I’m sure it’s fascinating, but I would love to know what algorithm told them it was related…
Fierce Roller
Evolution, transitions, and volvocine algae
I’m sure it’s fascinating, but I would love to know what algorithm told them it was related…
Happy New Year, everyone!
I’ve been doing this for about two and a half years now, and no one’s more surprised than me to find that I’m still at it. I feel a bit like the Dread Pirate Roberts about the whole thing:
Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely stop blogging in the morning.
Westley’s still ticking, but no promises.
I published 121 posts in 2018, not too far from my goal of three a week. The most read by far was also my all-time most read, “Research Features: seems sketchy to me.” The reason, I think, is that that post appears not far from the top when “Research Features” is searched on Google. I had a colleague try it for me once, and my post was the third hit. So when the “magazine” contacts researchers, and they Google it to see if it’s legit, they get some criticism along with the magazine’s own self promotion. Several commenters wrote that this saved them time.
A soon to be former postdoc gave me one of these as a gift. It is gorgeous; the two-dimensional pictures really don’t do it justice.
The many strange yet intriguing forms of the microorganism, which we could not see through our daily lives, can now be put in front of our eyes with Sola cube Micro. Sola cube Micro, is a three-dimensional portrait of the microorganism, laser crystal engraved into a high transparency optical glass cube. We have worked with graphic designer to create the three-dimensional models of the portraits, by using accurate microscope photos. The two dimensional view through the microscope can now appear in three-dimensional form in front of your eyes. Enjoy the moment of gazing upon the mysterious beauty giving by the wonder of nature, with Sola cube Micro.
The spinning algae
Volvox carteriA type of freshwater colonial green algae. The root of the name “Volvox” comes from the word volvo, meaning, “to roll” in Latin, as it spins around while it swims through the habitant. Photosynthesis can occur through the chloroplasts. The spheroid body contains two thousand somatic cells on the surface, and each cell is attached with two flagella, which pushes the body onward. Sixteen parts of gonidia grows within the main body as “the daughter Volvox” and break through the maternal colonial to form new lives. It is suggested that the unicellular organism that was relative to Chlamydomonas evolved into multicellular organism, that is, Volvox since about fifty million years ago.
Material
High transparency optical glassSize and weight
2.0” D × 2.0” W × 2.0” H / 300g
The Sola Cube Micro collection is an eclectic set, including a radiolarian, a heliozoan, a tardigrade egg, and a phage, but as yet no Chlamydomonas.
Go to Sweden. Learn about multicellularity. Taste dank saké.
I am hiring a PhD student to study the evolutionary origins of multicellularity. Apply here https://t.co/Ef77E4WbQX
— Eric Libby (@SFI_elibby) December 11, 2018
Eric Libby is looking for a Ph.D. student to model the evolution of multicellularity at Umeå University in Sweden. Here’s the project description:
The last time I looked at the Volvox carteri page on Wikipedia, it was pretty sad:
Volvox carteri Wikipedia page as of December 12, 2018.
That was it; just a short intro and a section on sexual reproduction. I also had an undergraduate researcher, Sophia Sukkestad, who needed an end of semester project. I thought that if she worked on the V. carteri page, she’d learn a bit about Volvox, gain some familiarity with the relevant literature, and improve this resource for everyone.
A while back, Barry Arrington challenged critics of intelligent design to define intelligent design, claiming that
I have never seen a fair summary of ID theory come from one of our opponents.
Several ID critics(including me) weighed in with our definitions, but Arrington called all of them “superficial and contemptuous” (my answer was apparently so superficial and contemptuous that it got me banned from commenting at Uncommon Descent). I pointed out at the time that some of these answers were virtually identical to the definitions given by prominent ID proponents.
Stephen Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, founding member of the Discovery Institute, and occasional contributor to Evolution News and Views, has cleared things up for us. Here’s his definition of intelligent design (around 1:58 in this recording):
The theory of intelligent design is the idea that there are certain features of life and the universe that are best explained by a purposive intelligence, rather than an undirected material process such as, in the realm of biology, natural selection acting on random mutations.
Dr. Stephen C. Meyer. Discovery Institute press photo from http://www.discovery.org/p/11.
In 1950, a young assistant professor at Princeton University published an essay about Volvox in Scientific American, “Volvox: a colony of cells.” The essay touches on several themes that will be familiar to regular readers of Fierce Roller, including cellular differentiation, inversion, and what it means to be an individual.
The author was John Tyler Bonner, whose (much) more recent work I’ve written about previously (“Chance favors the minute animalcule: John Tyler Bonner on randomness“).
John Tyler Bonner, ca. 1957. Image from the Guggenheim Foundation.
Among many other contributions, Bonner was a pioneer in the development of the social amoeba (or cellular slime mold) Dictyostelium discoideum as a model system for multicellular development and cell-cell signaling. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he has published over twenty books and mountains of peer-reviewed papers.
David Kirk‘s book is an essential resource for anyone who wants to study Volvox, even twenty years after its publication. It includes thorough but succinct reviews of volvocine diversity, ecology, genetics, development, and cell biology, along with original insights into all of these topics.
I was just returning to it for the many-th time to find a reference for a manuscript revision, and I (re-)discovered that a quote I’ve paraphrased many times comes from the Preface:
David Klinghoffer has outdone himself. For a guy who thinks the discovery of an extrasolar planet is a challenge to materialism, the bar for the dumbest thing he’s ever said is already high, but he has cleared it with room to spare:
In a sense, there are no atheists.
He’s right, in a sense. In the sense that we can arbitrarily redefine words to mean whatever the hell we want them to mean. Let’s look at some equally valid examples:
In a sense, all mammals are descended from snakes.
This is true, in a sense, because I define snakes as small Triassic insectivores.
In a sense, there are no dump trucks.
This is true, in a sense, because I define dump trucks as wine bottles that magically refill themselves.
In a sense, David Klinghoffer is a ghost.
This is true, in a sense, because I define ghosts as human beings who occasionally say monumentally stupid things.
David Klinghoffer, in a sense. Image from A Ghost Story, downloaded from IMDB.
Intelligent design proponent Douglas Axe says,
My recent book, Undeniable, makes the case not just that life is designed but also that this is obvious — you need no special training to see it. And yet, as with other obvious truths, some people prefer to deny this one than to fully embrace the attending implications.
For atheists to be in denial here isn’t surprising. Short of recanting, they have no option. [emphasis added]
Douglas Axe
But intelligent design proponents have said many, many times that ID, being a scientific rather than religious theory, does not identify the designer. According to Michael Behe,
Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel–fallen or not; Plato’s demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being.
So here’s my question: if ID is agnostic to the nature of the designer, why can’t an atheist believe life is designed?