F Rosa Rubicondior

Tuesday 7 November 2017

Oh Creation! Now An Intermediate Short-Necked Giraffe!


Reconstruction of Decennatherium rex sp. nov.
A, skeletal reconstruction; B, life reconstruction of an adult female; C, life reconstruction of the head of an adult female.
Illustration by Oscar Sanisidro.
A new giraffid (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Pecora) from the late Miocene of Spain, and the evolution of the sivathere-samothere lineage

Another gap filled; another 'intermediate form' found!

So, do creationists give up with their disinformation, misrepresentation and downright lies? What do you think?

Of course not! It's just one more thing to misrepresent and lie about. A literal interpretation of the Bible says it shouldn't exist, so it doesn't exist! End of! FACT!

Anyway, back to the real world.

According to this report in the New York Times:

A near-perfect fossil unearthed close to Madrid appears to be an ancient European ancestor of giraffes, representing a new species in the family and one that had two sets of bony bumps on its head rather than the single set of modern giraffes.

Monday 6 November 2017

Ancient Wisdom And Genetic Diversity

Neanderthal family group
Photo credit: Nikola Solic/Reuters/Newscom
Ancient genomes show social and reproductive behavior of early Upper Paleolithic foragers | Science

Two papers published a few days ago in the same edition of Science show that hunter-gatherer people, both modern human and Neanderthal, had evolved cultures which minimised the genetic risks inherent in inbreeding in the small bands of which these groups consisted.

Small groups consisting only of related extended families would have a very high probability of consanguinity and inherited recessive genes unless they had strategies for regularly introducing genetic material from other more distantly related groups.

Sunday 5 November 2017

Gene Duplication Gave Us Spiders

Common house spider, Parasteatoda tepidariorum
The house spider genome reveals an ancient whole-genome duplication during arachnid evolution | BMC Biology | Full Text

For creationists still trying to get away with the absurd claim that mutations are always harmful and that no new information can arise in the genome because of the second law of thermodynamics, this is another of those bad news stories.

No! I'm not joking! They really do claim that! Creationists think nothing of claiming an observable thing can't happen, knowing that their willing dupes won't go and check. They'll no doubt continue to claim it even after this paper showing how the scorpions and arachnids have evidence of whole genome duplication in a common ancestor about 400 million years ago.

The Chemical Origin of Life


Accretion of SSU rRNA as illustrated by helices 7–10/es3 from species of increasing complexity. A four-way junction at the surface of the common core, formed by helices 7–10, has expanded by accretion. Accretion adds to the previous rRNA core, leaving insertion fingerprints. (A and B) Secondary (A) and 3D (B) structures are preserved upon the addition of new rRNA. (C) Superimposition of the 3D structures highlights how new rRNA accretes with preservation of ancestral rRNA. (D) A characteristic insertion fingerprint is shown in red and blue boxes. In all panels, the rRNA that approximates the common core is blue. An expansion observed in both archaea and eukaryotes is green. An expansion that is observed only in eukaryotes is gold. An additional expansion in higher eukaryotes (mammals) is red.*
History of the ribosome and the origin of translation

A team of scientist from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA believe they are close to solving one of the mysteries of how living systems first arose from chemical precursors. They believe they have identified a small section of the ribosome which is so fundamental that it is common to all living organisms, from the simplest single-celled organisms to the most complex multicellular plants and animals

In short, this looks to be the starting point for life and a structure that was present in LUCA and maybe before it.

Rather than the bottom up approach where scientists have attempted, with limited success so far, to reconstruct the fundamental units from which living systems could have arisen, the team took a top down approach by reverse engineering the cell organelle common to all living cells and therefore almost certainly present from the first moments, maybe even before something that could be called 'living' existed, the ribosome.

Ribosomes are composed of a tangle of RNA and proteins and are fundamental to living cells in that they only perform one task - they translate the code in DNA and construct proteins from amino acids. They differ from one species to another only in the 'ornamentation' present on their surface, and this gave the clue to the method of reverse engineering the team used.

Saturday 4 November 2017

Nasty Design; Nasty Designer?

Mosquito feeding
Credit: Mircea Costina / Alamy Stock Photo
Malaria parasite makes mosquitoes more likely to suck your blood | New Scientist

Continuing with the theme of exposing creationism's putative designer as a malevolent thug, full of evil intent and far from the benevolent, maximally good father figure god they purport to believe in, here is an an example from the mosquito-malaria 'design', published a few days ago in Biorxiv.

Abstract
Whether the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum can manipulate mosquito host choice in ways that enhance parasite transmission toward human is

Friday 3 November 2017

Cultural Woolly Mammoths

A mammoth tusk on Wrangel Island.
Credit: Patrícia Pečnerová
Male mammoths more often fell into 'natural traps' and died, DNA evidence suggests -- ScienceDaily:

Elephants are well known for the cultural organisation in which a matriarchal group, led by a older female who acts as a repository for group knowledge such as where the water may be found during a drought, etc. This group consists of females with their young but males, when they reach a certain age, generally fend for themselves in smaller groups or as solitary individuals often associated with but not members of a matriarchal group.

This, of course, deprives males of the protection of the group and of the knowledge and wisdom of the matriarch.

Thursday 2 November 2017

A New Species of Orangutan and More...

Orangutans in Sumatra's Batang Toru forest are now officially a new species:
Pongo tapanuliensis.

Credit: Maxime Aliaga/SOCP-Batang Toru Programme
Newly discovered orangutan species is also the most endangered : Nature News & Comment

Not only is there great news about a new species of orangutan but the article in Nature announcing it quite casually shows how different strands of science all confirm current scientific understanding of evolution.

Firstly, the newly discovered orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis).

Well, it's not exactly newly discovered so much as newly identified as a new species. It was first reported by western scientists about 50 years ago when they heard rumours of a population of orangutans living in a the Batang Toru forest in a remote part of the island of western Sumatra. However, it was not until anthropologist Erik Meijaard, that discovered the paper in the mid-1990s that scientists actually went looking for the population. They found the remains of a female, evidence of nests and a male killed by local people in 2013. From these, it was possible, using genetic evidence, to show not only that this was a new species, but how it relates to the other orangutans.

Animals Refute Creationism By Rational Thought

Cameron Buckner, assistant professor of philosophy at UH, says empirical evidence suggests a variety of animal species are able to make rational decisions, despite the lack of a human-like language.
Do Animals Think Rationally? - University of Houston

Do animals other than humans think rationally?

Cameron Buckner, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Houston, think some at least do and believes he has evidence to support that view. His article is published a few days ago Philosophy and Phenomenological Research sets out his reasoning.

Regrettably, it sits behind an expensive paywall but a News release by Jeannie Kever of Huston University explains his findings:

"These data suggest that not only do some animals have a subjective take on the suitability of the option they are evaluating for their goal, they possess a subjective, internal signal regarding their confidence in this take that can be deployed to select amongst different options," he [Cameron Buckner] wrote.

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Chimps More Like Us Than We Thought

Co-operating chimpanzees
Credit: Christopher F Martin
Chimpanzees shown spontaneously ‘taking turns’ to solve number puzzle | University of Oxford

A new study by researchers from Oxford and Kyoto universities and Cincinnati Zoo has revealed a new level of co-operative behaviour not seen before in other than humans. The chimps were shown to be spontaneously taking turns co-cooperatively to complete a task, a form of behaviour believe to be basic to effective communication where timing cues are taken from one another.

As Dr Dora Biro, co-author of the study from Oxford’s Department of Zoology, said:

Coordinating behaviour is an essential component of many social situations and can enable groups of individuals jointly to solve problems. In communication, coordination often takes the form of turn-taking, where one individual takes cues from the other to decide on the timing of their own input. This can allow for the efficient exchange of information.

Saturday 28 October 2017

Zika - The Nasty Designer Plays it Sneaky!

Zika Virus Infects Developing Brain by First Infecting Cells Meant to Defend Against It

First, a little story:

God sat in Heaven gazing down at his creation that he loved and adored beyond measure and he noticed that things were not perfect. He notice all the war, famine, pestilence and hate.

He noticed that humans were finding cures for polio, smallpox, even malaria, and using antibiotics to cure infections that would have killed millions in earlier times. He noticed that very many children were growing up into strong, healthy adults when once they would have died in infancy.

He noticed though that there was still much suffering. He noticed the children born with physical and mental handicaps. He noticed the anguish of the parents of these children as they struggled to cope and make life bearable for these unfortunate children. He noticed too the deprivation suffered by the siblings of these children as their parents were forced to devote less time to them than they needed.

So he pondered on the problem and sat stroking his beard for many days, wondering what he could do about it. Why were things not as he would have wished them to be in his beloved creation? Had he not created it perfectly?

At last, a solution came into his mind.

So he improved antibiotic resistance in his bacteria and then he created the Zika virus. As a touch of brilliance, he created the Zika virus so it attacks and disables the cells that would have grown and developed into the victim's brain defences against pathogens.

"Let's see them cure that!", he thought. "Now, how's Ebola doing?"

Well, that's the creationist view.

Now let's look at the science.

Friday 27 October 2017

Sticking It To Creationists With An Early Tree

World's oldest and most complex trees - News - Cardiff University

Another scientific paper which quite incidentally and without effort or intent, refutes a key creationist claim, was published yesterday.

It was nothing more sensational from a biology perspective than the discovery that the earliest trees were much more complex in the structure of their trunks and in their growth patterns than modern trees.

Thursday 26 October 2017

Thank You For Being Humankind

Thank you!

You just helped make a difference and improve the lives of Iraqi women victims of sexual abuse by helping them rebuild their lives and earn a living.

You did this by tolerating the adverts on my blog because, once in a while the odd pennies earned from adds tot up to over £60 and trigger a payout. And, as always, I donate this to OxfamGB. This year, the project I supported was Helping women survivors of sexual and gender based violence rebuild their lives and raise their voices.

Wednesday 25 October 2017

Yet Another of Those Re-writes of Human Evolution?


Left: upper left canine.
Right: upper right first molar
Credit: Mainz Natural History Museum
Prehistoric teeth fossils dating back 9.7 million years 'could rewrite human history' | The Independent

According to press reports, yet another re-write of human evolutionary history is due because a couple of 9.7 million year-old fossil teeth found in Germany look somewhat like those of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) from Ethiopia, Africa.

But things are maybe not what the headlines claim. Journalists have a vested interest in sensational headlines, even more so when the page carries adverts which are interspersed in the article itself and grab your attention. Also with a vested interest in sensational headlines, are those who supply the soundbites journalists yearn after.

Caring, Compassionate Neanderthals

The skull of a Neandertal known as Shanidar 1 show signs of a blow to the head received at an early age.
Photo: Erik Trinkaus
External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar 1 Neandertal

Here we have lovely evidence that altruism and compassion are not uniquely modern human characteristics, as creationists would have us believe.

A 50,000 year-old Neanderthal, unearthed in 1957 during excavations at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan and know to science has Shanidar 1, shows evidence of old injuries and medical conditions that would have made independent existence in the Pleistocene impossible.

A new examination of the skeleton by Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis and Sébastien Villotte of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, shows that the male in his 40s (believed to be elderly for a Neanderthal) must have received considerable support and care following his injuries which would have made hunting and foraging difficult or impossible. He is unlikely to have avoided falling prey to the many predators in the Pleistocene.

Monday 23 October 2017

Irish Catholicism is Dying

Irish Catholicism is dying | IrishCentral.com

The news for the Irish Catholic Church just got a lot worse.

The 2016 census shows a further dramatic decline in support for the Catholic Church. Most other Christian denominations saw a similar fall but, given its position as by far the largest of them, as the table on the right shows, the fall was especially acute for for Catholicism.

The table needs to be read carefully. For example, the decline of 'only' 3.4% since 2011 for Catholics represents a fall of 132,200 but an increase of 28.9% for Muslims represents an increase just 14,200.

These changes are despite an annual population growth rate averaging 0.84% over the five years to 2016.

Sunday 22 October 2017

Suffer Little Jehovah's Witness Children

Source: The Freethinker
Jehovah’s Witnesses sued in Canada for history of sex abuse cover-up | Reveal

The storm clouds are gathering over another Christian organisation as its dirty little secret of decades of child sexual abuse and systematic official cover-up, involving possibly hundreds of thousands of cases, is beginning to be revealed in all its sordid glory.

According to the Centre For Investigative Reporting (Reveal), the Jehovah's Witness parent organisation, The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, is facing a $66 million law suit in Canada, brought by current and former members, claiming that it's policies protect members who sexually abuse children.

Saturday 21 October 2017

Lessons From a Canary Island - Spells and Incantations

Cathedral of Santa Ana, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain
Sitting at the end of a rather plain but pleasantly peaceful, palm-tree-lined plaza, is the Catholic Cathedral of Santa Ana, the most important religious building in the Canary Islands. It is situated in the old town area, now the southern suburbs of Vagueta in the modern city of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain.

By the standards of most European Catholic cathedrals, the Cathedral of Santa Ana, is plain, even a little austere, although it is blessed with two campaniles.

The original cathedral was built between 1500 and 1570, commencing soon after the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands by the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella, flushed with their success at the conquest of the entire mainland Spain and the expulsion of the Moors from their last remaining stronghold in Grenada. The Canaries were inhabited by a people known as Guanaches who almost certainly originated in the Atlas Mountain area of Morocco and migrated there in pre-classical times.

Conquest had not been easy, being vigorously resited by the native

Friday 20 October 2017

Evolving Great Tits - In Our Back Gardens

Great tit (Parus major) on a garden feeder.

Photo credit: Dennis van de Water, dvdwphotography.com
Evolution in your back garden—great tits may be adapting their beaks to birdfeeders.

Great tits are evolving, just up the road from where I live!

Not five minutes drive from where I sit writing this blog-post is probably the most intensely studied piece of woodland in the world, and probably nowhere is studied by people more qualified to study it. Wytham Woods is a mixed woodland owned by Oxford University and widely used for field studies by biologists from the Zoology Department.

It was by comparing the great tits from here and from Oosterhout and Veluwe, in the Netherlands, that an international research team discovered that the UK great tits have been actively evolving over the last few decades and now have longer beaks than their Dutch counterparts.

Thursday 19 October 2017

Lessons From A Canary Island - Rock of Ages

The core of an old volcano, Gran Canaria
The great thing about going to somewhere different is that you see different things - if you look.

We've just got back from a little over a week in the Spanish Canary Island, Gran Canaria, just off the coast of West Africa. Yes, it's where the Canary finch comes from but, apart from a brief glimpse that might have been one and a couple in a cage, we never saw any. In fact, we saw very few birds. A few buzzards, a couple of kestrels, some egrets and herons and quite a lot of gulls, but nothing to get excited about and no new species to cross off my list!

This is mostly because Gran Ganaria is hot and arid and, being volcanic, has very little soil for anything much other than cacti and other succulents to grow in. There are pine woods on the higher places but still not a lot of wild life.

And this means that a great deal of the underlying geology is, well, not really underlying so much as overlying and exposed. It's black volcanic tuffa, pumice, basalt and towering columns of extinct volcanic core with the core eroded to expose the solidified magma as in the photograph on the right.

This, of course, if only they would look at it, is a problem for creationists because there is no way to explain the geology of Gran Canaria in terms of the product of a recent global flood or of volcanic activity in just a few thousand years since one. It is, quite simply, as close as science comes to proof that there never was a recent global flood and the Earth is actually very old. Although, on the accepted scientific understanding of the age of Earth, the Canary Islands are comparatively young - i.e., just a few tens of millions of years old.

Wednesday 18 October 2017

Just a Small Problem - For Creationists

Lars Gibbon
The last common ancestor of the hominoids may have been about this size.
Research Sizes Up Last Common Ancestor of Humans and Apes:

You know that intermediate form between the old world monkeys and the primates, including humans, that creationists insist never existed?

It weighed about 12 pounds (5.5 Kg) according to a pair of researchers based at the American Museum of Natural History.

As the American Museum of Natural history press release explained:
Web Analytics