Darwinism will prevail, but for how long?

1. The Position of Suzan Mazur. 2.

Truth is not for sale. The principles that unite science and art.

At present a wave of obscurantism is spreading over Western countries affecting both science and art in a deadly way. It becomes mandatory to stave off this movement by defining precisely the way science and art are created and to clarify the basic principles on which they are established. The scientific community has already reacted to this situation but the problem continues to be treated marginally.

Order is present at every level but is not total.

It may sound as a truism but it may be necessary to recall that science is not made by instruments, or by well equipped laboratories, but by the unique personalities that use them. As a consequence their intellect, their emotional experiences and their physical ability, cannot be separated from their achievements - being they minor or profound.

The atomic basis of biological symmetry and periodicity.

Geometric derivations and mathematical formulas have shown how the symmetrical patterns of plants, animals and crystals, follow similar mathematical solutions. These transformations have had the great value of indicating relationships between different types of patterns. However, they could neither shed light on the material processes that led to the emergence of symmetries in nature, nor explain their transfer to higher levels of organization, as evolution proceeded from simple molecular systems to complex living organisms.

Comparative chromosome painting discloses homologous segments in distantly related mammals.

Comparative chromosome painting, termed ZOO-FISH, using DNA libraries from flow sorted human chromosomes 1, 16, 17 and X, and mouse chromosome 11 discloses the presence of syntenic groups in distantly related mammalian orders ranging from primates (Homo sapiens), rodents (Mus musculus), even-toed ungulates (Muntiacus muntjak vaginalis and Muntiacus reevesi) and whales (Balaenoptera physalus). These mammalian orders have evolved separately for 55-80 million years (Myr). We conclude that ZOO-FISH can be used to generate comparative chromosome maps of a large number of mammalian species.

Telomeric location of retroviral oncogenes in humans.

The position relative to centromeres and telomeres has been investigated in 42 proto-oncogenes that have been localized in specific bands of the human chromosomes. It turned out that the 26 retroviral oncogenes had a predominant telon territory (near telomeres). The difference from the non-retrovirally transduced oncogenes is significant (p less than 0.

Localization of cloned, repetitive DNA sequences in deer species and its implications for maintenance of gene territory.

The deer family shows the largest variation in chromosome number known in mammals (2n = 6 to 2n = 70). The drastic rearrangement of the chromosomes allows to test the prediction, based on the chromosome field theory, according to which DNA sequences tend to occupy specific territories within the eukaryotic chromosome. Nuclear DNAs were isolated from eight Deer and two Bovidae species.

DNA cloning and hybridization in deer species supporting the chromosome field theory.

The Cervidae show the largest variation in chromosome number found within any mammalian family. The eight species of deer which are the subject of this study vary in chromosome number from 2n = 70 to 2n = 6. Three species of Bovidae are also included since they belong to a closely related family.

Conservation of repetitive DNA sequences in deer species studied by southern blot transfer.

The Cervidae show one of the largest variations in chromosome number found within a mammalian family. The five species of the deer family which are the subject of this study vary in chromosome number from 2n = 70 to 2n = 6. Digestion with the restriction enzymes EcoRI, HpaII, HaeIII and MspI reveals that there is a series of highly repetitive sequences forming similar band patterns in the different species.