Posted on 12/01/2005 12:06:41 PM PST by furball4paws
This article is for suscribers only. If you suscribe go here:
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/search_results.asp
If you don't here is an abstract that the article is based on:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16274263&query_hl=2
The work studies the endorphin, prodynorphin in Chimps and Humans. It purports to show that "This is the first documented instance of a nueral gene that has had its regulation shaped by natural selection during human origins" (Matthew Hahn, U. Indiana).
Human generally contain 2-4 copies of the regulatory sequence in contrast to one copy for chimps, gorillas, orangutans, baboons and macaques.
The investigators contend that changes in the prodynorphin regulatory sequence must have enhanced survival over other primates.
Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute regards the study as the first convincing demonstration of a regulatory gene influencing human evolution.
More the Merrier Ping.
God works in mysterious and wonderful ways.
placemarker
I just can't deploy the list another time today. Ping me tomorrow and I'll do it. (Too many pings and some people start to complain, and drop off the list.)
YEC INTREP
Thanks C-man. It is the original paper. I have now read it, but it's going to take a long time to digest it. I'm sure I'll miss some of the finer points.
But it fits very well with the 99+% coding similarity between Man and Chimps and the other 1+% difference that is in non-coding parts of the DNA. An earlier thread showed differences in promoters as does this paper. Clearly the change in expression affects cognitive abilities and there is also probably some developmental effects.
I think our Creo friends are eventually going to have to admit that Chimps are a lot closer to us than they look. This paper also shows how the rapid evolution of Man could occur from our last common ancestor. You bone guys should like it too.
If I were a young scientist just starting out, I'd head for the molecular basis of development. There's gold in them thar hills.
I don't think facts will sway many of them. I have been having a very reasoned and enjoyable discussion with a global flood advocate on another thread but I had to quit--we were simply talking past one another. Our world views and datasets did not coincide pretty much anywhere. He placed the flood at 4,000-5,000 years ago in the Mesozoic and/or Paleozoic, and stretched the timeline to make it fit. I could not even come close to convincing him that scientists place this time period not in geological strata millions of years ago but in common soils. Our two ideas sail merrily past each other, and we are off by millions of years.
(They didn't prepare me for this in grad school.)
I know what you mean. When you study so hard and learn to design experiments and to get and produce unambiguous data, you think the world's your oyster.
And then you run into one of these YEC guys and BAM! Can something like that actually exist? Since you're a bone guy it must be worse for you (what kind of bones are you into anyway?). I'm microbes and most people don't pay attention to them except when they are sick.
In grad school human osteology and fossil man as two of four fields for Ph.D. exams. Mostly archaeology and some related human osteology since.
So, could a higher level of endorphins produce a noticeable change in bone growth (more specifically brain case size)?
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