1. Get your genome sequenced for $48,000. I would so do this. In the meantime, we bought the Matheson family DNA test for my dad for Father's Day. I'm following this series at Siris: Philosophical Sentences explained. You know the old chestnuts: Cogito ergo sum, God is dead, virtue is its own reward, cleanliness is next to godliness... heh. Brandon tells us where they came from and a little about them.
Okay, so not really weekly. John Farrell has an interesting discussion of protein folding as a problem or challenge for evolutionary theory. His post includes quotes from experts with whom he has corresponded, and he cites the primary literature.
It was a week of celebration and remembrance. There was a major birthday. And celebrations of that day of the first fruits of bigger things, in unlikely places like Florida and Arizona. It's all very exciting.
Well, it's the first sampler since June, but I won't try to make up for lost time. Todd Wood has started a blog, and it's excellent. His slant is unique -- he's a young-earth creationist -- but his writing is superb and his expertise in genetics and genomics is world-class. My favorite entry so far: a commentary on a recent report describing genetic variation among humans.
Wow, lots going on lately. So, what is a species? The concept is much abused by creationists, so that an already-challenging topic is turned into an abyss of confusion and obfuscation. John Wilkins is a philosopher of science who runs a superb blog over at ScienceBlogs, Evolving Thoughts.
A few interesting and/or important tidbits for Monday. Brian at Laelaps provides a list of some very useful books available electronically for free. Authors include slouches like Cuvier, Lyell and Huxley. PZ Myers has an excellent new column up at SEED Magazine, discussing the pufferfish genome and referring to Ryan Gregory's excellent work.
It'll be a breakout week after a slow month on the blog. To the Edge of Evolution – and beyond! Ian Musgrave over at Panda's Thumb provides a nice summary of the evolution of clotting systems and some new genomic data that could be used, by ID proponents like Michael Behe, to bolster their claims regarding the "irreducible complexity" of the clotting system.
Well, no sampler last week, so here are the answers to the last DNA content quiz.
Last quiz on genome size, with animals chosen at random. The first quiz post explains what this is all about, the second one has additional commentary, and the answers to both previous quizzes are in previous Weekly samplers. Which organism has the larger genome? This one? Or this one? 1 2 3 4 Here's some help for you.
Answers to Quiz 2. (Poor John Farrell.) Row 1: the deer tick on the right has a genome almost 8 times the size of the ladybird beetle's (C value of 2.48 vs. 0.33). I take it that the scholars of RTB would postulate that a deer tick is many times more "advanced" than is a ladybird beetle.