Month: September 2022

DISCREPANCY. "The quiescence of cells during chilling-induced dormancy release has been suggested as a possible discrepancy between vernalization and dormancy release." https://lnkd.in/duazcMZ View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC VERNALIZATION. "Cell division appears to only be required to stabilize the epigenetic-mediated vernalization response in Arabidopsis. Moreover, a stable versus transient vernalization response differentiates monocarpic Arabidopsis from its relative, polycarpic Arabis alpina." https://lnkd.in/duazcMZ View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first weekend on plant dormancy. This phenomenon is not limited to plants. It is a mechanism to allow the organism to wait for favorable conditions for growth and reproduction, by being largely quiescent. We still know relatively little about the phenomena. Next weekend we will look at the genetic findings behind dormancy. View in LinkedIn

OMNE VIVUM. "Pasteur demonstrated that life does not arise in areas that have not been contaminated by existing life. Pasteur's empirical results were summarized in the phrase Omne vivum ex vivo, Latin for "all life [is] from life".” https://lnkd.in/eJXtXQy View in LinkedIn

SIMPLEST DEFINITION. "E. Mayr: “We shall regard as alive any population of entities which has the properties of multiplication, heredity and variation.” https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

MARK BEDAU DEFINITION. "I propose that an automatic and continually creative evolutionary process of adapting to changing environments is the primary form of life...what is distinctive of life is the way in which evolution automatically fashions and refashions appropriate strategies for coping as local contexts change." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

BEDAU CONCEPT. "Supple adaptation refers to the fact that living systems have an unending capacity to find new unpredictable adaptive solutions to unanticipated changes in the environment." https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

"SUPPLE ADAPTATION is not to be equated with natural selection. For one thing, natural selection is not necessary for supple adaptation." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

COMMON SNIFF TEST. "Can things be more or less alive? Serious reflection about life quickly raises the question whether life is a boolean (black-or-white) property, as it seems at first blush, or whether it is a continuum property, coming in many shades of gray. Common sense leans towards the boolean view: a rabbit is alive and a rock isn’t." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

BORDERLINE. "But the common sense view is put under stress by various borderline cases like viruses which are unable to replicate without a host and spores or frozen sperm which remain dormant and unchanging indefinitely but then "come back to life" when conditions become suitable. Furthermore, we all agree that the original life forms somehow emerged from a pre-biotic chemical soup, and this suggests that there is very little, if any, principled distinction between life and non-life." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn