dragonfly by Lars L. Iverson

We find DNA from animals as different as an otter and a dragonfly.
DNA detection is effective even in populations where the animals are extremely rare.
DNA traces of animals are nearly ubiquitous in the freshwater environment.
These findings may have wider implications reaching disciplines far beyond threatened species monitoring.

The ubiquity of animal DNA in freshwater interests us for another reason. Cosmic ancestry depends heavily on gene transfer (HGT), even affecting multicelled animals. But standard darwinism holds that gene transfer among metazoans is rare and inconsequential. Now we learn that all this DNA is freely available in the water. Here we see circumstantial evidence in favor of robust gene transfer, even among species like otters and dragonflies.

Chandra Wickramasinghe of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology makes these comments in email after an international conference on interstellar dust in Pune India. His own presentation there states the case convincingly. We hope it will be noticed. Distinguished attendees included (below, left to right) Sun Kwok the University of Hong Kong; Thomas Henning of the Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg; and Chandra. The conference website has links to many of the presentations.

A similar report describes "De Novo Genesis of Enhancers in Vertebrates". Two biologists at the University of Heidelberg write, "...We show that enhancers don't have to be derived from pre-existing ones but can also appear de novo in regions of the genome that were previously not regulating gene expression. ...We predict that such a process is frequent in vertebrate genomes, making de novo generation of enhancers an important mechanism for creating variation in gene expression." They described the genes as "recycled".

In standard theory, this phenomenon should be rare, because, if the genes were already programmed before their programs were deployed, there would have been no opportunity for standard darwinian trial-and-error to do the programming. (The German team supposes that the genes were originally functional but went silent for a long time.)

I once thought that the term de novo pertained to new genes composed by standard darwinian trial-and-error, but I was mistaken. The term actually pertains to the activation of fully or nearly functional genes found within previously silent DNA — DNA formerly labelled "junk".

Evidence shows that many genes, like the de novo ones discussed here, precede their own expression. We think all genes do. And we note that software management systems, using tools like gene conversion, can keep silent genes uncorrupted over many generations. Thus, de novo genes confirm a fundamental prediction of cosmic ancestry.

Dong-Dong Wu et al., "De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes" [

Why Chlamydomonas has these genes is a complete mystery for standard theory. Apparently they, and many other genes, existed long before the features they encode. If so, there was no opportunity for trial-and-error to compose them. In response, mainstream theorists suggest that the puzzling genes originally served other purposes, but, luckily, also happen to encode new metazoan functions. Is this credible?

We think genes come first, before the earthly evolution of the features they encode. Advanced genes in simple organisms confirm a basic prediction of cosmic ancestry.

Interestingly, the proposed complex organics are very similar to those found in carbonaceous meteorites like Murchison. The presence of insoluble organic matter in meteorites is evidence that complex organic solids form in nature with no difficulty. The fact that insoluble organic matter and circumstellar dust have similar chemical structures offers the possibility that Solar System organics may have a stellar connection.

The reaction of mainstream science is to propose the existence of a previously unsuspected chemistry that can produce complex organics in space. The team's discovery suggests that complex organic compounds can be synthesized in space even when no life forms are present. But complex organics definitely can been made by life. Not just theoretically. This is possible!

The number of genes up-regulated in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the total number of new genes after primate split. For example, there are 280 human-specific [young] genes, 54 of which are up-regulated in PFC. In total, there are 72+72+54=198 genes up-regulated in PFC (marked in red), which originated along hominoid branches.

The study also showed that the new genes evolved significantly faster than the average rate, supporting the case that "new genes may in general be subject to positive selection." And earlier new genes probably had similar significance in brain development for chimps, orangutans and Rhesus monkeys, they conclude (see figure).

The authors report that the new brain-development genes must have "originated" in each lineage after it diverged from its evolutionary predecessors. They explain, "...We dated their originations by inferring the presence and absence of orthologs along the vertebrate phylogenetic tree...." This method reveals that their language is misleading, because nothing in their data shows that the genes ever "originated" at all, only that they were absent until they were present. Perhaps instead they arrived. In any case, we wish that precision in language were more strictly observed. Science requires it.

University of Illinois professors: of entomology, James Whitfield, and of crop sciences, Gustavo Caetano-Anollés and Manfredo Seufferheld. Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

Three biologists at the University of Illinois find evidence that a protein in certain organelles is more ancient than the origin of cells on Earth. "The study lends support to a hypothesis that LUCA [the Last Universal Common Ancestor of cells] may have been more complex even than the simplest organisms alive today [cells]."

"Our findings suggest that the V-H+PPases, which are universally distributed and tightly associated with the acidocalcisome, originated prior to the divergence of the three superkingdoms." (Actually, the findings say nothing about the proteins' origin, but indicate only their prior existence. We wish this distinction were not overlooked. Science requires precision.)

If a protein with a domain of 57 amino acids that is highly conserved across life's kingdoms existed before there were cells, it presents a big problem for darwinism. Other lines of evidence also point to genetic programs that existed before they were expressed on Earth — again problematic. In fact, many phylogenomic analyses like this one are finding "early complexity" everywhere. But darwinian origin-of-life theory requires simplicity in the deepest past — increasing complexity should come only later. Neo-darwinism requires genetic programs that originate by trial-and-error during many generations of cellular reproduction. How is early complexity possible without cells?

In cosmic ancestry, how genetic programs originate is an unwarranted question. It seeks to explain phenomena that are not observed.

While most of the discharge escapes, eventually to Saturn's outermost ring, an estimated micrometer per year falls back onto Enceladus's surface. To acculumate to its estimated thickness of 100 meters, it must have been falling for about 100 million years.

The likeliest source for Enceladus's plumes is an ocean under the surface, heated above the melting point. A liquid ocean that has persisted for that long may well contain life. Other evidence also points to life there.