Category: General biology
Academic advisor for Dr. Sara Sigurbjornsdottir
I had the great fortune of serving as the academic advisor of Sara Sigurbjornsdottir, who defended her Ph.D thesis Monday the 5th of January. The thesis is titled: Complex cell shape: Molecular mechanisms of tracheal terminal cell development in Drosophila melanogaster.
Sara worked on development of terminal cells in the tracheal system of the fruitfly, focusing on characterizing gene function and pathways that affect both formation and maturation of the cells.
She worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany in the laboratory of dr. Maria Leptin, EMBO Director. The doctoral committee also includes our gentle selves, and two great molecular biologists dr. Marko Kaksonen, and dr. Stefano De Renzis, both group leaders at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany.
Official opponents were dr. Stefan Luschnig, Senior Research Associate, Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Switzerland and dr.
Thorarinn Gudjonsson, Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland.
See abstract of her talk and further details.
Her published paper on Molecular mechanisms of de novo lumen formation.
A talk at the Evolution and Ecology center at the University of Oslo
This past Friday (August 29th. 2014) I enjoyed the great fortune of visiting the Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis at the University of Oslo. A colleague from the Chicago years, Lee Hsiang Liow was our host.
The title of our talk was "On rapid and repeated evolution via transcriptional cooption and decay" and the abstract reads like:
The function and evolution of gene regulatory mechanisms and networks has implications for development, diseases and ecology. In this talk I will describe our work on transcriptional evolution, drawing on studies in two systems. I will outline population genetic, morphometric and transcriptomic analyses of parallel evolution of recently evolved dwarfism and associated phenotypes in Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus). Secondly I will focus on naturally occuring deletions of transcription factor bindings sites in characterized enhancers of the even-skipped gene in Drosophila melanogaster. Lastly I will outline musings about general principles of evolution by gene recruitment and transcriptional decay, and predictions that follow.
The talk summarized the Arctic charr work that we participate in and two projects on regulatory evolution. I got great questions and had wonderful conversations while in Oslo. Hopefully I can visit again soon.
Politics, not science, at center of debate
In 2005, while a post doc at the University of Chicago I read a op-ed piece by John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer in USA Today titled Evolution: Debate it.
I felt sufficiently outraged by their argument to send a letter to the paper, here printed in full. I would like to thank my friend Kelli Birdsall for reminding me of this letter.
Politics, not science, at center of debate
Commentary writers John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer argue for a scientific debate regarding the evolution-intelligent design controversy. While I agree the issue needs to be discussed, the debate has not been and never will be scientific ("How should schools handle evolution? Debate it," The Forum, Monday).
The writers' argument displays a basic misunderstanding about how the scientific process yields understanding of the material world. Scientific knowledge is gathered by evaluating logically coherent, testable hypotheses by careful and repeated experiments or comparisons. The process operates very much like a detective does: Possibilities are evaluated and eliminated if disproved. But because intelligent design does not make predictions that can be evaluated scientifically, i.e. are not testable, there is no scientific controversy. A real scientific debate on evolution would unfold in peer-reviewed journals because scientists like very much to prove each other wrong.
Instead, the current debate is social and political in nature. Politicians are exploiting many Christians' religious convictions for political gain. But, however popular such politicians are in polls or elections, they cannot alter the fundamental discoveries of science — such as gravity, or the fact that life on this planet has shared ancestry and continues to evolve.
This confusion about the scientific process is a severe handicap to our society and calls for reform of the science curriculum. We should teach the scientific method and the testable scientific theories that we have been unable to refute — meaning Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and not intelligent design.
Arnar Palsson, Ph.D., Chicago