Apparently this is a question that has been known to keep some biologists awake at night. (Can’t say I’m one of them; my insomnia is caused by other, equally pressing issues LOL) Anyway, ERV has written a lovely post looking at this: apparently it’s all to do with metabolic pathways and endogenous retroviruses. Go over […]
Continue readingTag: developmental biology
what’s your favourite (transitional) fossil?
A couple of weeks ago Brian Switek’s blog Laelaps included a post on transitional fossils (those things that some creationists will tell you simply don’t exist… ) Brian’s post was sparked by this story (OK, maybe the writer of was aiming for ‘balance’, but really!) & he suggested that others might like to emulate him & write […]
Continue readingmore on epigenetics & imprinting
Grant is a regular commenter here & occasionally I’ve twisted his arm & persuaded him to write a guest post for me. The following item is one of these – it was too good (& too long!) for the comment thread. Grant begins: Alison recently put up an article about epigenetics. Since I was in […]
Continue readingmore epigenetics – imprinting
A little while back I wrote about epigenetics – & I’ve got a nice piece from Grant to put up for you too. But in the meantime – PZ has written about genetic imprinting, another example of how modification of the chromatin can affect gene expression. And he’s included some nice diagrams of how it […]
Continue readinganother request – this time it’s stem cells
This time, the daughter tells me, she’s doing a project on a ‘current issue’ – & she’s selected stem cells. Current, controversial, contentious – & extremely interesting. But again, I’m not an expert (although my colleague Bjorn Oback, at AgResearch, is doing some very interesting work in that area & in fact received a Kudos award […]
Continue readinga paper on epigenetics
The daughter came home from school on Thursday & annouced that she wanted to find ‘stuff’ on epigenetics. Things like, what is ‘epigenetics’ & why is it important? It’s not a subject I know a lot about, but I did remember that I had a reference or two squirelled away. One is a great blog post […]
Continue readingthe hox genes rap
Who’d have thought it – a rap about the function & significance of Hox genes? But this is seriously good! (Thanks toOrac for spotting it.)
Continue readingwaterflea helmets – lamarckian, or epigenetic?
Water fleas – Daphnia – are rather cute little freshwater arthropods: In some circumstances (water temperature, presence of predators), rather than having that sharp little point on their heads (top of the picture, above the eyespot) some Daphnia will have a longer, spikier ‘helmet’. And this is where it gets interesting: it depends on the mother. If a […]
Continue readingthe beauty of biscuits…
… sea biscuits, that is – what we call sand dollars. PZ has just posted a video clip of the early development of sand dollars, & it’s absolutely gorgeous. It starts, as he says, with a bit of echinoderm porn – I never knew that sand dollar sperm looks like that whipped ‘cream’ stuff that […]
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