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Synthesizing Life in the Laboratory: Why is it not Happening?

Laboratory abiogenesis is one of the ultimate goals of experimental biology. The most formidable barrier to create living matter in the laboratory is not the complexity of the cell, rather the absolute requirement for non-equilibrium steady state for all chemical reactions. Current synthetic biology technologies cannot yet produce cells, which harbor chemical systems in non-equilibrium steady-states.

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How Many Brains Do We Have?

New study of neuronal diversification reveals the complexity of the gut's brain

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Dinosaurs and Dust

Climatic effects of the impact and volcanism scenarios for the extinction of dinosaurs are investigated in a modelling paper.

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Darwin’s Cost

Species may undergo minor adaptation through Darwinian processes, but this comes at the cost of genetic deterioration.

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Pseudogenes at Work

Pseudogenes are important in gene regulation and other activities.

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“Silent” Substitutions Make a Difference

Changing a DNA sequence can affect a protein even if it does not change the amino acid sequence.

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Cambrian Complexity

Cambrian arthropods were as complex as living species

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Sea Lilies – Another Explosion

The "Cambrian explosion" is a term used to describe the abrupt appearance in the fossil record of major animal phyla, without intermediate forms in lower layers. This pattern of abrupt appearance can be observed for many groups of organisms, including crinoids (sea lilies).

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A Genomic Code for Chromosomal Structure

Chromosomes regulate their own structure through their sequences of non-protein-coding DNA.

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Design in Crane Fly Eyes

Fossilized crane fly eyes discovered to be calcified and have melanin

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A Mechanism for Rapid Change in Species

Cichlid fish in Nicaraguan lakes show evidence of rapid change.

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Human Genetic Degeneration

An average of 70 mutations occur in each person.

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Different Colors on Different Soils

The specific genes have been identified that cause a lizard to match the black rocks it lives on.

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Transcription Factors and Body Morphology

Humans have unique “developmental control genes” that distinguish them from chimpanzees and other animals

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The Giant Flightless Birds Have Similar Changes in Regulatory Genes Leading to Flightlessness

Is the genetic basis of loss of flight due to mutations in protein-coding genes or in regulatory genes?

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Two Jellyfish Genomes Are as Different as Humans and Sea Urchins

Comparison of genomes of jellyfish and sea anemones highlights the importance of orphan genes in taxonomically close organisms.

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An Amphibious Whale or a Terrestrial Swimmer?

Is a recent fossil found in Peru evidence for transitional forms in an evolutionary sequence?

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Trilobite Explosion

The abrupt appearance of trilobites in Cambrian strata and their absence in Precambrian sediments is a real feature of the rock record and not due to failure of preservation in Precambrian rocks.

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The Cambrian Explosion at Qingjiang

A newly described Cambrian locality in China has added more than 50 new species to our knowledge.

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Questioning the Age of “Mitochondrial Eve?”

Confirmation that fathers may sometimes pass mitochondrial DNA to their children violates the assumptions used to calculate the age of the most recent female common ancestor of all living humans. Published in Origins v. 21, n. 2.

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