Comments on: The Blind Locksmith

By: Cavalcade of Mammals » Blog Archive » Evolution of the glucocorticoid receptor

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:36:55 +0000

[...] first Discover magazine blog post gives a good overview of what Thornton’s lab learned about the glucocorticoid [...]

By: The Blind Locksmith Continued: An Update from Joe Thornton | The Loom | Discover Magazine

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:09:22 +0000

[...] wrote about his work looking at how one molecule in our cells evolved from one function to another (here, here, and [...]

By: Michael Nielsen

Michael Nielsen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:25:14 +0000

Wonderful post! The link to the 2004 Oregon paper is now broken. (On the upside, it has one of the funnier 404 not found messages I’ve seen.)

By: The Continuing Adventures of the Blind Locksmith: You Can’t Get There From Here | The Loom | Discover Magazine

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:12:53 +0000

[...] of Oregon reconstructed the 450-million-year history of a protein. You can read the posts here, here, and here. What was particularly elegant about the study was how the scientists recreated the [...]

By: lgh

lgh — Thu, 04 May 2006 05:58:36 +0000

It is not surprise that a mineralocorticoid was aptive in that era. Many early vertebrates (and invetrebrates of course before them) spent time in environments of changing sodium concentration, and there are many species that are still tolerant of widely varying soiudm concentrations while maintaining their internal Na milieu constant. In fact we can expect natriuresis/conservation to be a vital early adaptation in any vertebrate class.

By: Steviepinhead

Steviepinhead — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 19:10:47 +0000

Exhilarating science and, at the same time, a hilarious smackdown of CreaIDiocy.

The CreaIDiots have continually demanded of evolutionary biologists detailed step-by-step explanations of how one feature can evolve into another, seemingly-”novel” feature, while adamantly refusing to furnish any similar detail themselves for where, when, how, or why their “designer” accomplishes whatever it is that the “designer” does to bring its conceptions into biological being.

Of course, now that the scientists are proving equal–for their own independent reasons–to the challenge, the creaIDiots–by comparison–are left looking even more bereft of reason and devoid of evidence than ever.

When all else fails, whine louder.

By: JLem

JLem — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:47:49 +0000

This is a brilliant study. Really, there is no other way to put it. Showing how, step by step, a substrate-ligand system could have evolved is a great piece of science and detective work. This one is particularly interesting given the possible problem with one of the mutations needed creating a useless system. The fact that the order of the changes is important isn’t a surprise, though the details of how each change affects the outcome is really interesting (and quite cool too). Are there other similar studies showing the probably/possible step-by-step changes in the evolution of a protein or system?

By: Strange Alien

Strange Alien — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:37:22 +0000

Those interested can go here to see how Behe responded to the over-hyped press: http://www.idthefuture.com/2006/04/the_lamest_attempt_yet_to_answ.html

By: Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 15:06:04 +0000

Thanks, Commissar. All I can say is d’oh!

By: The Commissar

The Commissar — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 14:06:48 +0000

247 nucleotides or 247 triplets? I think the latter. Pages 15ff of this: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/312/5770/97/DC1/1