Category Archives: Biology
A Thought on Evolution
Take a Ford and a Chevrolet, two automobiles that were intelligently designed. Now, try to take the engine from the Ford and put it in a Chevrolet. Does it fit? Can it be used? The answer is no. How about … Continue reading
Genome of the Ectomycorrhizal Fungus Laccaria bicolor
Martin et al. published a paper, “The genome of Laccaria bicolor provides insights into mycorrhizal symbiosis”, in the 06 March 2008 issue of Nature. The paper (PubMed record) is accompanied by a News and Views article, “Fungal symbiosis unearthed”, by … Continue reading
The Personal Genome (2)
On 04 March 2008 I wrote a post about the personal genome. In the days since that post, I have expanded my reading about this topic, and I have found two blogs that cover personal genomes/personalized medicine very well. The … Continue reading
Understanding Evolutionary Trees
Today I read “Understanding Evolutionary Trees”, by T. Ryan Gregory, the author of the Genomicron blog. Dr. Gregory mentioned his paper in his blog post, “Evolutionary Trees for Darwin Day”, and the paper appears in the new journal Evolution: Education … Continue reading
Free Rice With Cyanobacteria
I learned about the Free Rice web site today. The object is to “learn free vocabulary and give free rice.” The premise is simple. The site presents a word and four possible meanings, and you click on the meaning you … Continue reading
A Synthetic Bacterial Genome
This is already old news, but in this week’s issue of Science, Gibson et al. published their paper on the synthesis of a genome of Mycoplasma genitalium. (Sometimes I just have to wait for a physical copy of the journal … Continue reading
The Personal Genome
We are on the verge of being able to have our genomes sequenced and analyzed. Today in the article “Gene Map Becomes a Luxury Item”, by Amy Harmon of the New York Times, Ms. Harmon describes how wealthy people are … Continue reading
