Links

Three separate links follow. The first from Biology News Net, 'Comprehensive model is first to map protein folding at atomic level,' refers to scientists who developed a computer model predicting how small proteins fold. Protein folding is important because the shape of proteins is related to their function. It is also of critical importance to the study of certain diseases caused by impaired protein folding. Finally, protein folding is of importance to discussions of intelligent design and evolution.

A second article from 'Week in Science' is about atavisms. Atavisms are a frequently misunderstood concept and have, at times, been misused as evidence for common descent.

The third article is also from 'Week in Science' and refers to three other articles on the web. One is an amusing story about elephants and mirrors, another is about Saturn's geologically active moon Enceladus and the third, which is the most relevant to the topic of this blog, is about the sequencing of the western honeybee genome. Mentioned in a 'Science News' article was the fact that royal jelly, which is essential to the development of the queen, is associated with nine genes that code for the proteins enabling the synthesis of royal jelly. That raises the interesting question of how royal jelly synthesis capacity evolved in incremental steps as well as how this process would impact the queen's development.