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Category: evolution – Page 4

Schrödinger’s Vat and the Evolution of Consciousness

Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment has always been deeply misunderstood. In this article I’d like to explain how, if understood properly, it might shed new light on the mechanism by which consciousness evolved.

Schrödinger’s cat and schrödinger’s hat

The purpose of Schrödinger’s thought experiment was to highlight serious problems in the (then very new) “Copenhagen Interpretation” of Quantum Mechanics (CI). The CI was a bit of a botch-job, because the founders of QM had no idea how to “interpret” the strange new physics they had discovered. The CI says quantum systems remain in a superposition (a “smeared out” state where everything than can happen is somehow happening in parallel) until measured, but does not define what counts as a “measurement”, or why. Schrödinger always rejected this idea, and his thought experiment was intended to demonstrate why. He proposes a sealed box (so no “measurements” can take place), in which has been placed a cat, and a quantum source with a 50% probability of releasing poison. According to the CI, so long as the system inside the box remains “unmeasured”, the poison has both been released and not-released and therefore that cat is both dead and alive.

The origin of vertebrate teeth and evolution of sensory exoskeletons

Re-examination of the presumed Cambrian fossil fish Anatolepis reveals previous misidentification of aglaspidid sensory structures as dentine, a vertebrate sensory tissue, showing it to be an arthropod, and shifting the origin of vertebrate hard tissues to the Middle Ordovician.

Cosmic ray research helps unravel lithium-7 origin

The origin of lithium (Li), the third element of the periodic table, has long been shrouded in mystery. This element, commonly found in cosmic rays as two stable isotopes, 6 Li and 7 Li, is crucial to understanding the origins of the universe and the evolution of its chemical elements.

In a recent study, an international team of researchers used the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) aboard the International Space Station to measure the cosmic-ray fluxes of 6 Li and 7 Li based on data accumulated from May 2011 to October 2023.

Based on information from over 2 million nuclei amassed across 12 years, the team formulated a hypothesis that strengthens the case for one possible origin of lithium while challenging another previously accepted explanation.

How rapid DNA repair in plants protects genomes from internal threats

Scientists have uncovered a critical role for rapid DNA repair in maintaining genome stability. A new study reveals that repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs) in nuclear DNA in plants serves as a powerful safeguard against the integration of foreign DNA from chloroplasts—a phenomenon that, while important for evolution, can be highly destabilizing to the genome. The research expands our knowledge about plant genome evolution and also has relevance to the medical field.

The findings, presented by Dr. Enrique Gonzalez-Duran and Prof. Dr. Ralph Bock from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Nature Plants, shed new light on endosymbiotic gene transfer (EGT)—an ongoing evolutionary process in which genes from organelles such as chloroplasts and mitochondria are relocated into the nuclear genome.

While successful gene transfers help the nucleus to better coordinate its function with that of the organelles, they also pose risks: Mutations arising from DNA insertion can disrupt essential nuclear genes and provoke harmful rearrangements.

The cost of some invasive species could be 16 times higher than we thought

From river-clogging plants to disease-carrying insects, the direct economic cost of invasive species worldwide has averaged about $35 billion a year for decades, researchers said Monday.

Since 1960, damage from non-native plants and animals expanding into new territory has cost society more than $2.2 trillion, more than 16 times higher than previous estimates, they reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The accelerating spread of —from mosquitoes to to tough-to-eradicate plants—blights agriculture, spreads disease and drives the growing pace of species extinction.

We Now Know What Switched The Lights on at The Dawn of Time

We finally know what brought light to the dark and formless void of the early Universe.

According to data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the origins of the free-flying photons in the early cosmic dawn were small dwarf galaxies that flared to life, clearing the fog of murky hydrogen that filled intergalactic space. A paper about the research was published in February 2024.

“This discovery unveils the crucial role played by ultra-faint galaxies in the early Universe’s evolution,” said astrophysicist Iryna Chemerynska of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris.

Water ice detected in a debris disk around young nearby star

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and elsewhere have detected water ice in a debris disk around HD 181327—a young star located within 160 light years away from the Earth. The finding was reported in a paper published May 14 in the journal Nature.

Debris disks are collections of small bodies around stars, including asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, comets, and also micron-sized debris dust. Observations of debris disks could help us better understand the evolution of planetary systems, the composition of dust, comets, and planetesimals outside our solar system.

Given that water plays a key role in the formation of planets and minor bodies, astronomers look for its presence also in debris disks. However, although water ice has been commonly detected in Kuiper belt objects and comets in the solar system, no definitive evidence for water ice in extrasolar debris disks has been found to date.

A root development gene that’s older than root development

A gene that regulates the development of roots in vascular plants is also involved in the organ development of liverworts—land plants so old they don’t even have proper roots. The Kobe University discovery, published in New Phytologist, highlights the fundamental evolutionary dynamic of co-opting, evolving a mechanism first and adopting it for a different purpose later.

When scientists discover that a gene is necessary for the of a trait, they are quick to ask since when this gene has been involved in this and how the evolution of the gene has contributed to the evolution of the trait.

Kobe University plant biologist Fukaki Hidehiro says, “My group previously discovered that a gene called RLF is necessary for lateral development in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, but it was completely new that the group of genes RLF belongs to is involved in plant organ development. So we wanted to know whether the equivalent of this gene in other plants is also involved in similar processes.”

Could deciphering dolphin language help us communicate with ET?

In that paper for the SETI Institute, Kershenbaum and colleagues concluded that animal communication research is the closest we are likely to get to studying extraterrestrial signals, until such signals are actually received.

“Many of the challenges facing SETI research are similar to those already addressed in the investigation of animal behavior, and the evolutionary origins of human language,” they wrote. “Indeed, the evolution of language on Earth may in fact have been driven and constrained by similar principles to those operating on life on other planets.”

The researchers have proposed the establishment of a large cross-species database of communicative signals, made available to all SETI and animal behavior researchers.