of the t...
1 With their ability to trade genes and quick evolution, classifying bacteria into species is much more difficult than classifying other species.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Missing Links Make Defining Species Possible
As we trace the ancestry of modern Homo sapiens backwards, there must come a time when
the difference from living people is sufficiently great to deserve a different specific name, say
Homo ergaster. Yet, every step of the way, individuals were presumably sufficiently similar to their
parents and their children to be placed in the same species. Now we go back further, tracing the
ancestry of Homo ergaster, and there must come a time when we reach individuals who are
sufficiently different fro...
1 Without missing links, species would blur into each other.
