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Rockefeller researchers discover a biological clock within a clock
Eurekalert ^ | 1/12/06 | Joseph Bonner

Posted on 01/13/2006 7:25:46 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo

Just as a pocket watch requires a complex system of gears and springs to keep it ticking precisely, individual cells have a network of proteins and genes that maintain their own internal clock -- a 24-hour rhythm that, in humans, regulates metabolism, cell division, and hormone production, as well as the wake-sleep cycle. Studying this "circadian" rhythm in fruit flies, which have genes that are similar to our own, scientists have constructed a basic model of how the cellular timekeeper works. But now, a new report in this week's issue of the journal Science turns the old model on its head: By providing a glimpse into living cells, Rockefeller University researchers have uncovered a previously undetected clock inside the circadian clock. The scientists made the finding with a rarely used technique called FRET, which enabled them to follow circadian proteins over an extended period of time and watch the clock as it ticks away in a living cell.

[snip]

The movie allowed them to follow the interactions between Period and Timeless with a resolution never before possible. They discovered that, rather than randomly colliding, the two proteins bind together in the cytoplasm almost immediately and create what Young and Meyer refer to as an "interval timer." Then, six hours after coming together, the complexes rapidly break apart and the proteins move into the nucleus singly, all of them within minutes of each other. "Some switch is thrown at six hours that lets the complex explode. The proteins pop apart and roll into the nucleus," Young says. "Somehow, implanted within the system is a timer, formed by Period and Timeless, that counts off six hours. You have a clock within a clock." He notes that this precise timer shows how carefully orchestrated interactions between proteins really are.

(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creationisminadress; crevo; crevolist; goddooditamen; idtalltales; intelligentdesign
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To: Dashing Dasher

Not something a gentleman would ask of a lady.


101 posted on 01/13/2006 2:25:10 PM PST by wolfcreek
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To: Ichneumon
And yet, on this thread there's a total absence of your "arguing against the religious certitude" by the *other* camp, despite many posts by people expressing their confident conclusion of "God did it".

It's more fun arguing with your side.
102 posted on 01/13/2006 2:25:59 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide
[Evolution has been directly observed creating functional complexity countless times.]

Give me your very best shot.

Try reading the links that have already been posted in this thread, by myself and others.

103 posted on 01/13/2006 2:34:03 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Thanks for the link to Paley's paper. I have read quotes from it before, but had not seen a complete copy. It is especially apropos to this thread:

IN crossing a health, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.

But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.

104 posted on 01/13/2006 2:43:13 PM PST by Rocky (Air America: Robbing the poor to feed the Left)
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To: spunkets
what is known and understood is used to increase the content of that set and reduce the content of the set of unknowns.

That is illogical. The set of unknowns is infinite. The set of knowns will always be finite. Therefore what is known will never reduce what is unknown.
105 posted on 01/13/2006 2:46:37 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: PatrickHenry
Much simpler. Any grade-school dropout could master the subject in a few moments. And many claim to have done so.

Well, I guess that shoots down your Occam's Razor argument, eh?

106 posted on 01/13/2006 2:55:14 PM PST by r9etb
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To: mlc9852

"No one designed it. It just happened. There is no designer and no beginning. The evolutionists will explain it in greater detail. :)"

Are all those even more awesome nuclear explosions in stars "designed" by God too? But science explains them being natural events. What to believe, religious philosophy regarding magical creation, or science... hmm...


107 posted on 01/13/2006 3:00:10 PM PST by sagar
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To: will of the people

"It's a FESTIVUS Miracle! "

Anything not apparent is "magic" or miracle. Fortunately, lets hope, the professionals in the fields don't dwell into supernatural explanations, and try to get real answers.

I sure wouldn't want my doctor to go supernatural and pray for the cure. Would you?


108 posted on 01/13/2006 3:06:20 PM PST by sagar
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To: sagar
I sure wouldn't want my doctor to go supernatural and pray for the cure. Would you?

Under certain circumstances :-)
109 posted on 01/13/2006 3:13:49 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: Virginia-American

Alexander The Great (student of Aristotle) used the famous iodine-clock reaction to coordinate his troops in battle, thus giving him an advantage over his opponents. Each head of a group would meet with Alexander and all would dip strips of cloth into the iodine solution at the same time. Then they would tie these around their spears. The bands of cloth around the spears were known as Alexander's rag time-bands.


110 posted on 01/13/2006 3:21:38 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Doctor Stochastic

LOL, perfect for a Friday PM.


111 posted on 01/13/2006 3:33:59 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Fascinating, don't you think? How did they evolve? Did they evolve? How do they work? How do they filter out the noise from the valuable information? Perhaps we'll never know.

You can, of course, hope, but I wouldn't bet that way.

112 posted on 01/13/2006 4:02:08 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide
I stop people who make that argument.

That's the entire argument for ID. Glad to have you on our side.

113 posted on 01/13/2006 4:05:23 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: sagar
<> Absolutely. But I'm not praying for creation; I'm just enjoying it. What I wouldn't want is for my doctor to ignore the natural and inject my baby with saline. If you're right about the origins of life; how long do you think it will take to come up with a natural resistance to abortion?
114 posted on 01/13/2006 4:09:12 PM PST by will of the people
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To: Virginia-American
I can dig up the reference if anyone wants -- even more impressive is the bacterium that lives around old ammo dumps in Nebraska, and metabolizes TNT and its degradation products.

Talk about beating swords into ploughshares!

115 posted on 01/13/2006 4:47:16 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: mlc9852
The evolutionists will explain it in greater detail. :)

Yep. The scientists will have to explain it.
There's nobody at the Discovery Institute that can.

116 posted on 01/13/2006 4:49:44 PM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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To: Right Wing Professor
A while back I was arguing on one of these threads (somebody didn't believe in chemoautotrophs), and came across a reference to something that can live on car exhaust.

Lot cheaper than platinum

(you have freepmail)

117 posted on 01/13/2006 4:58:46 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Ichneumon

" Evolution is as real a process as evaporation or oxidation."

Why..., why.... That makes you and Evaporationist (or maybe an oxidationist), or an Eva instead of and Evo. Didn't realize you'd had a sex change lately.


118 posted on 01/13/2006 5:05:55 PM PST by furball4paws (The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
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To: Virginia-American

Somebody doesn't "believe" in chemoautotrophs? You got a link. I'd like to see that and send them a plant.


119 posted on 01/13/2006 5:11:19 PM PST by furball4paws (The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
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To: furball4paws

Damn; plant = bug.

sigh


120 posted on 01/13/2006 5:13:50 PM PST by furball4paws (The new elixir of life - dehydrated toad urine.)
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