The evolution of religion?

While reading a current edition of New Scientist this past week, I was surprised to come across an article titled, "God's place in a rational world". Apparently at a recent conference in La Jolla a collection of top scientists gathered to discuss God. They asked the question, is there a God? As you can probably imagine the debate was a heated one, and no definite verdict was reached, but an interesting question was thrown down by "evolutionary biologist David Sloan". Sloan proposed "that humans' religious beliefs may have evolved over time, thanks to the advantages they conferred as a sort of social glue holding together groups that developed them." In other words, religion, or faith in a supernatural power, was an adaptive strategy. Sloan compares religious belief to human morals. Morality is a pervasive theme in all human populations. Although there is variation between cultures in terms of what is viewed as right or wrong, undeniably those beliefs exist. "[M]oral values", according to Sloan, are "a set of distinctly unscientific beliefs." Why should a human have rights? Why should any animal have rights for that matter? In the evolutionary race the main mantra has always been eat, survive, reproduce, yet somewhere along the line the human brain created meaning for it all. The question is: why? Rules and morals may have been a good way to reduce intraspecific competition among the members of a group. If there is a belief in an ultimate truth, and in turn consequences, would that possibly lead to less conflict?
Another possible benefit to evolving religion has been debated within the medical community for over twenty years. Does religious belief lead to better health? Live Science published an article in response to a study published in the March/ April 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine that found that frequent participation in a religious group actually increased an individuals life expectancy by several years. An article in The Frontier Post claimed that studies have linked religious belief to lowered levels of stress and of depression. Does this mean that religious belief could have conferred enough health benefits to become selected for by natural selection? We may never know for sure.
Some scientists, such as Dawkins' claim that religion is a mere byproduct of developing a large brain. In his article "Darwin's God", Robin Henig of the New York Times explains that"it was [either] because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain."
Whether religion evolved because of natural selection due to some adaptive advantage, or simply as an "extra" that came along with having a big and complex brain is yet to be understood for certain, in fact it may never be fully explained. I think, in a sense, that it should unite the evolutionists with the religious in that religious belief is something that is part of our hardwiring, whether God evolved us this way, or nature did, belief is a part of what makes us who we are as a species.

References:

Reilly, M. (2007, November 10). God's place in a rational world. New Scientist, 17.
Henig, R. (2007, March 4). Darwin's God. The New York Times, link
Religious people live healthier life: Study. (2007, June 11). The Frontier Post. link
Britt, R. (2006, April 03). Churchgoers Live Longer. Live Science. link

Alternative Sources

Could the controversy over stem cell therapy be over? Recently two groups of competing scientists reported that they had taken regular human skin cells and genetically reprogrammed them to behave like human stem cells. By inserting a ‘potent cocktail’ of four genes into human skin cells, the skin tissues regressed to a stem cell stage. These new cells, described as ‘embryonic-like’, could allow stem cell therapy research to continue without the impediment of moral and ethical hang-ups of destroying fetuses.

Stem cells are often considered a ‘blank slate’ cell of sorts, as they are able to form any of the 220 cell types found in the body simply by being placed near them. It is hoped that stem cells will allow for medicine to combat injuries and conditions that drugs cannot, such as nerve damage. However until now the most versatile stem cells have only been available from human embryos. This new development is likely to be encouraged and could lead to the abandonment of embryonic stem cell research. However this doesn’t mean the years of embryonic stem cell research will be wasted. Due to the similarity of these new cells much of the existing research can be augmented and applied.

The real benefit of this new research is that these cells can be made from the patients own skin. In any donor situation there is huge problems with finding a donor of a similar blood type, and even after that is accomplished there is a lifetime of taking immune suppressants so the body does not reject the new tissue. With this new technique, the possibility exists that any new tissues created from the stem cells will be immediately accepted because they came from the patient.

References:

http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics4.asp

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101180.html

Images:

http://www.usask.ca/alumni/alumnisite/publications/green_white/issues/spring2006/images/stem_cell1.jpg

Fighting Disease at the Source

Our bodies are amazing machines, millions of processes and cycles working together keeping us alive. However as modern medicine learns more about these bodies, and consequently how to heal them, certain problems arise. It is now know that some conditions are genetic, coded into our very DNA. Ideas on how to treat these conditions vary and almost exclusively focus on controlling the results instead of focusing on the problem genes themselves. However recent medical developments may just change that.

There is a new approach to medicine design that works using molecules known as interference RNA (iRNA). These double stranded sections of RNA disrupt the normal protein synthesis process by targeting and destroying select mRNA strands, effectively preventing their translation into protein. With each iRNA strand able to destroy several thousand mRNA strands, this effectively silences the gene; with none of the mRNA being translated it’s like it wasn’t even there. Theoretically this process could be used to fight any disease or condition involving mRNA, and currently it is being developed to fight diseases involving the synthesis of proteins.

This is truly a wonderful new approach providing what could be a pardon to a genetic death sentence. However, whenever dealings with DNA in humans certain worries arise; questions about safety and ethics become paramount. While iRNA is designed to target specific mRNA strands, it is possible that some iRNA may cross-react with healthy or necessary mRNA strands with sequence similarity, possibly leading to healthy genes being unintentionally silenced. Thankfully this process isn’t getting rushed into production, but is going through rigorous clinical trials. Even recently studies found that large doses of a certain specific iRNA was lethal when injected into mice due to interfering with the cells ability to use its own micro RNA.

It’s important to remember that there are many different types of iRNA. While some may be harmful, many are already proving helpful. As the sorting progresses we can hopefully look forward to an era of more effective and targeted treatment.

References

- http://www.opko.com/tech.asp

- http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/09/news/companies/rna/index.htm

- http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=484202

- http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=2545

Images:

- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/SiRNA_structure_2.jpg

Protecting Diversity On Vancouver Island

Biological diversity is central to the health and success of any species or environment.  Previous posts have incorporated the necessity of environmental preservation and conservation.  Vancouver Island is rich in natural resources, in particular, old growth forests. However, these forests continue to be exploited in spite of the availability of second growth forests.  Old growth forests' true value is being ignored.

Since the late 1800's, old growth forests of Vancouver Island have been logged.  Now, these forests are at risk of disappearing.  Old growth forests of Vancouver Island are famous for their exceptionally large trees.  Yet, it is not just old trees that make old growth forests. Old growth forests are indicated by all four ecological lives of trees - "the young tree, the mature tree, the dead standing tree, and the fallen tree"  http://www.ontarionature.org/pdf/Old%20Growth.pdf.  Between 1860 and 2004, 73% of the original productive old growth forests have been logged, and 99% of the old growth forest in the Coastal Douglas fir zone on the east side of the island have been logged.   On October 29, 2007 the BC Liberal government announced the new "Coastal Fo

rest Action Plan" for BC's coastal forests.  Although there is a plan to shift away from logging old growth forests, there is no new restriction of logging old growth forests.  Therefore, old growth forests are still unprotected and will be logged.  The remaining stands, some reaching about 1,800 years old, are at risk of disappearing.  Along with them, so will their genetic diversity disappear.

According to the Federation of Ontario Naturalists there are five important values of old growth forests - "habitats for forest species' and wildlife communities, sources of habitat diversity, living examples of how natural forests work, sources of inspiration and heritage appreciation, and resources for education and benchmark sites for scie

ntific research".   It is extremely important to acknowledge and the cultural and spiritual significance to First Nations people of various regions.   

  We're living in a time of climate change and global warming.   A Western Canada Wilderness Committee newsletter recently stated that old growth forests are far better at sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the seedlings and second growth trees. It only makes sense to conserve the old growth forests for their role in carbon dioxide exchange.  Preservation of old growth forests does not mean an end to logging.  Second growth forests are at the stages that are ready for logging.  This way the logging industry can continue and the sensitive ecology of old growth forests can be left relatively undisturbed.  

  A report from the Pacific Northwest Research Department discusses ecological value of old growth forests.  They indicate that "[t]he old growth forest's structural complexity is the key to its biological diversity. Complex habitats support a diversity of organisms that could not coexist in simpler environments".  The delicate balance of mutualistic relationships such as mycorrhizae can flourish in old growth forests.  Some research suggests that old growth forests are more valuable for lichen conservation than younger forests.  

 In the same regard Natural Resources Canada states that "old growth forests provide an optimal habitat for species with specialization requirements, such as cavity-nesting birds, or symbiotic and parasitic organisms, or epiphytes (plants living on the surface of other plants)."

This emphasizes the connectivity of species and environment within old growth forests.   Dead trees, and uprooted fallen trees are just as important as living trees.  Different stages of tree life create different niches for species to inhabit.  Removing dead trees may reduce some species from being able to find a home.  The Federation of Ontario Naturalists also state that machinery used to prepare cut over areas for planting and tree regeneration may destroy the natural microtopography of the area.  If this is true, then logging machinery could also cause such destruction in the process of reaching a designated logging zone.  When logging occurs, the trees are not the only thing being destroyed.  As a result of habitat destruction, it is no wonder that city dwellers may have dear, bears, and cougars in their neighborhoods.  

If all this is not enough to halt logging of old growth forests, then what is?  Now don't get me wrong, I know why governments implement plans of this nature. I am not naive.  Yet, it is no less infuriating. It is a well known fact that when genetic diversity in a population is decreased, that population is at a heightened risk to disease, environmental catastrophe, and other debilitating events.  When humans control and alter their environments in extreme fashions (which we often do) the results may vary from good to bad.  

  Ultimately its up to the people to advocate for the protection of these beautiful environments.  Previous posts here incorporated species' loss (Vancouver Island Marmot), and ecological preservation, as well as the human imprint left on the world today.  This is all public knowledge.  I hope that the interest in biological diversity and environmental sustainability does not end here.    We need the diversity of old growth forests.  This is not our land to own, we simply live here.

Epiphytic Macrolichen Diversity http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/rni/research/date_creek/macrolichens.htm

Federation of Ontario Naturalists http://www.ontarionature.org/pdf/Old%20Growth.pdf

Ministry of Forests and Range "Coastal Forest Action Plan" http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/mof/coastalplan/

Natural Resources Canada http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/index/oldgrowthforests

http://cfs.nrcan.bc.ca/subsite/oldgrowth/brochure

Pacific Northwest Research Station http://www.fs.fed.us/phw/scienceupdate1.pdf

Western Canada Wilderness Committee Victoria BC http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/index.php

Wilderness Committee summary of the new "Coastal Forest Action Plan" http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/index.php?action=fullnews&id=685

Images:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/images/h_carmanah.jpg

http://www.cathedralgrove.se/pictures/01-1-interfor.jpg

Sleepy?

If you catch yourself nodding off in classes, on the bus, or anywhere else, you can probably think of a reason for your condition.  Perhaps you stayed up late studying for an important test, or to watch a movie with your roommate, or spent the night drinking.  But do you really know why your body is telling you to sleep?  What is the true purpose of that irresistible urge to close your eyes and drift away?  Why do we and almost all animals need to sleep?

The truth is, scientists still don't have a clear answer to this question.  They know that sleep plays an important role in memory and that cells function better in a rested person than in an exhausted one, but scientists say that so far as they can tell, animals could have evolved mechanisms to accomplish these things in a waking state, so why sleep?

I became interested in this topic after listening to a one of WNYC's Radiolab podcasts, called simply Sleep.  The podcast discussed different scientific ideas about why we sleep and what happens when we do and included some really interesting information on research currently being done to try to solve this puzzle.  One researcher they spoke to, Stephen Lima, is looking at sleep from an evolutionary standpoint to try to understand why animals evolved the need to sleep.  It may seem obvious that animals would evolve to sleep, rest must be good right?  Well, not really.  Sleep makes an animal incredibly vulnerable, it could be eaten while resting, its offspring could be threatened, anything could happen.  There is something about sleep that almost all animals need, and we still don't understand what that is.  According to Dr. Lima, "The fact that sleep is so dangerous is the best evidence that it is necessary, because if it weren't necessary, we wouldn't be doing it.".

The evolutionary approach to sleep research is a new one, Dr. Lima states that, "One of the reasons we don't understand sleep is that we haven't taken this evolutionary perspective on it".  The idea is that if we can understand why sleep evolved, we can understand why it is necessary and what it really does.  He and his team of researchers have been watching animals like iguanas, ducks and, yes, fruit flies sleep.  An article published in the New York Times also focuses on Dr. Lima's sleep research, as well as other researchers'.  One discovery they have made that is particularly interesting involves the sleeping habits of ducks.  When ducks sleep in a row, on a log or wherever, the ducks on the ends of the line will sleep with one eye, the one facing away from the other ducks, open.  Every so often they will stand up, turn around and sleep with the other eye open.  Dr. Lima discovered that the reason for this is that the ducks on the ends are only allowing half of their brain, the half controlling the closed eye, to sleep at a time.  The team is now doing research on iguanas to see if they share this strange behavior.  If they do, it will tell scientists that this half-brained sleep probably evolved early in animal evolution, and that early mammals may have been able to do it also, but then lost this ability later in their evolution.  

Another model for sleep research is the fruit fly.  A study published in the journal Science in 2006 focused on the sleeping habits of Drosophila (click here for abstract).  It found that the flies needed more sleep after social interaction and couldn't remember tasks taught to them if they were deprived of sleep for a certain period of time after they learned them.

This article from the Public Library of Science details a study done in 2006 on zebrafish sleep that found "both striking similarities to mammalian sleep and its regulation and intriguing differences.

 

This new evolutionary approach to understanding human behavior shows that there's more to phylogeny and systematics than endless debate over the seemingly trivial classification of obscure creatures most people have never heard of.  Hopefully through more research scientists like Dr. Lima will be able to solve more intriguing mysteries about our past, and help us to understand what has made us what we are.  

   

Sources:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/05/25

(podcast)

Jones R (2007) Let Sleeping Zebrafish Lie: A New Model for Sleep Studies. PLoS Biol 5(10): e281doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050281

Waking Experience Affects Sleep Need in Drosophila

Indrani Ganguly-Fitzgerald, Jeff Donlea, Paul J. Shaw  http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/313/5794/1775?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitleabs=and&fulltext=drosophila+sleep&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Zimmer, Carl (2005) Down For the Count.  New York Times 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/science/08slee.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

What if life came from space?

As a scientist, wondering about life is all about experimenting. Some people believe life was created by god and they fear of a supreme being. Others prefer to believe that life is an expression of biological evolution. All theories are believe d to happened on earth, but what would happened if we discovered that life on earth came from space. Not to say from another planet, but merely from space. Since space has not been conquered by the human kind that may be the answer we are looking for: where does life came from? In the last 20 years researchers have been developing better and more reliable ways to prove where life was originated. One theory claims that life came from space, not as bacteria because the lack of oxygen, but as spores. Since spores are like seeds, there is a strong possibility that these spores may have been looking for the perfect conditions to reproduce. Once they got to earth they mutated and evolved until the point that all what we know was created. For this theory many people would ask: well, were does this spores came from or who created them. The answer for this question relays inexplicable since we haven’t been beyond our solar system. In addition it would be very selfish to think that all life beings are just in one little planet. There is so much research based on these theories and many studies and ideas can be found online. NASA is also doing research regarding this theory. They are specifically researching the reaction of bacteria in space. The results are amazing. The bacteria had been found to have the ability to keep mutating and adapting to any situation it is exposed to.

http://www.panspermia.org/bacteria.htm

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5621

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20010631230243data_trunc_sys.shtml

The Evolution of Language

Raising children is a great gift that life can give us, however, at times it can truly be difficult. The adolescent years are especially hard on your patience as you ask yourself how your child developed such an extensive vocabulary. This is when you look back on the early years of diapers, naps, and the total and complete lack of speech as a true time of serenity. You seem to regret that you did not savor the times when your child did not have the ability to talk back. This reflection makes you ponder a deeper question. How did humans develop language?

Humans are differentiated by all other species in their ability to communicate through language. Although humans and primates are closely related and share common ancestors, primates lack the mechanisms to formulate speech (for chimpanzee vocalizations: http://www.junglewalk.com/Asounds/chimp2.wav). There are many reasons leading to these differences, such as physical and intellectual barriers between the two species. Humans are different in that they have a vocal cord enabling a diversity of sounds to be produced (1). They also have smaller tongues that are highly innervated, and very sensitive allowing movements that produce specific sounds. Human hearing has had to adapt in response to language development. The human ear is highly specialized to hear small differences in language from 1 kHz to 4 kHz (1). This sensitization is important, as the range in frequency is the range elicited by sound from the vocal tract.

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In Darwin’s book, The Origin of Species, he suggests that evolution occurs by natural selection, where certain traits enhancing survival will be passed on to future generation (2). The gap between primates and human language can be explained through natural selection favouring the physical capacity for speech. Random mutations produced a change in the shape of the mouth, tongue, larynx, and hearing of humans. Evidence of this can be seen by the development of the larynx further down the throat of hominids 150, 000 years ago (3). When comparing Neanderthal development to human, the larynx of the Neanderthal was short like that of an infant making it difficult for speech formation. Hominids developed the physically capacity to speak, however, the change in laryngeal shape facilitated choking and was actually a disadvantageous feature for survival (3). In order to accommodate to the physical development, the brain would have also evolved to process language. The hominid brain grew larger in size with mental stimulation from the use of tools, producing specialized centers (4).This specialization differentiated further creating a left brain dominance for the processing of language. Today, humans have two areas predominantly in the left hemisphere called Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. Broca’s area is responsible for language initiation and production, while Wernicke’s area is the center for language comprehension and meaning (5). Damage to these areas result in speech loss or problems in comprehension, regardless if the physical ability to speak is present.

The brain and body both have had to develop simultaneously in order to progress from the inability to speak to modern day human language. This development occured slowly over thousands of years as language gained a selective advantage. What will be seen with the progression of our civilization now that humans have developed many languages to communicate with? It is unlikely for the world to develop one common language but perhaps people will come to learn a few dominant languages. With the progression of the Internet and technology, one could only assume that we will become better at processing information. Only time will tell what differences will arise and how our brains and bodies will evolve in the future.

You Tube:
A short film on the development of human cognition and language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRJb-c4JEU

References:
1) http://www.ai.rug.nl/~bart/deBoerEncyclopedia.pdf
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Origin_of_Species
3) http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/evolution-language6
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominid_intelligence
5) http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/evolution-language7

Pictures:
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/understanding_evolution.htm
http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/evolution-language6
http://the-half-decent-pharmaceutical-chemistry-blog.chemblogs.org/category/neuroscience/page/2