Year: 2022

EXCESSIVE REDUNDANCY. “Knockout experiments do not necessarily give a good readout of the functionality of that protein or gene. In yeast knockouts up to 80% of the genes are silent, and that does not mean that they do not have physiological functions. The system is so well backed up that other networks take over the function of the knocked out gene.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

GENES VERSUS CELLS. “In selfish gene theory you have to distinguish between the replicator and the vehicle. There is no such distinction.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

HEART OF DARKNESS. “It is only phenotypes that die, and thus selection on works on things it can see like phenotypes. The mechanism of natural selection is that some organisms survive better than others and reproduce more successfully, so you can only say that selection ‘sees’ what can live or die. Can a virus die? At whatever level an organism can live or die is where selection operates. This was Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and that can occur at any level. Richard Dawkins argues incorrectly that it is always genes that are selected for. It is a fundamental mistake.” https://lnkd.in/eBKWC7d View in LinkedIn

NEO-DARWINISM AND THE SELFISH GENE take a knock with this lecture by Professor Denis Nobel. https://lnkd.in/eUunJpa View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this summary of Professor Denis Nobel’s thinking, as outlined in his book Dance to the Tune of Life. The central dogma of molecular biology was formulated by Francis Crick in 1958. Often stated as “DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein”, in essence it states that once information gets into protein, it cannot get out again, and is unidirectional in flow, and information cannot flow from protein to protein or from protein to nucleic acid. Well, in the sixty years since this proposition, we have learned a lot, and the dogma has been modified. https://lnkd.in/eQDmUtj View in LinkedIn

Pressure grows for UK to bring in blanket ban on ivory trade View in LinkedIn

LOADED OOCYTES. "In other cases, asymmetrical meiosis in females results in a large oocyte full of resources, which may favour the production of a single cell rather than four." http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/04/28/050831.full.pdf View in LinkedIn

GENETIC CHEATING. "A striking feature of meiosis is its apparent fairness: under Mendel’s first law of inheritance, each allele has a 50% chance of ending up in any given gamete. However, there are many selfish genetic elements that increase their chances above 50% by subverting the mechanism of meiosis." http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/04/28/050831.full.pdf View in LinkedIn

CHEATING TRANSPOSONS. "These selfish genetic elements fall into two classes. Killer selfish genetic elements kill cells that have not inherited the element. In principle, such killers could operate during meiosis (the hypothetical ‘sister killers’ as discussed above), but the numerous killer selfish genetic elements that have so far been described operate postmeiotically, e.g. by killing sibling sperm." https://lnkd.in/e2tp_G5 View in LinkedIn

GAMING TRANSPOSONS. "The second class of selfish genetic elements consists of meiotic drivers that exploit the asymmetry of female meiosis. These elements achieve transmission in excess of 50% by preferentially moving into the meiotic products that will eventually become the eggs or megaspores." http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/04/28/050831.full.pdf View in LinkedIn