Category: Uncategorized

THE TRADE-OFF GAME. "In Pacific salmon and the marsupial Antechinus stuartii, the ability to exploit tissue protein as an energy reserve may increase reproductive success. In Octopus, the behavioral effects of optic gland secretion are likely to have an impact on hatching success, as time spent feeding is time not spent on brood care. In semelparous plants, a trade-off between survival and reproduction is supported by both experimental and comparative evidence." View in LinkedIn

GOING FOR BUST. "In vertebrates, for example, the high levels of free corticosteroids that trigger rapid senescence and death also allow tissue protein to be consumed as an energy source during a brief and intensely competitive breeding season." View in LinkedIn

ADAPTIVE OR INCIDENTAL? "In many semelparous organisms, the adaptive function of the nominal ‘death program’ is apparently to increase reproduction, with organismal death resulting as an incidental side-effect (making organismal senescence an example of “by-product death." View in LinkedIn

"THE FAILURE OF SELECTION to maximize life span raises the question of why evolution would favor organisms that forego the potential advantage of longer reproductive lives." View in LinkedIn

SELECTION DECLINES WITH AGE. "Both of these hypotheses are based on the proposition that the force of natural selection declines with age, as the potential for further reproduction declines either abruptly or gradually." View in LinkedIn

REFERENCE FOR TODAY: Are Internal, Death-Promoting Mechanisms Ever Adaptive?" "John W Pepper, Deborah E Shelton, Armin Rashidi, and Pierre M Duran. (This reference refuses to post normally on LI). View in LinkedIn

DIRECTIONAL INFORMATION FLOW. “The reductionist causal chain is then represented by upward-pointing arrows from genes upwards to proteins and RNA, to cells and tissues and ultimately the organism.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

HIERARCHICAL THINKING. “In biological science, we are used to thinking in terms of a hierarchy of levels, with genes occupying the lowest level and the organism as a whole occupying the highest level of an individual. Protein and metabolic networks, intracellular organelles, cells, tissues, organs and systems are all represented as occupying various intermediate levels.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

THE FIXED CENTER FALLS APART. “First, we removed the idea of privileged location (so the Earth is not the centre of the Universe), then that of absolute velocity (since only relative velocities can be observed), then that of acceleration (an accelerating body experiences a force indistinguishable from that of gravity, leading to the idea of curved space–time). Could biology be the next domain for application of the relativity principle?” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

WHERE THINGS START. “Have we reached the limits of applicability of the relativity principle? And could it have relevance to biology? By ‘relativity principle’ in this context, I mean distancing ourselves in our theories from specific absolute standpoints for which there can be no a priori justification.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn