2005

Guillermo Gonzalez, "Habitable Zones in the Universe" (2005)

Comments: 71 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; to be published in "Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres" --- Abstract: --- Habitability varies dramatically with location and time in the universe. This was recognized centuries ago, but it was only in the last few decades that astronomers began to systematize the study of habitability. The introduction of the concept of the habitable zone was key to progress in this area. The habitable zone concept was first applied to the space around a star, now called the Circumstellar Habitable Zone. Recently, other, vastly broader, habitable zones have been proposed. We review the historical development of the concept of habitable zones and the present state of the research. We also suggest ways to make progress on each of the habitable zones and to unify them into a single concept encompassing the entire universe.

Bruce J. McFadden, "Fossil Horses - Evidence for Evolution" (2005)

"Science" 18 March 2005, vol. 307, s. 1728-1730. --- Abstract --- The modern day horse Equus is a beloved icon but also, thanks to its many fossil relatives, has proved valuable for understanding macroevolution (that is, the long-term evolution of species). In his Perspective, MacFadden discusses fossil evidence supporting a branching family tree for the Family Equidae and points out why horse fossils have been beneficial for understanding evolution.

Tanita Casci , "It's not all in the DNA" (2005)

"Nature Reviews Genetics" 2005, vol. 6, s. 165; http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nrg/journal/v6/n3/full/nrg1572_fs.html; http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nrg/journal/v6/n3/full/nrg1572_fs.html&filetype=pdf

S. Goodacre, A. Helgason, J. Nicholson, L. Southam, L. Ferguson, E. Hickey, E. Vega, K. Stefánsson, R. Ward, and B. Sykes, "Genetic evidence for a family-based Scandinavian settlement of Shetland and Orkney during the Viking periods" (2005) pdf

"Heredity" 2005, s. 1-7; http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/hdy/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/6800661a.html&filetype=pdf --- Abstract --- The Viking age witnessed the expansion of Scandinavian invaders across much of northwestern Europe. While Scandinavian settlements had an enduring cultural impact on North Atlantic populations, the nature and extent of their genetic legacy in places such as Shetland and Orkney is not clear. In order to explore this question further, we have made an extensive survey of both Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in the North Atlantic region. Our findings indicate an overall Scandinavian ancestry of »44% for Shetland and »30% for Orkney, with approximately equal contributions from Scandinavian male and female subjects in both cases. This contrasts with the situation for the Western Isles, where the overall Scandinavian ancestry is less (»15%) and where there is a disproportionately high contribution from Scandinavian males. In line with previous studies, we find that Iceland exhibits both the greatest overall amount of Scandinavian ancestry (55%) and the greatest discrepancy between Scandinavian male and female components. Our results suggest that while areas close to Scandinavia, such as Orkney and Shetland, may have been settled primarily by Scandinavian family groups, lone Scandinavian males, who later established families with female subjects from the British Isles, may have been prominent in areas more distant from their homeland.

"Direct Evolution of a Full Professor" :-) (2005)

Abstract: Success in academia is hypothesized to require specific phenotypes. In order to understand how such unusual traits arise, we used human clones to identify the molecular events that occur during the transition from a graduate student to professor.