Evolution of the concept of gene, from abstract to concrete to diffuse and complex, by Carl Zimmer Now: The Rest of the Genome (via Shanti Gadde).
Related The Promise and Power of RNA (via 3quarksdaily).
Evolution's new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective (via Evolutionary Psychology discussion group). Excerpt:
"The work also confirms an idea first floated in an 1858 essay by Alfred Wallace, who along with Charles Darwin co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace had suspected that certain systems undergoing natural selection can adjust their evolutionary course in a manner "exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident." In Wallace's time, the steam engine operating with a centrifugal governor was one of the only examples of what is now referred to as feedback control. Examples abound, however, in modern technology, including cruise control in autos and thermostats in homes and offices.
The research, published in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, provides corroborating data, Rabitz said, for Wallace's idea. "What we have found is that certain kinds of biological structures exist that are able to steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness," said Rabitz, the Charles Phelps Smyth '16 Professor of Chemistry. "The data just jumps off the page and implies we all have this wonderful piece of machinery inside that's responding optimally to evolutionary pressure.""
And a worrying development Neuroimaging Of Brain Shows Who Spoke To A Person And What Was Said(via Rajeev Ramachandran of 'Teeming Multitudes')
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