archive

Basic biological nature

The origins of life: Mineralogist Bob Hazen believes he's discovered how life's early building blocks connected four billion years ago. A review of The Art of Plant Evolution by W. John Kress and Shirley Sherwood, and Flora Mirabilis: How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth, and Beauty by Catherine Herbert Howell. A look at how plants drove first animals onto land. Research suggests monkeys have cognitive abilities once thought unique to humans. Do new discoveries ever “rewrite evolutionary history”? Research confirms the mother of all humans, a "mitochondrial Eve", lived 200,000 years ago. Are humans continuing to evolve — and, if so, is our basic biological nature changing, or has modern culture stopped evolution? A review of Biology Is Technology: The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life by Robert Carlson. A review of Designer Genes: A New Era in the Evolution of Man by Steven Potter. A review of Drawing the Map of Life: Inside the Human Genome Project by Victor McElheny (and more). Craig Venter thinks he can change the world, but he already has — from mapping the human genome to creating the world's first man-made bacterial cell, Venter achieved a lifetime of innovations in just ten years. An interview with Craig Venter: "We have learned nothing from the genome". Genome as commodity: In a few years, millions will have purchased their own genome. Which population is most genetically distant from Africans? Amerindians. Black men can swim: Advances in genetics are finally allowing us to get to the bottom of long-held racial myths. As scientists explore the genetic links between Jewish populations, rabbis and thinkers wrestle with the question of what this means for Jewish identity. A look at how human diversity not that great. When the key to good genetics research isn't in the genes: It's hard to link a gene to a condition if you're not exactly sure how to define that condition in the first place. It has long been suggested that a mother’s and father’s genes do not play exactly equal roles, and new research points to asymmetry that could be far more substantial than thought. A review of Choosing Tomorrow's Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction by Stephen Wilkinson.