What'sNEW July–September 2009

29 September 2009
...HGT from multiple sources is shown to be able to generate and optimize novel evolutionary characters in eukaryotes....
Gregory P. Fournier, Jinling Huang and J. Peter Gogarten, "Horizontal gene transfer from extinct and extant lineages: biological innovation and the coral of life" [
abstract], doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0033, p2229-2239 v364, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 12 Aug 2009.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |


24 September 2009
TEs are probably as old as life itself and have been an integral, active, and both destructive and constructive component of genomes. Two Stanford geneticists make this observation in commentary on an analysis (by others) of the activity of certain transposable elements (TEs) in rice. They also remark, about 90% of human DNA is made up of TEs. That's even more than we reported three days ago. Anyway, it's a lot. (See shaded box for geneticist Mark Batzer's comments on the difference.)
6:07 PM | from Mark Batzer: Short answer we are only talking about retroelements. Many older elements have also contributed but are no longer recognizable as such. So about 50 percent from recognizable modern elements and another 40 or so from older elements of many different classes. So both numbers are right just a question of how hard you look.

Josefa González and Dmitri Petrov, "MITEs—The Ultimate Parasites" [
summary], doi:10.1126/science.1179556, p1352-1353 v325, Science, 11 Sep 2009.
Metazoan Genes Older Than Metazoa? is our main webpage about genes older than the features they encode.

21 September 2009
Nearly half of the human genome is derived from transposable elements (TEs). Most of these, approximately one-third of the human genome, are "non-LTR" retrotransposons. Now two distinguished geneticists have reviewed the effect of this group on human evolution. The huge volume of genomic data available today enables them to reconstruct the process in far more detail than only a decade or two ago, much as new telescopes improve our view of the stars. The details now apparent are eye-opening. The box below gives one small example.

three transduction events Evolutionary analyses indicated that the three transduction events all took place ~7-14 Myr ago, as humans and African great apes share all four AMAC1 copies, whereas orangutans and other primate and non-primate species that have been analysed only possess the ancestral AMAC1L3 gene. Experimental studies indicated that, in addition to AMAC1L3, at least two of the three transduced AMAC1 genes are expressed in human tissues. RNA transcript sequence analyses of the expressed AMAC1 duplicates further revealed that the promoter sequence had been duplicated along with the AMAC1 coding sequence as part of the 3' transduction process. This indicates that retrotransposon-mediated gene transduction can duplicate not only coding regions of genes but also their regulatory regions; therefore, genes retain their functional potential after duplication, and retrotransposon-mediated duplication can lead to the rapid generation of functional gene families. Figure adapted from Xing et al. © 2006 The National Academy of Sciences USA.

The review begins with brief primer on TEs. Some are not retrotransposons, but DNA transposons. Among the rest, some are Long Terminal Repeat (LTR) retrotransposons, characterized by nucleotide sequences at their ends that are repeated hundreds or thousands of times. Viruses use these repeats to insert their genes into our genomes. In other words, human LTR elements are endogenous retroviruses. Most of these were inserted into our genomes more than 25 million years ago and are inactive now. The review focuses on the remaining ones, the non-LTR retrotransposons.

These are subdvided into four categories, but enough primer already. The bottom line is that non-LTR retrotransposons are very active in humans. "The impact of non-LTR retrotransposons on human genome evolution largely results from their extremely high copy numbers (for example, there is one Alu insertion every 3 kb on average) and their continued activity over tens of millions of years.... The current rate of Alu retrotransposition has been estimated as approximately 1 insertion for every 20 births in humans.... [T]he majority of Alu elements were inserted ~40 Myr ago following a peak of amplification during which there was approximately one new Alu insertion in every birth...."

Not surprisingly, this retrotransposon activity can cause problems. "Examples of human genetic disorders caused by de novo L1, Alu and SVA insertions continue to accumulate, and 65 cases have been shown to cause heritable diseases...." In theory, standard Darwinian selection would eventually eliminate lineages with such defects. This process by itself would be only havoc for our species.

But the human genome also has a number of regulatory systems to suppress or modify the activity of retrotransposons. And occasionally, their genetic tinkering produces a beneficial genetic novelty, as in the illustrated example above. Retrotransposons can even bring together "elements that have been present in the genome for a long time."

Along with our regulatory systems, could retrotransposons and other TEs be active components of the genomic software management systems that cosmic ancestry requires? Such systems would recognize and assemble genetic programs previously acquired in exon-sized blocks. Then standard darwinian evolution could select-for and optimize the programs — or select-against and eliminate them. We think TEs are likely components of these systems. Otherwise, they are hard to explain.

Richard Cordaux and Mark A. Batzer, "The impact of retrotransposons on human genome evolution" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nrg2640, p691-703 v10, Nature Reviews Genetics, Oct 2009.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |
Three New Human Genes is a related webpage, we think.


17 September 2009
The gain and loss of exons has contributed to the evolution of new features. Evidence for this surmise comes from Japanese and Californian geneticists whose primary interest is slightly different: domain shuffling in vertebrate genomes. The geneticists conclude that domain shuffling is important, and they notice that domains are frequently gained or lost during evolution. "These genes are likely to have gained new functional roles by acquiring new domains, and are likely to be involved in phenotypic evolution," they comment.

domain sequences
Domain structure of a vertebrate protein compared to three amphioxus sequencess and one sea urchin sequence.
Exons are the coding portions of genes, separated by noncoding portions called introns. Introns (and consequently, exons) were first recognized more than thirty years ago, and their evolutionary purpose has been a contentious subject ever since. How could interruptions in genes be a good thing? A dozen years ago we suggested, "Introns make more sense if evolution is a constructive process requiring the assembly of blocks of instructions imported from outside the cell."

Evidence that exons encoding the studied domains were ever gradually composed is not apparent in the new report. Rather, in the reconstruction of the past, exons seem to simply show up, already composed; or else they were present in the most ancient studied species. This supports our prediction, "If a new genetic program arrives by the strong panspermia process, intervening species should possess either nearly identical versions of it ...or nothing similar...."

If the studied domains were not gradually composed by mutation-and-natural-selection, how did they acquire their programming? Could they be encoded by random, "junk" DNA that luckily contains working programs or subroutines? No. Simple math makes it forbiddingly unlikely that any random domain except a trivially small one of, say, fifteen or fewer codons would be functional. Meanwhile, the studied domains appear to average about 150 codons in length; the largest one is longer than 3,000 codons.

The geneticists' conclusion concerning domain shuffling also interests us, because, "In the evolutionary mechanism we advocate, new genetic programs are acquired whole or in a few large pieces and then assembled by genetic software with rule-following, puzzle-solving capabilities."

In cosmic ancestry, genetic programming is as old as life itself. During evolution the program components need assembly and optimization, but the essence is there already. If so, some of the silent DNA is not random, or "junk," but instead it contains components of programs ready to become active. We think the data support this expectation.

Takeshi Kawashima et al., "Domain shuffling and the evolution of vertebrates" [abstract], doi:10.1101/gr.087072.108, p1393-1403 v19, Genome Res., Aug 2009.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is a related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |
Introns: a Mystery contains the above-quoted suggestion.
Metazoan Genes Older Than Metazoa? is a related local webpage.
New genetic programs in Darwinism and strong panspermia contains our prediction quoted above.
Three New Human Genes includes a textbox calculating the "simple math" for a sequence of 121 codons.
Almost all human genes contain duplicated sequences is the subject of a What'sNEW article mentioning "genetic software", 5 Dec 2006.


14 September 2009
If we didn't know about life we wouldn't believe it.... — Richard Dawkins

On this website we maintain that the darwinian account of evolutionary progress and the origin of life is implausible. Charles Darwin's best-known living advocate apparently agrees. Dawkins' words come from a weekend newspaper article illustrated with facing images of Darwin and Michaelangelo's God; and he continues —except, of course, that there'd be nobody around to do the disbelieving! Religious zealots use similar rhetoric: If you don't believe the given dogma you are heretics, infidels, damned, excluded from the holy kingdom — you don't exist.

Darwin and God Later, Dawkins asks and answers, And how is the trick done? ...Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information. We know, as certainly as we know anything, that this is the process that has generated life on our own planet. But if we know it so certainly, howcome a majority of educated American adults don't believe it?

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," Carl Sagan said. This rule is often quoted, but what makes a claim extraordinary? A fair criterion might be this: It's an extraordinary claim if most people don't believe it. By this criterion Dawkins' answer, "the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information," remains an extraordinary claim — for which extraordinary evidence is still lacking. Shouldn't we at least consider other theories?

Richard Dawkins, "Man vs. God" [link], p W1-W2, The Wall Street Journal, 12-13 Sep 2009.
The RNA World elaborates on the insufficiency of evidence with respect to the origin of life.
Neo-Darwinism... elaborates on the insufficiency of evidence with respect to evolutionary progress.
Evolution versus Creationism mentions the religious nature of darwinism.
Testing Darwinism versus Cosmic Ancestry says what, in our opinion, the evidence does and does not establish.
A Wordcount for Comparison weighs the evidence for darwinism against that for cosmic ancestry.
Gabriel Manzotti comments on "Extraordinary Claims," 16 Sep 2009.
Thanks Thanks for editing advice, George Stratton.


4 September 2009
Novel human-specific genes originating from noncoding sequences have been reported by geneticists at the University of Dublin. On a
new webpage we maintain that the data support cosmic ancestry and not strict darwinism.
gene sequences Three New Human Genes is the new webpage, posted 4 Sep 2009.
Thanks Thanks, Hans-Peter Wheeler and Jerry Chancellor.


Mars

1 September 2009
Is There Life on Mars? will be shown at 8PM ET/PT tonight, September 1, on PBS.
Is There Life on Mars?, the NOVA program from PBS (available for download in six segments).
Life on Mars! is a related local webpage.
Thanks Thanks for alerting us, Larry Klaes.


26 August 2009
"The Origin of Life on Earth" is one of six main articles in a Scientific American Special Issue: "Understanding Origins". We are grateful that the title of this article includes the words "on Earth" and that the authors briefly mention panspermia in a sidebar. But "Fresh clues hint at how the first living organisms arose from inanimate matter" is the subtitle and thrust of the article. Among the clues are recent experiments pertaining to the RNA world, and experiments in which lipid membranes form spheres and grow tails that may "break up into many smaller spheres."

alphabet blocks The authors acknowledge many unsolved problems, and phrases like "it seems plausible ...perhaps ...could have ...would have" often appear. But doubts are forgotten by the last sentence: "At that point, the RNA world became the DNA world, and life as we know it began." As usual, all of the inquiry pertains to the hardware problem. The software problem is not even mentioned, unless you count sentences like, "Next, the organisms might have added protein making to their bag of chemical tricks."

Alonso Ricardo and Jack W. Szostak, "The Origin of Life on Earth" [preview], p 54-61 v 301, Scientific American, Sep 2009.
The RNA World is the main local webpage about origin-of-life theories.

In the same issue a briefer article, "The Eye," includes an interesting observation: "The basic structure of our eyes is similar in all vertebrates, even lampreys, whose ancestor branched away from ours about 500 million years ago. By that time, therefore, all the basic features of the eye must have already existed...." But this conclusion is not supported by any direct evidence that the basic features of eyes existed then on Earth. It is less speculative to conclude only that the genetic programs for eyes already existed. This conclusion is reinforced by evidence from genomics: the same gene controlling eye development is shared by fruitflies, mice, and squid. Genetic programs that wholly precede the features they encode are confounding for strict darwinism, but required in cosmic ancestry.

David Castelvecchi, "The Eye," p 86 v 301, Scientific American, Sep 2009.
Coordinating Genes is a related section of the webpage "Neo-Darwinism...".
Metazoan Genes Older Than Metazoa? is a related local webpage.
Thanks Thanks, Bill and Ann Tucker.


24 August 2009
lemur Most of our genes... were transferred from an endosymbiont. So writes Carl Zimmer in Science, in the latest essay in a series honoring "the Year of Darwin." The subject of this essay is the origin of eukaryotes. The statement, if true, powerfully affirms the importance of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) for the evolution of eukaryotes. Of course endosymbiosis is HGT in wholesale fashion, and the subsequent migration of genes from an endosymbiont to the eukaryotic nucleus is well-documented. But most of our genes by this one method? This is eye-opening.

Other methods of HGT, such as transduction by viruses, have also contributed many genes to eukaryotic species. We think it is time for mainstream science to recognize the importance of HGT in the evolution of eukaryotes.

Carl Zimmer, "On the Origin of Eukaryotes" [summary], doi:10.1126/science.325_666, p 666-668 v 325, Science, 7 Aug 2009.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |


21 August 2009
prokaryotic circle of life I find it fascinating that this prokaryotic symbiosis could so profoundly shape the evolution of life, and thereby set the stage for the formation of an oxygen-rich atmosphere and for the emergence of eukaryotic organelles. The symbiosis of two disparate prokaryotes to form the double-membrane prokaryotes appears to have done more than just introduce a new combination of genes into a cell.... [It] represents a radically new structural design.

So writes UCLA molecular biologist and astrobiologist James Lake, after studying evidence for a prokaryotic merger that would predate the appearance of eukaryotes. This would be another example of evolution that advances by combining pre-existing genetic components. And in this case, the components would have been whole prokaryotic genomes.

James A. Lake, "Evidence for an early prokaryotic endosymbiosis" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature08183, p 967-971 v 460, Nature, 20 Aug 2009.
Research Reveals Major Insight Into Evolution Of Life On Earth, SpaceDaily.com, 21 Aug 2009.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |
The Tree of Life is a related local webpage.
Gaia is a related webpage.


18 August 2009
Stardust and Wild-2 NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft. The sample was tiny, but carbon isotope testing indicates that the glycine was not a terrestrial contaminant. The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare said Dr. Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. In this carefully worded statement Pilcher leaves open the possibility that the glycine could be, not a precursor but, a remnant of life.

Stardust passed through dense gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 on January 2, 2004. ...A special collection grid filled with aerogel... gently captured samples of the comet's gas and dust. The grid was stowed in a capsule which detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth on January 15, 2006. Since then, scientists around the world have been busy analyzing the samples....

NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life's Building Block in Comet, Bill Steigerwald, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 17 Aug 2009.
Building block of life found on comet, Reuters, 18 Aug 2009.
From a Distant Comet, a Clue to Life by Kenneth Chang, The New York Times, 18 Aug 2009.
Comets, the Delivery System is a related webpage.
Comet Rendezvous is a related section of the webpage "Can The Theory Be Tested?".
Thanks Thanks for added links, Ron McGhee, NS,George Howard and Stan Franklin.


11 August 2009
Mars methane model ...The source [for Mars' methane] must be 600 times more intense than originally assumed, which is considerable even by Earth's geological standards. This observation comes from a study of the regional plumes of methane that come and go seasonally on Mars. In Paris, a computer model (illustrated) best matched the phenomenon if approximately 150,000 tons of methane emerge within less than 200 days from a localized source. The study concentrated on mechanisms that could destroy the methane so quickly, but the source interests us more. Could it be biological? Hopefully, forthcoming missions like ESA's will enable us to find out.

Franck Lefèvre and François Forget, "Observed variations of methane on Mars unexplained by known atmospheric chemistry and physics" [abstract], doi:10.1038/nature08228, p 720-723 v 460, Nature, 6 Aug 2009.
Eric Hand, "Joint Mars plans come together" [html], doi:10.1038/460675a, p 720-723 v 460, Nature, 6 Aug 2009.
Franck Lefèvre and François Forget, "Mars Atmosphere: Modeling and Observations" [abstract], LPI Conference, 13 Nov 2008.
Mars, methane and mysteries, European Space Agency, 10 Aug 2009.
Life on Mars! is a related webpage.


30 July 2009
Comets contained oceans of liquid water during the first million years of their formation, according to Chandra Wickramasinghe and colleagues at Cardiff University.
J.T. Wickramasinghe, N.C. Wickramasinghe and M.K. Wallis, "Liquid water and organics in Comets: implications for exobiology" [
10-page PDF], doi:10.1017/S1473550409990127, International Journal of Astrobiology, Jul 2009.
Evidence of liquid water in comets reveals possible origin of life, Cardiff University News Centre, 30 Jul 2009.
Comets: Cosmic Life Preservers by Jonathan Fahey, Forbes.com, 5 Aug 2009.
Comet Swarm Delivered Earth's Oceans? by Ker Than, National Geographic News, 5 Aug 2009.
Did Life Begin In Space? New Evidence From Comets, ScienceDaily, 14 Aug 2009.
Comets: The Delivery System is a related webpage.
Chandra Wickramasinghe is a related webpage.
Subhash Kak replies, 18 Aug 2009.
Thanks Thanks for an added link, Ron McGhee and Chandra. Thanks for noticing a bad link, Ken Augustyn.


28 July 2009
Replies from darwinsts to our article, "Primate-specific genes were inserted de novo..." have been unenlightening. A special box for them is posted in our Replies section. We will update this box for a few more days.
Replies from Darwinists, first posted 28 Jul 2009.
Primate-specific genes were inserted de novo... is the original What'sNEWarticle, 23 Jul 2009.


25 July 2009
Spermatozoa of all species can take up exogenous DNA or RNA molecules and internalize them into nuclei. ...The reverse-transcribed sequences behave as extrachromosomal, biologically active retrogenes and induce novel phenotypic traits in animals.

Four medical researchers at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome concluded this while studying the phenomenon over several years. They note that sperm cells appear to have special receptors and machinery for facilitating such acquisitions. Even though the acquired genes are phenotypically expressed, they are usually not integrated into the main chromosomes and they are progressively lost during adult life. The researchers named the phenomenon Sperm-Mediated 'Reverse' Gene Transfer (SMRGT). They are especially interested because it exemplifies non-mendelian inheritance.

retrogenes in mouseThis acquisition system is news to us, and we are surprised to learn that genes can be expressed in development without being integrated into the main eukaryotic chromosomes. Rarely however, using mice, the researchers observed SMRGT genes that are integrated to become part of the main chromosomes of the affected lineage. Thus the phenomenon can certainly contribute to the cumulative macroevolutionary progress that animals on Earth have exhibited. This research reinforces our view that the reach of gene transfer is virtually unlimited, as it must be in cosmic ancestry.

Ilaria Sciamanna et al., "Retrotransposons, reverse transcriptase and the genesis of new genetic information" doi:10.1016/j.gene.2009.07.011, Gene, online 21 July.
Neo-Darwinism: The Current Paradigm is a related webpage.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main related webpage — What'sNEW about HGT |
Thanks Thanks, ScienceDirect; and thanks to coauthor Corrado Spadafora for clarifications that we have incorporated above.


23 July 2009
Primate-specific genes were inserted de novo, not generated by gradual divergence from non-primate genes. This conclusion comes from three geneticists who identified in the human genome 131 transcriptional units (TUs) that are found only among primates. These TUs ranged from 176 to more than 4,000 nucleotides in length, the average being around 1,500 nucleotides. The research team took care that their own methodology did not prevent them from recognizing gradual divergence —

PNAS Candidate primate-specific TUs might be conserved in nonprimates, but may have undergone accelerated sequence evolution, making their conservation unrecognizable in distant lineages and obscuring their shared origins from ancestral nonprimate genes. We do not believe exceptional divergence to be a major complication, because lowering the liftOver minMatch threshold did not improve detection of nonprimate alignments (see Materials and Methods). Accordingly, primate-specific TUs are consistent with de novo insertions, not sequence divergence.

The selection criteria were stringent, and the team expects many more primate-specific genes to be ultimately identified. But already, the report should startle darwinists, because the studied genes have no credible darwinian source. For darwinism, their unlikely sudden appearance is a virtual miracle. Is anyone paying attention?

Meanwhile, the result is consistent with our prediction: If a new genetic program arrives by the strong panspermia process, intervening species should possess either nearly identical versions of it ...or nothing similar....

Sen-Kwan Tay et al., "Global discovery of primate-specific genes in the human genome" [abstract], doi:10.1073/pnas.0904569106, p 12019-12024 v 106, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 21 Jul (online 6 Jul) 2009.
Neo-Darwinism: The Current Paradigm is a related webpage.
Human Genome Search... is a webpage about a related, discontinued research project.
New genetic programs in Darwinism and strong panspermia elaborates on the above-mentioned prediction, published 7-11 Apr 2002.
Viruses and Other Gene Transfer Mechanisms is the main webpage about horizontal gene transfer (HGT) — What'sNEW about HGT |
Three New Human Genes is a related new webpage, added 4 Sep 2009.
Replies from Darwinists are excerpted in a special box in our Replies section, first posted 28 Jul 2009.


21 July 2009
The Earth too, is an island.... These words come from a news release for an online article that endorses panspermia. The article considers a range of topics, beginning with an exploding red giant as the force that disseminates preexisting life. Dozens of authorities with whom we are familiar are referenced, but the author of this article is new to us.
Life on Earth Came From Other Planets: news release and link to article by Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D., v 1, Cosmology, 21 Jul 2009.
Thanks Thanks, EurekAlert.org. BTW, how can we get a mention?


12 July 2009
Phobus-Grunt Phobus-Grunt will fly specimens of Earthly life to Mars and back. The specimens will include thale cress, tardigrades, brewer's yeast, the bacterium deinococcus radiodurans, and a variety of microbes found in Siberian permafrost. The round trip is planned to take 34 months. If the Earthly specimens survive after exposure to space for so long, the case for panspermia will be strengthened. The Russian mission will also attempt to return a sample of soil from Mars' moon Phobos. Launch is scheduled for October, 2009.

Robin McKie, "The first Earthling to journey to Mars - Conan the Bacterium" [link], The Observer, London, 12 Jul 2009.
History of the Phobos Grunt project by Anatoly Zak, Russianspaceweb.com, updated 22 Jun 2009.
Introduction: More Than Panspermia is a related webpage.
Bacteria: The Space Colonists is a related webpage.
Can The Theory Be Tested? is a related webpage.
Thanks Thanks, Google Alerts.


8 July 2009
Astrobiology XII: Instruments, Methods, and Missions will be held 4-6 August 2009 in San Diego, California, USA. This conference is part of the SPIE Optics + Photonics multidisciplinary technical exhibition and conference. (SPIE is "an international society sponsoring light-based research.") The Astrobiology XII Conference Chairs are Richard B. Hoover of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Gilbert V. Levin of Arizona State University and Alexei Yu. Rozanov of the Russian Federation Paleontological Institute. Conference sessions will cover —

  • Microfossils and Biomarkers in Meteorites and Ancient Terrestrial Rocks
    SPIE
  • Instrumentation for Astrobiology
  • Mars, Venus, and Astrobiology
  • Microbial Extremophiles
  • Astrobiology and Planetary Protection
Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XII, SPIE Conference 7441B, San Diego CA, 4-6 Aug 2009.

3 July 2009
Sponges don't have a nervous system, or even neurons, but they do have a surprising number of the building blocks that would be needed to put a nervous system together. This sentence comes from one of a series of essays about Charles Darwin, this essay reviewing what is known about the origin of nervous systems in higher animals. For darwinists, the picture is deeply puzzling. "...Some of the key molecular building blocks of neurons predate even the first multicellular organisms."

Charles Darwin The genome of one studied species contains the genes for proteins typically found on the receiving side of a synapse. "Yet electron microscope studies have failed to find synapses in sponges." UCSB neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik, who led the study, comments, "Thus, the function of these synaptic scaffolding proteins in a sponge is a mystery...."

But we see a consistent story emerging. Many different studies find that essential genes existed before the evolution on Earth of the features they encode. This order of events is required in cosmic ancestry. Finding genes for neurons in primitive species that lack neurons is an especially telling example.

Greg Miller, "On the Origin of The Nervous System" [abstract], doi:10.1126/science.325_24, p 24-26 v 325, Science, 3 Jul 2009.
Metazoan Genes Older Than Metazoa? is the main related webpage.

COSMIC ANCESTRY | Quick Guide | What'sNEW - Later - Earlier - Index | by Brig Klyce | All Rights Reserved