I do not agree with all criticisms of philosopher Daniel Dennett in this article in Jacobin, but I have problems with his idéa of the 'intentional stance' and defense of 'purpose' in evolution.

It is too Panglossian and exemplifies naive adaptationism.

jacobin.com/2024/04/daniel…

My thoughts exactly.

1. Much human genetic variation is phenotypically meaningless. Why? Cooperative genes are locked in a forever war w/ selfish genes. The cooperative genes have won most battles but now our genomes are littered with the dead & decaying bodies of a million selfish genes. 🧵

I agree that something is wrong, but the problem with lncRNA research (and molecular biology in general) is much deeper. 🩹 solutions will not fix this. These problems are due to a deep misunderstanding of how evolution shapes the genome (i.e. hyperadaptationist thinking).

Please join us for our next meeting on Wed, April 10th from 4-5 pm (EST) via Zoom! 💻
Meeting ID: 897 6810 0174 (please DM us for the passcode)

This month, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Marlene Oeffinger (Associate Research Professor, IRCM).

Hope to see you there!🎉

Cool!
Exceptionally #long -lived #nuclear #RNAs | Science science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

New preview 📰 out in Molecular Cell w/ Mathias L. Nielsen !
'The links are still missing: Revisiting the role of RNA as a guide for chromatin-associated proteins', which discusses the recent studies by Mitch Guttman Chen Davidovich Richard Jenner out this month
authors.elsevier.com/a/1it8J3vVUPRl…

Years after the idea and preliminary experiments, Claire Coupland's amazing structure of the endogenous vacuolar- or vesicular-ATPase in its native vesicle is now in bioRxiv
'High resolution cryo-EM of V-ATPase in native synaptic vesicles'
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Wow!
Structural basis of #Integrator -dependent #RNA polymerase II #termination | Nature nature.com/articles/s4158…

#DDX21 #m6A #Termination

PhD student Thomas Bailey (Thomas Bailey), coprez of Ottawa Science Policy Network, describes how 2/3 of Canada's PhD students plan to move abroad after their degree because of poor pay for 🇨🇦researchers.Justin Trudeau Chrystia Freeland #SupportOurScience & reverse the brain drain in #SOSBudget2024

Check out this stunning animation by Janet Iwasa (in collaboration with Samara Reck-Peterson), showcasing our model of how various components come together to form active dynein complexes capable of transporting cellular cargo.

Hot take: What Carl Woese called the 'Darwinian Threshold' is better described by Eörs Szathmáry as a 'major evolutionary transition in individuality'. Genes underwent 'Darwinian' evolution long before the threshold.

Carl
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12077305/

Eörs
pnas.org/doi/full/10.10…

Civilization is a place where coffee is served in a real cup with water on the side and a small snack.

Barbarians have their coffee served in a disposable non-recyclable paper cup with a plastic lid.

Only three months left until we have to leave civilization.

'Maybe we should have a little bit of humility from the folks who say 'Calm down!' [about Trump]. A lot of the 'Calm down!' folks were completely wrong on January 6th, 2021.'

Pls watch/share this crucial exchange between me & Christopher C. Cuomo about taking the Trump threat seriously:

Thx to Rishi Bansal for flagging this slide deck on the economic impacts of NIH funding. tinyurl.com/2s4xdmh5 . US $ growth reflects bipartisan support for sustaining health research. CIHR has fallen far behind while ISED steers massive tranches of health research $. 🆘

Wow!

In this preprint, Aylwyn Scally, Richard Durbin and I present evidence for deep population structure shared by all modern humans biorxiv.org/content/10.110… Aylwyn Scally Richard Durbin