richard_dawkinsWhile many, including Darwin himself, have misunderstood the work of a scientist as the dull grinding of facts and theories, Richard Dawkins sees the career as a colorful and incredibly creative enterprise—akin, in many ways, to the highest poetry and most imaginative art. (Richard Dawkins on Why Science is Art)


mg19926631_500-1_220Yaşamımız  genomumuza bağlı,  ancak tümüne değil. Hollanda Radbound Universitesi’nde yapılan  bir çalışmada insan genomunun “junk” dediğimiz kısımlarıyla çalışılarak hayati önem taşıyan minimal genom miktarı tahmin edilmeye çalışılmış. 600 sağlıklı öğrencinin genomu incelenmiş ve ortalama  10.000 baz çiftlik kısmın bazı öğrencilerde bulunmadığı ortaya çıkmış. Bu genomlar arasında  yaklaşık %0.2’lik bir kısma tekabül ediyor.

Delesyonların (DNA kaybı)  üçde ikisinden fazlası birden fazla kişide var, üstelik bunlar 40’a yakın genin içinde gerçekleşmiş. Bu genler genelde bağışıklık sistemi, koku ve diğer duyularla ilgili genler.

Peki, DNA’nın “gerekli” olmayan kısımları varsa neden bunlara sahibiz?  Joris Veltman, bu bölgelerin önceden gerekli olup sonradan önemli olmaktan çıkmış olabileceğini söylüyor, yaşamda kalabilmek için farklı yeteneklerin gelişmesi bir neden olabilir, yada genomun başka bir bölgesindeki evrimleşen diğer genler aynı işi üstlenmeye başlamış olabilirler.

Konuyu destekleyen diğer  bir sonuç ise Cambridge’deki Sanger Enstitüsü’nden geliyor, bozulmuş genleri tarayan araştırıcılar 200 genden birinin artık “işlevsel” olmadığını buldular. Hangi genin etnik gruplar arasında işlevsiz olup olmadığı sıradaki araştırma konusu.


cosmos“We Are All Connected” was made from sampling Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, The History Channel’s Universe series, Richard Feynman’s 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye’s Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking’s Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music. Please connect

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together” (C. Sagan)


The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded Monday to three American scientists who solved a problem of cell biology with deep relevance to cancer and aging. The three will receive equal shares of a prize worth around $1.4 million.

The recipients solved a longstanding puzzle involving the ends of chromosomes, the giant molecules of DNA that embody the genetic information. These ends, called telomeres, get shorter each time a cell divides and so serve as a kind of clock that counts off the cell’s allotted span of life.

The three winners are Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol W. Greider of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Jack W. Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital(Source: New York Times)


mg20327266_400-1_300Genetic seamstress uses molecular fingers to tweak DNA…Link


pills_x220Last year, when more than 100 of the world’s top geneticists, technologists, and clinicians converged on Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York for the first annual Personal-Genomes conference, the main focus was James Watson’s genome. The codiscoverer of the structure of DNA was the first to have his genome sequenced and published (aside from Craig Venter, who used his own DNA for the private arm of the human genome project.) Watson sat in the front row of the lecture hall as scientists presented their analysis of his genome. They paid special attention to the number of single-letter variations or small insertions and deletions in his DNA–clues as to whether he had a genetic variation that slightly boosted his risk for heart disease or cancer. But there was very little usable information in the genome…A Turning Point for Personal Genomes


Aralarında İstanbul Üniversitesi  Moleküler Biyoloji ve Genetik Bölümü’nün de yer aldığı 7 araştırma kurumunun katılımıyla gerçekleştirilen  ve  PNAS‘da yayınlanan araştırmada  kopiyotrofik ve oligotrofik yaşam şartlarına uyan 2 model bakterinin genomları incelenerek  zor koşullardaki adaptasyonun  moleküler temeli açığa çıkarılmaya çalışıldı. Bunun için tamamlanmış 126 genom incelenerek  400.000 den fazla protein özel biyoinformatik araçlarla  analiz edilmiş.  Çalışmanın ortaya koyduğu  modeller, belirli okyanus şartlarında ne tipte bakterilerin yaşayabileceğine dair önemli  ipuçları vermektedir. Bu çok-kurumlu araştırmada Türkiye’den Prof. Dr. Haluk Ertan’ın katkısı  gurur verici… 

Adsız


untitledRichard Dawkins interviews Craig Venter for “The Genius of Charles Darwin”, the Channel 4 UK TV program which won British Broadcasting Awards’ “Best Documentary Series” of 2008.

 Acaba evrime “inanmayanlar” neye inanmadığını biliyor mu?” Buradaki  inanmak  kelimesi basında çok kullanıldığı için lafın gelişi, yoksa bilimle inancın  bir ilişkisi olamaz, olmamalıdır da. 

Habertuk’de Yiğit Bulut’un sunduğu evrim nedir tartışma programı  Türkiye’de bir türlü  “anlaşılamayan”  bu önemli konuyu gündeme getirdi. Herşeyden önce mutlaka anlaşılması gereken bir şey var o da bilimin  bir disiplin olarak literatüre dayandığıdır.  

Aşağıda evrim’i anlamak isteyen meslekdaşlarıma önereceğim bazı kaynaklar var. Bunlar binlerce yayından sadece bir kaçı. Ve hiç birinde anti-evrimsel bir tez yoktur! 

Principles of Population Genetics (Daniel L. Hartl and Andrew G. Clark) Harvard Press

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Population-Genetics-Fourth-Daniel/dp/0878933085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250946761&sr=8-1

 

Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach Roderick D.M. Page, Edward C. Holmes

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Evolution-Roderick-D-M-Page/dp/0865428891/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250946817&sr=1-3)

Molecular Evolution  ( Wen-Hsiung Li)

 http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Evolution-Wen-Hsiung-Li/dp/0878934804/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250946817&sr=1-4

 

Evolution  (Douglas Futuyma)

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Second-Douglas-Futuyma/dp/0878932232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250947370&sr=8-1)

 

Journal of evolutionary biology

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/jeb_enhanced/

 

PLOS genetics

http://www.plosgene)tics.org/home.action

 

Nature –evolution and ecology  

http://www.nature.com/evoeco/index.html

 

Journal of Molecular Evolution

http://www.springerlink.com/content/100107/

 

Evolution  

http://www.bioone.org/loi/evol

 

Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/38641/home

 

Evolution and development

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118546131/home

 

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
http://www.vertpaleo.org/

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
http://www.paleo.pan.pl/acta/acta.htm

Annals of Carnegie Museum
http://www.clpgh.org/cmnh/scipub/annals.html

Bulletin of the Natural History Museum–Paleontology Series (London, England)
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/services/publishing/pubbzoo.html

Cretaceous Research
http://academicpress.com/cretres

Fossil News
http://fossilnews.com/

Journal of Dinosaur Paleontology
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/jdp.htm

Journal of Paleontology
http://www.journalofpaleontology.org/

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
http://www.vertpaleo.org/jvp/index.html

Paleobiology
http://www.uic.edu/orgs/paleo/paleobio.htm

PaleoBios
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/museum/PBSI.html

Precambrian Research
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/503357

Trends in Ecology and Evolution
http://www.elsevier.nl/inca/publications/store/3/1/1/4/9/

Bulletin of the Natural History Museum–Botany Series (London, England)
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/services/publishing/pubbbot.html

Evolution
http://lsvl.la.asu.edu/evolution/

International Journal of Earth Sciences
http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00531/

Invertebrate Biology
http://www.amicros.org/

Journal of Crustacean Biology
http://www.lam.mus.ca.us/~tcs/jcb.html

Journal of Mammalogy
http://www.mammalogy.org/pubjom/index.html

Journal of Physiology-Paris
http://www.elsevier.fr/html/detrevue.cfm?code=PH

Molecular Biology and Evolution
http://www.molbiolevol.org/

Nature
http://www.nature.com/

New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
http://www.jstor.org/journals/00804649.html

Science
http://www.sciencemag.org/


quantum-imageIs genetic evolution predictable? Evolutionary developmental biologists have argued that, at least for morphological traits, the answer is a resounding yes. Most mutations causing morphological variation are expected to reside in the cis-regulatory, rather than the coding, regions of developmental genes. This “cis-regulatory hypothesis” has recently come under attack. In this review, we first describe and critique the arguments that have been proposed in support of the cis-regulatory hypothesis. We then test the empirical support for the cis-regulatory hypothesis with a comprehensive survey of mutations responsible for phenotypic evolution in multicellular organisms. Cis-regulatory mutations currently represent approximately 22% of 331 identified genetic changes although the number of cis-regulatory changes published annually is rapidly increasing. Above the species level, cisregulatory mutations altering morphology are more common than coding changes. Also, above the species level cis-regulatory mutations predominate for genes not involved in terminal differentiation.

These patterns imply that the simple question “Do coding or cis-regulatory mutations cause more phenotypic evolution?” hides more interesting phenomena. Evolution in different kinds of populations and over different durations may result in selection of different kinds of mutations. Predicting the genetic basis of evolution requires a comprehensive synthesis of molecular developmental biology and population genetics.

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