linkstream2 microblog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_drive

micro crystalline structure of clay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_minerals

TEM reveals micro crystal structure

http://www.clays.org/journal/archive/volume%2019/19-1-49.pdf

importance of scaffolding

http://keystonearches.com/HTM/Building.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Cairns-Smith

http://www.well.com/~hernan/biomorphs/

QT:{{”
Richard Dawkins (in “The Blind Watchmaker”) writes:

“Michael Land reckons that there are nine basic principles for image-forming that eyes use, and that most of them have evolved many times independently. For instance, the curved dish-reflector principle is radically different from our own camera-eye (we use it in radiotelephones, and also in our largest optical telescopes because it is easier to make a large mirror than a large lens), and it has been independently ‘invented’ by various molluscs and crustaceans. Other crustaceans have a compound eye like insects (really a bank of lots of tiny eyes), while other molluscs, as we have seen, have a lensed camera-eye like ours, or a pinhole camera-eye. For each of these types of eye, stages corresponding to evolutionary intermediates exist as working eyes among other modern animals.”

With all respect to Mr. Dawkins, to believe that a structure as complex as any brain has evolved more than once is stretching credulity too far.

Michael Land calls the eyes “the premier sensory outposts of the brain” (see The Evolution of Eyes (1992)), but he only mentions the eye/brain connection three times (and then only in passing), and not in any brain evolution context.
“}}

http://redwood.berkeley.edu/vs265/landfernald92.pdf
https://www.quora.com/Given-that-eyes-appear-to-have-evolved-multiple-times-independently-through-evolution-why-has-human-level-intelligence-not-evolved-more-than-once

QT:{{”
The waves and the pebbles together constitute a simple example of a system that automatically generates non-randomness. The world is full of such systems. The simplest example I can think of is a hole. Only objects smaller than the hole can pass through it. This means that if you start with a random collection of objects above the hole, and some force shakes and jostles them about at random, after a while the objects above and below the hole will come to be nonrandomly sorted. The space below the hole will tend to contain objects smaller than the hole, and the space above will tend to contain objects larger than the hole. Mankind has, of course, long exploited this simple principle for generating non-randomness, in the useful device known as the sieve. “}}

http://dbanach.com/dawkins3.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_echolocation