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Innovation means change, and change is not always welcomed amongst the public and their represenative. But the perversity of the innovation economy is such that resisting innovation does not mean that things will stay the same. Innovation has consequences and so too does aversion to innovation.
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BASF, the German chemical giant, is to pull out of genetically modified plant development in Europe and relocate it to the US, where political and consumer resistance to GM crops is not so entrenched.
The headquarters of BASF Plant Science will move from Limburgerhof in south-west Germany to Raleigh, North Carolina, and two smaller sites in Germany and Sweden will close. The company will transfer some GM crop development to the US but stop work on crops targeted at the European market – four varieties of potato and one of wheat.
The decision, which involves the net loss of 140 highly skilled jobs in Europe, also signals the end of GM crop development for European farmers. Bayer, BASF’s German competitor, is working on GM cotton and rice in Ghent, Belgium – but not for European markets. -
The move, according to BASF, is the consequence of aversion to genetically modified crops in Europe. Setting aside whether such aversion is appropriate or justified, it exists and has consequences, just as the aversion to stem cell research by the administration of George W. Bush during the last decade prompted relocation of researchers in that field.
New genetic data has enabled scientists to re-examine the relationship between human genetic variation and 'race'. We review the results of genetic analyses that show that human genetic variation is geographically structured, in accord with historical patterns of gene flow and genetic drift. Analysis of many loci now yields reasonably accurate estimates of genetic similarity among individuals, rather than populations. Clustering of individuals is correlated with geographic origin or ancestry. These clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations. Therefore, ancestry, or even race, may in some cases prove useful in the biomedical setting, but direct assessment of disease-related genetic variation will ultimately yield more accurate and beneficial information.
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What makes the case of Patrick and Thomas so fascinating is that it calls into question both of the dominant theories in the long-running debate over what makes people gay: nature or nurture, genes or learned behavior. As identical twins, Patrick and Thomas began as genetic clones. From the moment they came out of their mother's womb, their environment was about as close to identical as possible - being fed, changed, and plopped into their car seats the same way, having similar relationships with the same nurturing father and mother. Yet before either boy could talk, one showed highly feminine traits while the other appeared to be "all boy," as the moms at the playgrounds say with apologetic shrugs.
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in 1991, a neuroscientist in San Diego named Simon LeVay told the world he had found a key difference between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men he studied. LeVay showed that a tiny clump of neurons of the anterior hypothalamus - which is believed to control sexual behavior - was, on average, more than twice the size in heterosexual men as in homosexual men. LeVay's findings did not speak directly to the nature-vs.-nurture debate - the clumps could, theoretically, have changed size because of homosexual behavior. But that seemed unlikely, and the study ended up jump-starting the effort to prove a biological basis for homosexuality.
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What is human nature? A biologist might see it like this: humans are animals and, like all animals, consist mostly of a digestive tract into which they relentlessly stuff other organisms – whether animal or vegetable, pot-roasted or raw – in order to fuel their attempts to reproduce yet more such insatiable, self-replicating omnivores. The fundamentals of human nature, therefore, are the pursuit of food and sex.
But that, the biologist would add, is only half the story.
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Humans have something less obviously useful: freakishly large brains. This has made them terrifyingly inventive in acquiring other organisms to consume – and, indeed, in preparing them (what other animal serves up its prey cordon bleu?) – if also more roundabout in their reproductive strategies (composing sonnets, for example, or breakdancing).
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I'm going to consider how same-sex attraction might persist in human populations in the face of its apparent selective disadvantages. In the absence of direct data--such as systematic measures of the total evolutionary fitness of gay men or lesbians in specific societal contexts--it's easy to make up stories about natural selection, but much harder to determine which stories reflect reality. I'll try to delineate which stories fit with what we know about how selection works, and with the little data we do have--but that's the best I can do. If there's one point I hope you take from all that follows, it's that evolution is complicated, and human evolution doubly so.
All of these genetic links to common issues are fundamentally the same in how they work — they involve many genes that don’t determine our fate but rather impact how we react to our environment. The potential benefits to understanding this relationship are immense, and much progress is being made. As scientists learn more about how these intricate relationships work, they will hopefully be able to develop personalized treatments for people struggling from a variety of ailments. Until then, genetic sequencing for the public will have to wait — the relatively little information we have so far would likely only lead to faulty conclusions, made in an attempt to form that simple, big picture we always expect from science.
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A recent article in The New York Times reported that over 100 studies show a relationship between genes and criminality but that the environment plays a key role in the effects of this relationship:
“Kevin Beaver, an associate professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said genetics may account for, say, half of a person’s aggressive behavior, but that 50 percent comprises hundreds or thousands of genes that express themselves differently depending on the environment.
He has tried to measure which circumstances — having delinquent friends, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood — influence whether a predisposition to violence surfaces. After studying twins and siblings, he came up with an astonishing result: In boys not exposed to the risk factors, genetics played no role in any of their violent behavior. The positive environment had prevented the genetic switches — to use Mr. Pinker’s word — that affect aggression from being turned on. In boys with eight or more risk factors, however, genes explained 80 percent of their violence. Their switches had been flipped.”
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In fact, environment plays the same crucial role for criminality as it does for obesity and depression.
In an interview I did for a story in The Michigan Daily on depression research, Dr. Margit Burmeister, a professor of human genetics and a researcher in the Molecular and Biological Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan, explained the dangers the public oversimplifying the link between genetics and depression:
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In trying to analyze the natural world, scientists are seldom aware of the degree to which their ideas are influenced both by their way of perceiving the everyday world and by the constraints that our cognitive development puts on our formulations. At every moment of perception of the world around us, we isolate objects as discrete entities with clear boundaries while we relegate the rest to a background in which the objects exist.
That tendency, as Evelyn Fox Keller’s new book suggests, is one of the most powerful influences on our scientific understanding. As we change our intent, also we identify anew what is object and what is background.
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Although classic Darwinism is framed by referring to organisms adapting to environments, the actual process of evolution involves the creation of new “ecological niches” as new life forms come into existence. Part of the ecological niche of an earthworm is the tunnel excavated by the worm and part of the ecological niche of a tree is the assemblage of fungi associated with the tree’s root system that provide it with nutrients.
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The vulgarization of Darwinism that sees the “struggle for existence” as nothing but the competition for some environmental resource in short supply ignores the large body of evidence about the actual complexity of the relationship between organisms and their resources. First, despite the standard models created by ecologists in which survivorship decreases with increasing population density, the survival of individuals in a population is often greatest not when their “competitors” are at their lowest density but at an intermediate one. That is because organisms are involved not only in the consumption of resources, but in their creation as well. For example, in fruit flies, which live on yeast, the worm-like immature stages of the fly tunnel into rotting fruit, creating more surface on which the yeast can grow, so that, up to a point, the more larvae, the greater the amount of food available. Fruit flies are not only consumers but also farmers.
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Is science capable of enhancing human abilities to the extent of the powers of the X-Men? What are the ethical implications if this is possible? Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics Paul Root Wolpe explores these questions raised by X-Men: First Class.
The core of the X-Men myth - genetic mutation - is something scientists have been learning how to manipulate for decades, and now it's just a matter of time before we know how to build X-Men of our own. But just as in the case of nuclear bombs, killer viruses and 3-D action movies, the fact that we can make them doesn't mean we should. In the above video from Emory University, Bioethics professor Paul Root Wolpe explores this moral dilemma via the latest iteration of the beloved mutants' saga: X-Men: First Class (In theaters June 3rd, and, praise be to Mendel, NOT in 3-D).
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
In trying to analyze the natural world, scientists are seldom aware of the degree to which their ideas are influenced both by their way of perceiving the everyday world and by the constraints that our cognitive development puts on our formulations. At every moment of perception of the world around us, we isolate objects as discrete entities with clear boundaries while we relegate the rest to a background in which the objects exist.
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One of the complications is that the effective environment is defined by the life activities of the organism itself.
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Thus, as organisms evolve, their environments necessarily evolve with them. Although classic Darwinism is framed by referring to organisms adapting to environments, the actual process of evolution involves the creation of new “ecological niches” as new life forms come into existence. Part of the ecological niche of an earthworm is the tunnel excavated by the worm and part of the ecological niche of a tree is the assemblage of fungi associated with the tree’s root system that provide it with nutrients.
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The finding is the first to demonstrate a link between the gene, called 5-HTT, and satisfaction. People with the long version are more likely to be cheerful while sulkiness is the default position of those with the short version. Knowing which version of the gene they carry may help people improve their mood.
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Background
When processing microarray data sets, we recently noticed that some gene names were being changed inadvertently to non-gene names.
Results
A little detective work traced the problem to default date format conversions and floating-point format conversions in the very useful Excel program package. The date conversions affect at least 30 gene names; the floating-point conversions affect at least 2,000 if Riken identifiers are included. These conversions are irreversible; the original gene names cannot be recovered.
Conclusions
Users of Excel for analyses involving gene names should be aware of this problem, which can cause genes, including medically important ones, to be lost from view and which has contaminated even carefully curated public databases. We provide work-arounds and scripts for circumventing the problem.
Gene Study Yields
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The two largest studies of Alzheimer’s disease have led to the discovery of no fewer than five genes that provide intriguing new clues to why the disease strikes and how it progresses.
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For years, there have been unproven but persistent hints that cholesterol and inflammation are part of the disease process. People with high cholesterol are more likely to get the disease. Strokes and head injuries, which make Alzheimer’s more likely, also cause brain inflammation. Now, some of the newly discovered genes appear to bolster this line of thought, because some are involved with cholesterol and others are linked to inflammation or the transport of molecules inside cells.
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"We think that this gene affects the symmetry of the brain," Francks said. "LRRTM1 is not essential for left-handedness, but it can be a strong contributing factor."
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The gene, called LRRTM1, is also associated with a slight increase in developing certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
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For right-handed people, he said, the right side of the brain usually controls emotion, while the left side of the brain tends to control speech and language.
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There are certain rare syndromes in which the usual asymmetry of organs is reversed; less than 1 in 10,000 people, for example, have dextrocardia, a heart on the right side (or is that the wrong side?) of the body. But when it comes to handedness, another basic human asymmetry, which reflects the structure and function of the brain, the reversed pattern is relatively common - yet not easily understood. -
Over the centuries, left-handers have been accused of criminality and dealings with the devil, and children have been subjected to "re-education". In recent years the stigma has largely vanished; among other things, four of the United States' last seven Presidents - Gerald Ford, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama - have been left-handed. (Reagan is sometimes cited as ambidextrous.)
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Shedding our penis spines helped us become human, DNA study hints
Genetic comparison with chimps suggests that losing chunks of DNA – including one associated with penis spines and facial whiskers – played a crucial role in making us human
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Humans and chimpanzees split around five million years ago. Ever since then, we (and they) have changed a bit to adapt to the different environments we invaded and created, and the "classic selective sweep" model was widely thought to account for these changes at the molecular level. In this scenario, a new, strongly beneficial mutation increases in frequency so rapidly that it "sweeps" away all other variants at that gene and nearby sites.
Yet it is difficult to detect the evidence of such sweeps in genomic data. After analyzing 179 human genomes, an international team of researchers have concluded that these sweeps were much rarer than previously thought, and were therefore probably not a huge influence on human adaptation over the past 250,000 years. Their work is reported in Science.
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Currently, the public views genes primarily as self-contained packets of information that come from parents and are distinct from the environment. “The popular notion of the gene is an attractive idea—it’s so magical,” said Mark Blumberg, a developmental biologist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. But it ignores the growing scientific understanding of how genes and local environments interplay, he said.
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With the rise of molecular biology in the 1930s and genomics (the study of entire genomes) in the 1970s, scientists have developed a much more dynamic and complex picture of this interplay. The simplistic notion of the gene has been replaced with gene-environment interactions and developmental influences—nature and nurture as completely intertwined.
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Genetic evolution in humans occurs in an environment shaped by culture - and culture, in turn is shaped by genetics
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If religion is a virus, then perhaps the spread of religion can be understood through the lens of evolutionary theory. Perhaps cultural evolution can be modelled using the same mathematical tools applied to genetic evolution.
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Michael Doebli and Iaroslav Ispolatov at the University of British Columbia
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