Science Refutes Creationism

Cells can respond as quickly as possible to signals from the outside https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170925111215.htm Research at the University of York has revealed that genes are controlled by 'nano footballs' -- structures that look like footballs but 10 million times smaller than the average ball. Excerpt: " By placing tiny glowing probes on transcription factors -- special chemicals inside cells which control whether a gene is switched 'on' or 'off' -- researchers gained a remarkable new insight into the way in which genes are controlled. Crucially, they discovered that transcription factors operate not as single molecules as was previously thought, but as a spherical football-like cluster of around seven to ten molecules of roughly 30 nanometres in diameter. The discovery of these nano footballs will not only help researchers understand more about the basic ways in which genes operate, but may also provide important insights into human h

Modifications in methylation patterns lead to harmful genetic mutations https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/epi-2016-0027 Excerpts: "Diverse epigenetic modification patterns can affect the types and frequencies of genetic alterations at the neighboring chromatin regions. Integrative analysis of whole genome sequencing with epigenome sequencing have identified how the epigenetic landscape influences the accumulation of genetic alterations during hepatocarcinogenesis. The analysis also showed that several cancer driver genes are mutated either by genetic or epigenetic alterations. Genetic mutations that are affected or substituted by epigenetic alterations include single nucleotide variant (SNVs) mutations, small insertions and deletions (indels) and DNA copy number variations (CNVs). We have summarized recent findings that demonstrate molecular links between genetic mutations and epigenetic modifications.   Because diverse mutational mechanisms are at play during tumori

This is why Mendelian laws are not valid anymore http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069116300646   1. "A few years later, the situation became even worse with the discovery of alternative splicing. In alternative splicing, a given ‘split gene’ can code for various different proteins, depending on whether this or that exon is expressed at a given time (for instance a certain exon is expressed in embryos, another one is expressed in the adult organism)." The most significant EPIGENETIC factors modulating the alternative splicing machinery: a. microRNAs  b. DNA methylation  c. Histone markers 2. "Other phenomena are also quite challenging for the notion of a gene as ‘no more than a coding sequence’: assembled genes (where germinal sequences, often designated as ‘genes’, are assembled to make a single somatic gene, a situation commonly found in immunogenetics: all antibodies are coded by assembled genes); inversion of the reading frame (meaning that the sa

Genetic mutations caused by epigenetic alterations https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-09-epigenetic-cigarette-lung-cancer.html Excerpt: "Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center say they have preliminary evidence in laboratory-grown, human airway cells that a condensed form of cigarette smoke triggers so-called "epigenetic" changes in the cells consistent with the earliest steps toward lung cancer development. Epigenetic processes are essentially switches that control a gene's potentially heritable levels of protein production but without involving changes to underlying structure of a gene's DNA. One example of such an epigenetic change is methylation—when cells add tiny methyl chemical groups to a beginning region of a gene's DNA sequence, often silencing the gene's activation. (My comment: Even an addition/removal of one methyl group might significantly influence the protein interactions and the identity of the cell.) "Our study sugges

It took 40 minutes for a supercomputer with 705,024 processor cores and 1.4 million GB of RAM to simulate ONE second of human brain activity Excerpt: "The most accurate simulation of the human brain to date has been carried out in a Japanese supercomputer, with a single second’s worth of activity from just one per cent of the complex organ taking one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers 40 minutes to calculate. Researchers used the K computer in Japan, currently the fourth most powerful in the world, to simulate human brain activity. The computer has 705,024 processor cores and 1.4 million GB of RAM, but still took 40 minutes to crunch the data for just one second of brain activity . The project, a joint enterprise between Japanese research group RIKEN, the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University and Forschungszentrum Jülich, an interdisciplinary research center based in Germany, was the largest neuronal network simulation to date.   It used the open

Long non coding RNA molecules don't support Darwinian ideas of mutations and selection http://www.lncrnablog.com/environmental-health-and-long-non-coding-rnas/ Excerpt: "An individual’s risk of developing a common disease typically depends on an interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Epigenetic research is uncovering novel ways through which environmental factors such as diet, air pollution, and chemical exposure can affect our genes. DNA methylation and histone modifications are the most commonly studied epigenetic mechanisms. The role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in epigenetic processes has been more recently highlighted. LncRNAs are defined as transcribed RNA molecules greater than 200 nucleotides in length with little or no protein-coding capability. While few functional lncRNAs have been well characterized to date, they have been demonstrated to control gene regulation at every level, including transcriptional gene silencing via regulation of the chromatin

Plant microRNAs strongly affect gene expression https://phys.org/news/2017-08-honeybees-workers-queens-micrornas-diet.html Excerpt: "Bee larvae develop into workers, in part, because their diet of pollen and honey, called beebread, is rich in plant regulatory molecules called microRNAs, which delay development and keep their ovaries inactive. Xi Chen of Nanjing University in China and colleagues, report these August 31, 2017 in PLOS Genetics. Researchers have long known that diet plays an important role in the complex process that determines whether a honeybee larva will become a worker or a queen. While the workers primarily consume beebread, the queens feast on royal jelly secreted by the glands of nurse bees. Beebread contains much higher levels of plant microRNAs than royal jelly, so researchers decided to investigate if these molecules, which regulate gene expression in plants, could also impact honeybee caste development. They found that honeybees raised in the lab on simula