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Shrill atheist do it again: being shrill. Fighting talk in church, by Sue Blackmore.

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I need a programmer, anybody know how to contact her? Llevan a juicio a la hacker más sexy del mundo

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Gene’s Location on Chromosome Plays Big Role in Shaping How an Organism’s Traits Evolve, I’ll have to read the paper.

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The sky is falling! The sky is falling!, that’s why I need the programmer (see above).

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Shibboleet

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Friday Links, by Daniel MacArthur, at Genomes Unzipped. Introspective all over the Interwebs and other media. Introspective about publicly shared data. OK, he wrote “somewhat of an introspective

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And a video related to SSAFT’s post “Des effets photographiques Strange and Funky : le Tilt Shift effect” [fr], Coachella 2010

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Bacteria using bacteria And those are of the nasty club…

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The Art of Tiny Tech: The 2010 Microscopic Photo Competition Prizewinners Where one can see how much irregular are structures that look very regular from a certain distance.

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The evolution of mutualism, not really a H. sapiens character.

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America’s True History of Religious Tolerance

After the bill was passed, Jefferson proudly wrote that the law “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew, the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

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DIY UX, via Eye Candies Blog, via Charis Tsevis

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Computational science: …Error

…why scientific programming does not compute. by Zeeya Merali – Tomorrow morning I have a meeting with our informatics collaborator. I suppose a lot of labs need to admit they need help from specialists.

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auto-wagerization

From Retraction Watch:

Amy Wagers, an up and coming stem cell researcher at Harvard who made a name for herself as a postdoc early by questioning the work of others, has retracted a January 2009 paper she co-authored in Nature. According to the retraction:

Three of the authors (J.L.S., F.S.K. and A.J.W.) wish to retract this Article after a re-examination of the publication raised serious concerns with some of the reported data. These concerns have undermined the authors’ confidence in the support for the scientific conclusions reported, specifically the role of osteopontin-positive niche cells in the rejuvenation of haematopoietic stem cells in aged mice. Although this matter is under further review, these authors wish to retract the paper in its entirety, and regret any adverse consequences that may have resulted from the paper’s publication. The retraction has not been signed by Shane R. Mayack, who maintains that the results are still valid.

[Read More]

Identification of Mendel’s White Flower Character

Identification of Mendel’s White Flower Character.
Hellens RP, Moreau C, Lin-Wang K, Schwinn KE, Thomson SJ, et al. (2010)
PLoS ONE 5(10): e13230. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013230

Background
The genetic regulation of flower color has been widely studied, notably as a character used by Mendel and his predecessors in the study of inheritance in pea.

Methodology/Principal Findings
We used the genome sequence of model legumes, together with their known synteny to the pea genome to identify candidate genes for the A and A2 loci in pea. We then used a combination of genetic mapping, fast neutron mutant analysis, allelic diversity, transcript quantification and transient expression complementation studies to confirm the identity of the candidates.

Conclusions/Significance
We have identified the pea genes A and A2. A is the factor determining anthocyanin pigmentation in pea that was used by Gregor Mendel 150 years ago in his study of inheritance. The A gene encodes a bHLH transcription factor. The white flowered mutant allele most likely used by Mendel is a simple G to A transition in a splice donor site that leads to a mis-spliced mRNA with a premature stop codon, and we have identified a second rare mutant allele. The A2 gene encodes a WD40 protein that is part of an evolutionarily conserved regulatory complex.

Who cares?

blogo-links

She is angry and have good reasons for it.

This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I’m not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I’m going to fucking well let myself be angry.

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Halal soup, only for terrorists?!

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Banksy pour les Simpsons. I’ve seen that one all over the interwebs today, but let’s keep it hyperlocal (even if Dalhia isn’t as much as local as hyper would ask for.

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Ahmadinejad to Ratzinger: Cooperate against secularism. That smells like a FAIL, isn’t it? Will the Vatican get the bomb? Suspense!

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The Physics Bus

I get a little bored with the repetition, and so tend to make up my own verses, which get sideways looks from her, followed by telling Kate “Daddy’s silly!”

Who knew? SteelyKid is a wise girl

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The civility argument. Fucking Impossible.

[their] genomes, unzipped

Mine will follow ASAP, that is as soon as they will start hosting data of other people.

When we launched this website back in June, I welcomed readers with a promise that Genomes Unzipped would “ultimately be much more than just a group blog”. Indeed, the last four months of blogging have really just been a prelude of sorts to what comes next: the real Genomes Unzipped.

Today we’re launching an exciting new phase of the project. Although we’re not entirely sure where this journey will take us, we’re looking forward to finding out – and to bringing you along with us.

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Moving forward, we hope that we can use our own data as a resource for developing new tools for analysing personal genetic data. In addition to the data of core group members, we plan to host data from others who are also willing to share their genomes. We will also be releasing the software for the analyses we perform here for others to use and modify, and will welcome submission of other people’s programs to the GNZ code repository. Ultimately, we hope that we can become a hub for a diverse community of people interested in building and using tools for exploring their own DNA.

Read the post, it’s worth your time.

Hopefully this will freak out the conservative geneticists, signatories of statements as the one published by the ESHG. Hopefully more and more people will join the party, and not just biologists and healthcare professionals.

reconciling science with leprechauns

Karl Giberson should start working on that one, as much urgent (and useful) as trying to reconcile science and religion. And it could be as much funny as his actual writing at BioLogos.

Leprechauns are a priority, but next come the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the such. Giberson’s task is to reconcile science with fantasies. He committed himself to it and he seems to doing quite badly for the moment. But hope will help him to continue his ministry.

Giberson is very interested about what Jerry Coyne have to say, in general, concerning the possibility of a friendship between science and religion, in particular. He started a series of posts on the subject. Templeton Foundation apologetics, only christian faith centered lacking the ecumenism JTF would like to promote.

Jerry Coyne have a very nice op-ed on USA Today. Simple, clear, short. You don’t even need to be a theologian or a scientist to get it. Excellent job.

In the end, science is no more compatible with religion than with other superstitions, such as leprechauns. Yet we don’t talk about reconciling science with leprechauns. We worry about religion simply because it’s the most venerable superstition — and the most politically and financially powerful.

I disagree with professor Coyne on that point. Me thinks that leprechauns are much more venerable even if they failed, for the moment, to gain the political and financial power that lousy morals gained for religions (going to bed, and even going to bed, with whatever political and financial powers are on charge).

The Gnu Atheists position seems to be popular. That’s a relief. Not every hit is friendly, but every hit counts.

None Of Us Are Free

RIP Solomon