Wednesday, April 01, 2009

The Evolution Particle?

The New York Times is reporting that the Large Hadron Collider was not actually shut down over the winter but was actually apparently looking into the possibility that a new particle is particularly mutagenic.   It seems that when they fired up the accelerator, they found that some particles with unusual affinity for DNA were created.  So, no black hole but particles that could shape evolution.  Seems like the ID people will be all over this one --- maybe this is the guiding hand they have been looking for?


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10 comments:

  1. harryinashed4/01/2009 2:41 AM

    Truly the God particle. What pranksters...

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  2. Jonathan Eisen4/01/2009 3:23 AM

    Who can you trust these days?

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  3. Steven Salzberg4/01/2009 4:58 AM

    I read a comment from CERN physicist Dr. Loof Lirpa, who said "This anomalous particle seems to target particular DNA sequences in an entirely unexpected manner. If this result holds, it could lead to dramatically better ways to 'design' a genome."

    I'm amazed that CERN has been able to keep a lid on this!

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  4. Jonathan Eisen4/01/2009 7:58 AM

    Well, they can keep a lid on all the financial stuff in that country, so why not this?

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  5. Martin Wu4/01/2009 7:59 AM

    You have to wonder whether it can be harnessed to develop the next-next generation sequencing technology.

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  6. Vaughn4/01/2009 8:13 AM

    I heard that the "prominent molecular biologists" were alums of the Cairns and Foster labs resuscitating the "adaptive mutation hypothesis." Perhaps you should confer with Roth to test this?! Not just ID, but ID with a mechanism! Go Lamarck!

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  7. Jonathan Eisen4/01/2009 8:14 AM

    I thought the exact same thing Vaughn. I can almost imagine that was part of the story before it was edited down by the NY Times.

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  8. Unknown4/01/2009 10:22 AM

    bravo

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  9. Anonymous4/01/2009 11:35 AM

    You people do know that today is April Fools Day, right?

    It actually wasn't the God Particle they found -- it was the Devil Particle; it will take a larger Collider to find the God Particle. --jws

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  10. Pamela Ronald4/01/2009 5:14 PM

    I have fallen off blogging but, it being April first, I had to check into Jonathan's blog for the news of the day.

    particles shaping evolution. I like that.

    ReplyDelete

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