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At the cellular level, we do not have much difference with a spider or a fly: the case of Wnt

A prediction of the theory of evolution is the most basic and fundamental aspects of living beings should be well preserved, though very different animals compare with each other (these features should appear very early in the course of evolution.) On the other hand, the more "macro" and general (eg system level and physiology), may eventually be quite different from animals living in different (and everyone should have adapted to different conditions, being selected generation after generation, natural selection).
This is a prediction of the theory, and makes sense, but needs to be verified experimentally (as any scientific theory). The good news is that it has been tested systematically for decades, consider a particular case:

compare to a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster ) with you, dear reader / a (Homo sapiens ):

• You are a chordate, part of the class of mammals. On the other hand, the fly is an arthropod, which belongs to the class of insects.
• You have a skeleton as such (subphylum of vertebrates). On the other hand, we do not have it fly, but has an enviable armor.
• You have a closed circulatory system with a heart tetraventricular complex and real blood (no need to cut your finger to check). On the other hand, the fly has an open circulatory system, where the "blood directly bathes the tissues. But this "blood" is actually called "hemolymph" and not for anything red.
• You have a respiratory system with 2 powerful lungs, in charge of distributing the oxygen through tissues via the blood. On the other hand, flies do not have a respiratory system as such, rather have a series of "pipes" that run through your body, called tracheae, through which air enters from the outside by diffusion, giving oxygen to tissues without a liquid transporting.

If we continue with the comparison at this level, we find differences appalling and think that insects are aliens, totally alien to our nature. But let's split hairs:

• You are a metazoan eukaryotic cell (with a true nucleus), the fly too!
• Your cells use a way to communicate things from the outside in, called Wnt (pronounced "wint"), flies too!, But not 100% identical version.

This image shows the main "transduction" of cells:

The Wnt pathway is indicated by the arrow. We'll get into the detail of the cell biology of the case (not important for the development of the idea.) Just understand that "Wnt" is a key that comes to lock, which is located in the cell membrane. Once that occurred
interaction triggers a series of steps (one after another) within the cell. What is intended to reach the nucleus and regulate the expression of some genes.
If we compare this route specified between humans and flies, we found a similar creepy! are the same proteins in the same provision, with only slight differences (so called "peer review"). In addition, several homologues of each protein in each animal on its own (different versions), but to simplify our model, we think it is only one for each step of this series.
In humans, the foreign key is called "Wnt1" flies, known as " wingless (wg ), which is a gene" polarity segments ", whose job is to generate patterns in the embryo , as shown in the image below:

cells expressing wingless in this scheme are black circles. This gene is active in places where a group of genes, known as genes "Rule of the couple" are not expressed specifically even-skipped (eve ) and fushi tarazu (ftz ). This creates a pattern of segments and subdivisions of these, called parasegment, each with an anterior and posterior compartment.
neighboring cells wingless cells express a gene called engrailed ( in ). This is active, unlike wingless, where genes "pair rule" are active. Thus, engrailed is present on the trailing edge of each segment, or in the anterior compartment of each parasegment (in another try to understand trial weapon as a fly).
In short, cells wingless and engrailed cells conversing with each other during this part of the development on an ongoing basis to generate this pattern parasegmentario the fly embryo.
In humans, one of the homologues of wingless called "Wnt1" which is a proto-oncogene (genes that promote growth and cell division, but if something is wrong with them, can trigger uncontrolled growth, causing cancer). This protein is very similar to wingless and both are exactly the same route within the cell, only participants have different names. Wnt1
also has an important role in the development of all vertebrates. Therefore, in addition to corroborating the prediction of the conservation of pathways at the cellular level, we speculate that the Wnt pathway is very old and already possessed the animal that gave rise to both arthropods and chordates. That explains why in today spiders, crabs, ants, flies, elephants, giraffes, dogs, cats and humans, we use basically the same tool for different applications.

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Mercury, a shot of cranks and charlatans

artisitc Representation
Messenger probe orbiting Mercury. Credit: NASA / JHU /
Carnegie Institute of Washington.

was launched on August 3, 2004, but before reaching their destination took a few detours for Earth and Venus. Finally, last March 18 and after a journey of 7,900 million km entered the orbit of its planet of study: Mercury . We speak, of course, the probe Messenger (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging), named in honor of Mercurio , the messenger of the gods according to Roman mythology.

Despite its relative proximity, we have visited Mercury only once. It was through the Mariner X during the years 1974 and 1975, being at that time the only images we had the closest planet to our star.

Messenger probe will begin testing its scientific instruments today, March 23, but not until April 4 when it starts to get its first scientific data that will focus on performing a detailed map of the planet's surface, also studying both magnetic field and its stingy atmosphere. To make this work, Messenger is equipped with a dual imaging system (IDM), laser altimeter (MLA) spectrometer atmosphere and surface composition (MASCS) and magnetometer (MAG), among others.

A curious fact of this planet is that the duration of your day (115 Earth days) is longer than its year (87 Earth days). Formerly it was thought that synchronous rotation is always showing the same face to our star, but then found that it was not.

But the fact that strikes me the attention of this planet is the anomalous perihelion advance, and that their movement is not explained by classical mechanics of Newton. In fact, to explain this situation was a scientist named Le Verrier in 1843 that suggested the existence of a planet from the Sun than Mercury, a planet called Vulcan . Everything in science is explained sooner or later, and was a certain Albert Einstein the explanation given to him in 1915 through General Theory of Relativity using known variables and, of course, ruling the planet Vulcano.

not take another 35 years until another Mercury re-examine mission. In 2014 is scheduled to release BepiColombo, a probe will also target the smallest of the planets in our Solar System. Scientists say that the in-depth study of Mercury will yield critical data for understanding the formation of rocky planets in our solar system, which, though more or less clear how they are created, there are still gaps, and perhaps the answers are there in Mercury.

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The "Cactus" hiker, probably the ancestor of worms and arthropods brief analysis of the video

I leave a story taken from a blog friend that I visit a lot:

A new discovery in the world of paleontology, a "cactus" errant who had ten pairs of jointed legs. Measuring 6 inches long. Dwelt in the depths of the Asian seas more than 520 million years and may be the oldest ancestor (discovered so far) of the current spiders.
This strange creature called Diani cactiformis and is considered the first known missing link between worms and arthropods.
The D. cactiformis inhabiting the seabed in what is now the province of Yunnan, the Himalayas and southwest of China.

"Its importance is that arthropods are a group of invertebrate animals is most successful and very nice to have discovered the animal may be the most primitive of this group with jointed legs "

recognizes responsible for research, Jianni Liu, Northwest University, Xian , China.
This discovery, published on the cover of the prestigious journal Nature, provides evidence that arthropods evolved from the ancestors of the worms, whose fossil records date back to the Cambrian period.
Its fossil was discovered in 2006 during an excavation in China's Yunnan province. Then, after analyzing it and look under the microscope, the researcher,

"I realized that was not just a funny animal, but it was a very important discovery"

According to scientists, Diani could move at great speed and leap with great agility, but these superb physical condition also did not prevent extinct.
The team believes, even some of the appendages of these animals evolved into predatory joints were more survivability to the arthropods.

Source: http://www.xatakaciencia.com/paleontologia/el-cactus-que-caminaba

Apparently the way to the jointed legs originated from flexible legs. How in the current Onychophora, which is a phylum of animals rather odd, I leave a picture:

Looks great-grandfather one hundred feet do not you think?

If you want to review the Nature article, please send me an email and we will gladly send them

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Geoética. Credits JFM / AGID

seems that those responsible for the journal Journal of Cosmology (JoC) know the meaning of some words that have not hesitated for a moment to use to refer to people, arguments, we have criticized the supposed discovery of fossils aliens by Richard Hoover. literally been told that "only a few crackpots and charlatans have denounced the study." Well, according to the Royal English Academy of Language, defined as "dazed, out of his senses or trial" and " much talk and no substance ", respectively. And I, gentlemen related to JoC , do not identify with either of those adjectives.

JoC believe that we wanted to sell a story with a deceptive content, empty and pointless, which I think that those responsible for this publication have shown a total lack of sanity trying to hear a story that could taint of lies and talk serious investigations conducted by rigorous scientific, it would be feasible to apply the appositions that have been used against other scientists.

Such

Once the "Journals" are not at the forefront of scientific journals such as Science or Nature, but it is prestigious enough to take into account what is said in them and cover many sectors of science because there are about different topics: Journal of Biology, Journal of Neuroscience , Journal of Geology, etc. But I'll tell you what I thought nothing more to learn of the news. It was something like, "What does it look geology and astrobiology in a review of cosmology?". And I smelled weird.

Astrobiology and Geoética are two disciplines that make my day to day and, personally, what he has done JoC is an insult not only to biologists and geologists, but also to the wider scientific community, but has also been an affront to yes Journals that publish review following the appropriate controls to disseminate quality science.

If anyone is interested, I recommend the article lecutra " The 'alien' damn scientist" in the journal Public . In it, until the director the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Carl Pilcher, goes on to say that "the astrobiology community does not think Richard Hoover is a credible researcher."

say that lack of funds going to stop editing the magazine in the month of May. When you give to a project so there are two ways: through the front door or back door. JoC chose the latter with what I would describe as a suicide.

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