Water Is a Problem, and Your Body Has an Ingenious Solution

brainstem, cardiopulmonary arrest, cell membrane, cell's, chemical concentration, chemicals, death, diffusion, Evolution, evolutionary biologists, extracellular fluid, extraterrestrial life, Genetica, Google AI, Günter Bechly, hospice, information, Intelligent Design, intracellular fluid, just-so stories, liquid water, Medicine, molecular machines, multicellular organism, neurons, osmosis, potassium ions, protein, sodium, sodium ions, sodium-potassium pump, Steve Laufmann, The Extracellular Space (series), The Wonder of Water, water, Your Designed Body
The sodium-potassium pump is an innovation that allows your cells to combat the forces of nature and in doing so, prevents disaster. Source
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Revising the Linnaean System: Where to Locate Viruses? And the Problem with Mitochondria

alpha-proteobacterium, bacteriophage, BioEssays, Biological Reviews, biology, cellular life, censorship, cytoplasm, Dave Speijer, domain, endosymbiotic hypothesis, eukarya, eukaryogenesis, Evolution, Evolution News, evolutionary theory, free speech, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, Linnaean taxonomy, mitochondria, nucleic acid, protein, replicon, viruses
The venue for a remarkable call for government censorship of science was a peer-reviewed biology journal. Source
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Viruses: An Intelligent Design Perspective

ACS Nano, Apollo moon landings, bacteria, bacteriophages, buckyballs, capsid, cell machinery, cell membrane, COVID-19, crystals, DNA, Elizabeth Pennisi, icosahedron, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Iqbal Pittalwala, lipid bilayer, Medicine, Michael Behe, molecular motor, nano-vehicles, polyhedron, protein, Purdue University, RNA, Roya Zandi, SARS-CoV-2, Science (journal), snowflakes, T4 virus, U.C. Riverside, U.C. San Diego, vaccine, viral genome, viruses
The COVID-19 virus is on a rampage in the world, killing thousands in the U.S. so far, shutting down whole countries’ economies, and possibly altering aspects of modern life for the future, after the virus has waned. What the complete impact will be is of course unknowable. In the meantime, though, questions arise about this and other, related sub-microscopic entities. Viruses seem so evil. What is their place in life? And like other aspects of nature, do they give evidence of intelligent design? Certainly, in a context of global anxiety, this is a subject that needs to be approached with sensitivity and humility. It isn’t the purpose of this article to adequately address great philosophical questions. That can wait for another occasion. But before such questions can even be considered,…
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Important Medical Effects but Modest Mutations

Charles Darwin, CypA, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian processes, Evolution, FCT, function, Functional-Coded-elemenT, HIV, information, isoform, natural selection, New Scientist, Origin of Species, owl monkey, protein, random mutation, retroviruses, rhesus macaque, RNA, The Quarterly Review of Biology, TRIM5
I was asked to address a comment left by a viewer of one of Discovery’s YouTube videos. The comment is:1 Some monkeys have a mutation in a protein called TRIM5 that results in a piece of another, defunct protein being tacked onto TRIM5. The result is a hybrid protein called TRIM5-CypA, which can protect cells from infection with retroviruses such as HIV. Here, a single mutation has resulted in a new protein with a new and potentially vital function. New protein, new function, new information. A bit of Googling shows that the text was taken word-for-word from an old article (2008) on the New Scientist website2 (perhaps by way of intermediate copying). That was during a period when the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species was…
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Molybdenum Is Stored in Cells by a Powered Piercing Machine

anhydride hydrolysis, armor, armor-piercing bullets, ATP, ATP-binding groove, bacteria, Biochemistry (journal), biomineralization, carbon, chemical energy, Chile, China, diet, DNA replication, Earth’s crust, Energy, energy metabolism, entropy, Evolution, genetic information, gun, human body, industry, Intelligent Design, kinetic energy, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, melting point, metal, molecular machines, molybdate, molybdenum, MoSto system, motility, nitrogen, PNAS, protein, steel, Steffen Brünle, sulfur, United States
Molybdenum comprises the second smallest percentage of mass in a normal human body, but that trace amount serves a vital function in several key enzymes. Chemical element molybdenum, affectionately called “moly” by manufacturers, is classified as a refractory metal (i.e., able to retain its shape when heated), bearing similarities to lead. It was only declared a chemical element in 1790 with the abbreviation Mo. Because of its very high melting point, it is prized in industry for its ability to toughen steel and armor. Molybdenum’s abundance in Earth’s crust is estimated at 1.2 ppm, mined mostly in China, the United States, and Chile (molybdenum.com). An Essential Element Why would soft, squishy biology need such a hard substance? The answer is that without it, life would not be possible. A 2009…
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