Human genes are become active after fertilization

 

Image courtesy of Walter De Maria, public domain.

Joel Kontinen

    

A new study has found out that genes are active from after fertilization challenges the textbook view that genes don't become active in human embryos until they are made up of four-to-eight cells, two or three days after fertilisation.

This is the way Christians have been saying all the time. This is a signal for abortion, as kids that old are fully human.

The newly discovered activity begins at the one-cellstage -- far sooner than previously thought -- promising to change the way we think about our developmental origins.

The research, published on the 21 December in Cell Stem Cell, was co-led by Professor Tony Perry at the University of Bath, Dr Giles Yeo at the University of Cambridge and Dr Matthew VerMilyea at Ovation Fertility, US.

”Using a method called RNA-sequencing, the team applied precision analysis to individual human eggs and one-cell embryos to make a detailed inventory of tell-tale products of gene activity, called RNA transcripts. It revealed that hundreds of genes awaken in human one-cell embryos. Because the gene activity starts small, previous techniques had not been sensitive enough to detect it.”

The researcher say that looking at biological process as the kinds are only at the one-cell embryo stage is a is a fundamental step.

Source:

University of Bath. 2021. Genes are switched on in the human embryo from the get-go. Science Daily.,  21 December..

 

The Spanish Habsburg Had A Nose Formed by Inbreeding

Image courtesy of Don Juan Carreño de Miranda, Public Domain.



Joel Kontinen

A trait of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain was the Habsburg jaw, that was most likely the result of centuries of inbreeding.

The line from the 16th to the 18th centuries that came to an end, when Charles 2 died in 1700, failing to produce an heir.

Now, scientists have said that centuries of inbreeding had brought this deformity on their faces.

This causes us to wonder at the goodness of God and to say that this deformity was caused by selection.- not the natural kind - of centuries of inbreeding caused by genetic homozygosity, when all descendants share the same genes to produce a human being.

Thus, inbreeding can spoil the great walks of God, who wants us to be elegant.

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019, Inbreeding Caused the Distinctive 'Habsburg Jaw' of 17th Century Royals That Ruled Europe. Live Science (2 December).

DNA Repair Mechanism Challenges Darwinian Orthodoxy

New research featuring Arabidopsis thalianachallenges Neo-Darwinism. Image courtesy of Marco Roepers, CC BY-SA 3.0.





Joel Kontinen

A new paper published in the journal Genome Research challenges Darwinian orthodoxy.

Organisms are programmed with a feature called “DNA mismatch repair (MMR). It corrects mutations that arise during the replication of the genome during cell division.”

While studying the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, University of Oxford researchers found out that the MMR prefers to repair genes rather than other areas of the genome.

A news release published by Oxford University states:

“The study has important implications for human health, and is particularly useful for understanding the changes that occur in cells during the development of the tumors that underlie cancers. MMR-deficiency predisposes cells to become tumorous, presumably because MMR-deficient cells lack the gene protection that reduces the risk of mutation in the genes that normally suppress tumor formation.”

Basically, DNA correction mechanisms falsify Neo-Darwinism. There are too many intelligent solutions in cells.

Source:

University of Oxford. 2018. Cells protect genes more than rest of genome. (5 January).

Humans Are Still Evolving, New Study Claims

Reconstruction of Homo habilis. Many paleoanthropologists now believe that this species doesn’t even exist. Image courtesy of Lillyundfreya, CC BY-SA 2.5.





Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists seem to have a hard time pondering whether or not we are still evolving.

Last year, research suggested that human evolution has not stopped.

Now, Joseph Pickrell at Columbia University in New York and colleagues published a paper in PLoS Biology, suggesting that we are indeed evolving, albeit slowly.

How did they discover this?

They found that a variant, of the gene CHRNA3, which is often associated with heavy smoking, has become rarer.

An article in New Scientist also mentions that a variant of the gene ApoE4 that is “known to increase the risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, as well as cardiovascular disease, may also be getting rarer.”

So, it seems that researchers have noticed some tiny changes in human gene variants. But it is still a long way to Tipperary (or anywhere else).

There are better explanations for why people smoke less (or not at all) or have become less prone to Alzheimer’s: epigenetic changes resulting from leading a healthier lifestyle (i.e., more exercise and a wholesome diet).

Source:

Le Page, Michael. 2017. Alzheimer’s and smoking genes suggest we’re still evolving. New Scientist (5 September).

Humans and Chimps: The End of the 2 Per Cent Myth

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research.





Joel Kontinen

We share 50 per cent of our genes with bananas, but that does not make as half bananas.

Popular culture and science museums will tell us that we differ genetically from chimpanzees by 2 per cent.

Assuming the common ancestry of chimps and humans, scientists only measured the parts of our DNA that matched those of chimps. Much of it didn’t. In the past decade, the difference has kept on getting bigger and bigger. First, it was 5 – 6 per cent, then 23 and now perhaps 30 per cent or so. Nature, for instance, admitted in 2010 that the Y chromosomes of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and humans are ”horrendously different from each other”.

The two per cent difference is a myth that does not at all correspond to reality.

John Cleese: ”We scientists”, ”God gene” and much more

Joel Kontinen

Richard Dawkins is fond of using the expression ”we scientists” although he has not had the time to do much science in the past few decades. He has obviously noticed that writing speculative quasi-religious books is an easier way of making a living.

In this brief video actor John Cleese discusses the wonderland of genes from a perspective that differs considerably from that of Dawkins. He does not neglect to mention the ”God gene”, the gene that makes people eat coconut ice cream after a fish dinner and some other interesting ”genes”.



Naturally, Cleese does not shy away from reminding his audience of the importance of the authority of scientists.

Cleese’s parody brings to mind that what Mark Twain wrote about the claims of science as well as the just-so-stories so prevalent in Darwinian mythology.