Evolution Takes Science Honors

By Paul Rincon
BBC News

Friday 23 December 2005

Research into how evolution works has been named top science achievement of 2005, a year that also saw fierce debate erupt over "intelligent design."

The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year.

The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution.

The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.

Adherents of intelligent design, or ID, maintain that many features of the Universe and of living things are too complex to have been the result of natural selection.

Instead, the "theory" says, they must have been designed by a highly intelligent supernatural force.

The studies bestowed with the title "breakthrough of the year" by Science include the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome; recreation of the 1918 flu virus in a laboratory; and a study on European blackcap birds which demonstrated how two different populations can become two separate species.

Scientific Merit

Colin Norman, news editor of Science, said the choice was based solely on the merits of the research, not the battle over intelligent design.

"I suppose if [that debate] influenced us at all, it was in the realisation that scientists tend to take for granted that evolution underpins modern biology," he told the BBC News website.

"The arguments about intelligent design just made us a little bit more aware of it."

Mr. Norman said he hoped the choice would send a message to scientists and the public: "Evolution is not just something that scientists study as an esoteric enterprise," he explained.

"It has very important implications for public health and for our understanding of who we are."

For example, by studying the differences between the human and chimpanzee genome, scientists may be able to pin down the genetic basis for many diseases. And studying the behaviour of the 1918 flu virus could help us combat the next avian influenza pandemic.

"The big recent development in evolutionary biology has obviously been the improved resolution in our understanding of genetics," commented Dr Mike Ritchie, of the school of biology at the University of St Andrews, UK.

"Where people have found a gene they think is involved in speciation, I can now go and look how it has evolved in 12 different species of fly, because we've got the genomes of all these species available on the web."

Robotic Pioneers

The runner-up position in Science's list highlighted the advances made by robotic explorers in space, particularly the Huygens probe, which landed on Saturn's moon Titan on 14 January.

This was the furthest from Earth a spacecraft had touched down and represented a triumph for European space science, despite the loss of one of two data channels on the probe.

The information gathered by Huygens as it parachuted through the thick atmosphere and finally settled on the moon's icy surface is shedding light on a world that may look a lot like Earth did 4.6 billion years ago.

"We're still deep in the analysis, but I do occasionally try to stand back and think about it in a detached way," Professor John Zarnecki, principal investigator on Huygens' surface science package, told the BBC news website.

"I've been in space research for about 30 years, and, I have to say, it still seems like science fiction."

"One is aware of the complexity, of the things that can go wrong no matter how well you design and prepare. It seems magical to me that these things usually do work."

The Open University professor said scientists would seek to find out how complicated the organic chemistry on Titan had become.

It is possible some of the chemical reactions that set the scene for the emergence of life on Earth could also be occurring on the saturnian moon.

Science Magazine's Breakthroughs of 2005

* Winner: Evolution in action. Genome sequencing and painstaking field observations shed light on the intricacies of how evolution works.

* Runner Up: Planetary blitz. Europe's Huygens probe touched down on Saturn's moon Titan in January. It was joined by a fleet of other explorers, including NASA's Deep Impact, which smashed a hole in a comet.

* In bloom. Molecular biologists pinned down several of the molecular cues responsible for spring's vibrant burst of colour.

* Neutron stars. Satellites and ground telescopes shed light on the violent behaviour of neutron stars; city-sized corpses of stars that pack matter into an extreme state.

* Miswiring the brain. Researchers gained clues about the mechanisms of disorders such as schizophrenia, dyslexia and Tourrete's syndrome.

* Complicated Earth. Comparisons of rocks from Earth and outer space forced scientists to scrap long-held views of how our planet formed.

* Protein portrait. Scientists got their best look yet at the molecular structure of a voltage-gated potassium channel.

* Change of climate. More evidence implicating human activities in global warming was presented, the magazine said.

* Systems biology. Molecular biologists are looking to engineering in order to understand the behaviour of complex systems.

* Bienvenue Iter. After 18 months of wrangling, the $12bn International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) got a home: Cadarache in France.



Go to Original

Journal Cites Evolution Studies in 2005
By Randolph E. Schmid
The Associated Press

Friday 23 December 2005

Washington - The journal Science's pick for breakthrough of the year in 2005 is "evolution in action," focusing on studies of how evolution works and how it affects lives today.

Several research projects were discussed at meetings to choose the annual breakthrough winner.

"Then we realized they were all connected to evolution," said Colin J. Norman, news editor of Science. "We realized that if we put these together at the molecular level, it's been a banner year for evolutionary research. It shows that evolution underlies all of biology."

Bruce Alberts of the University of California, San Francisco, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said the choice is "very timely. I like it."

On the journal's cover is an illustration of DNA, the blueprint for life that changes in the process of evolution.

Scattered across the DNA molecule are illustrations of people and animals, including a portrait of 19th century natural scientist Charles Darwin whose research drew attention to evolution through the process of natural selection.

It's been nearly 150 years since Darwin's findings were first published, and 2005 was also a major year for debate over his theory, culminating Tuesday with a federal judge's ruling that the religious belief called intelligent design can't be taught in science classes as an alternative to evolution.

There are also battles over teaching evolution underway in Kansas and Georgia, and at one point President Bush supported teaching intelligent design alongside evolution, although he has not commented on the court ruling.

The challenges were not the reason evolution was picked as the science story of the year, Norman said, "we chose this on its merits."

Three areas of research were noted in particular.

* The sequencing of the chimpanzee genome, allowing researchers to compare it with already sequenced human DNA. Only about 4% of the coding differs between the two close relatives.

"Somewhere in this catalog of difference lies the genetic blueprint for traits that make us human: sparse body hair, upright gait, the big and creative brain," the editors of Science wrote.

In addition, the journal added, humans are highly susceptible to AIDS, coronary heart disease, chronic viral hepatitis and malignant malarial infections. Chimps aren't, and studying the differences between could help pin down the genetic aspects of many such diseases.

* The human haplotype map, being developed by an international team, catalogues the patterns of genetic variability among people. Researchers are looking for patterns that match with ailments such as diabetes, arthritis and cardiovascular disease.

* Research into the formation of new species as they evolve to differ from others.

In 2005, scientists found a type of warbler known as the European blackcap that was separating into groups with differing migration patterns.

Another study found European cornborers in the same field dividing into two types, one of which sticks to corn while the other eats hops and mugwort. The borers have developed different pheromones, scent chemicals that help them breed with only their own group.

And formerly ocean-living stickleback fish that were left stranded in lakes at the end of the last ice age have evolved into several different species.

That study was done by David Kingsley of Stanford University, who reported in March that 15 isolated populations of freshwater sticklebacks had all lost their bony armor through mutations in the same gene.

While scientists had previously shown evolution in biochemical processes, such as antibiotic resistance, some critics had argued that it would be impossible to evolve large changes in the forms of natural populations.

"That is obviously false," said Kingsley. "Sticklebacks with major changes in skeletal armor and fin structures are thriving in natural environments. And the major differences between forms can now be traced to particular genes."