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Volume 2, Issue 1

News

Eric Holloway Publishes Paper on
Specified Complexity

David Nemati and Blyth Institute fellow Eric Holloway
recently published a new paper in the journal BIO-
Complexity (Nemati and Holloway, 2019). The paper, titled
“Expected Algorithmic Specified Complexity,” explores the
expected Algorithmic Specified Complexity (ASC) of a ran-
dom variable, concluding that the expected ASC is always
less than zero. This is true both of random variables and of
“processed” random variables—variables which have under-
gone some sort of transformation. This indicates that the
existence of positive ASC always counts as “surprise,” and
therefore always requires explanation.

New Thinking on Human Origins

This past year witnessed a plethora of new thinking on hu-
man origins. First up, new research by Ola Hössjer and
Ann Gauger recently showed a unique model for looking at
biodiversity (Hössjer and Gauger, 2019). Essentially, they
looked at the ways in which minor allele frequency distri-
butions can arise, and how long di!erent distributions take
to arise. New alleles essentially start out as one-o! events,
arising as a mutation in a single individual and later spread-
ing through the population or dying out (or somewhere in-
between). The frequency of these minor alleles can pro-
vide some amount of information about the history of the
species in question. It takes time for an allele to spread
through a population. Therefore, initially, from an initially
homozygous pair, the low-frequency side of the minor allele
frequency spectrum will contain all of the new mutations.
The mutations will take time to spread throughout the pop-
ulation. What Hössjer and Gauger discovered, though, is
that a heterozygous initial pair creates an allele frequency
spectrum that looks much older than it is. This is because
an allele can actually start as either 25%, 50%, 75%, or
100% of the population before any mutations even occur.
Thus, the frequency spectrum will fill very quickly from the
initial pair, and the initial heterozygosity will look equiva-
lent to ancient mutations.

Using standard assumptions, Hössjer and Gauger calcu-
lated that the current allele frequency spectrum could be
attained from an initial starting pair in 100,000–500,000
years. Using other alternative assumptions about the na-
ture of the starting pair could result in attaining the current
allele frequency spectrum in an even shorter period of time.

Another interesting paper was done by Nathaniel Jeanson
and Ashley Holland, which analyzed the human Y chromo-
some (Jeanson and Holland, 2019). Analyzing the human
genome as a whole leads to a number of model-specific is-
sues. If we imagine a starting pair for humanity, were the
original chromosomes identical or did they house diversity?
Additionally, might the first human female have eggs that
had additional diversity in their chromosomes?

However, nearly all considerations of single-couple human
origins have exactly one starting Y chromosome, leading to
fewer model-specific considerations. Jeanson and Holland
aimed to improve the data available about Y chromosome
mutation rates by examining pedigree-based studies which
used high-coverage sequencing. According to Jeanson and
Holland, (a) a Y chromosome molecular clock exists, and
(b) it suggests a paternal history of the human race of about
4,500 years.

Finally, the year ended with the publication of Joshua
Swamidass’s new book titled The Genealogical Adam and
Eve (Swamidass, 2019). This book aims to show that the
practical di!erence between popular and scientific concep-
tions of “Adam and Eve” are not too far o!. His viewpoint
is that, although, according to the consensus view, there
could be no single-couple origin of humans, there could be
a single couple to whom all modern humans could trace
their genealogies.

Communicating Science Through
New Venues

New media becomes old media very quickly in the modern
age. Email was once the best technological way to com-
municate interpersonally. This is now often replaced with
various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
and others. Likewise, YouTube was once at the center of



40 News

video-based media. While YouTube is still the de facto des-
tination for video content, it is useful to look at some of the
newer players.

First of all, some video is being distributed through apps on
standard platforms. Developing an app for Roku, Amazon
Fire, or Apple TV is a new way to get content to users.
Additionally, streaming services such as Twitch, and now
Mixer, are becoming the dominant social video platforms
for the youth. Science communicators should explore ways
of reaching the public through these outlets. One possibil-
ity would be to play video games with scientists, discussing
what they do while shooting zombies, or discussing the lat-
est theories of the universe while racing Nascar.

Growth opportunities are always with the latest technology.
Asserting a strong position while they are still unproven is
the best way to establish leadership for the future.

Austrian Society Zentrum für
BioKomplexität & NaturTeleologie
Opens with Special Symposium

A new Austria-focused scientific society, Zentrum für
BioKomplexität & NaturTeleologie, recently formed and
held their first symposium. The symposium featured many
European scientists and mathematicians, as well as a few
from the United States as well. The organizers of the con-
ference were Günter Bechly, a prominent German paleon-
tologist who presently works as a senior scientist for the
Biologic Institute, and Siegfried Scherer, a professor of mi-
crobiology and chair of microbial ecology at the Technical
University of Munich.

While the society is based in Austria, the sympo-
sium itself was largely in English. Many of the
talks from the three day symposium are available on
YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=
PLkaKqUjdyg2JHNqeWQHnVTXZ-37h0tJMb.

Breaking the Weismann Barrier and
Closing the Loop for Lamarckian
Evolution in Multicellular Organisms

A recent review paper in the Royal Society shows that the
Weismann barrier is crumbling. In “The active role of sper-
matozoa in transgenerational inheritance,” Sciamanna et al

review the mounting evidence that there is a Lamarckian
feedback loop in DNA inheritance (Sciamanna et al., 2019).
The paper reviews evidence that mammalian somatic tis-
sues release RNA-containing vesicles, and that these vesi-
cles are then passed to epididymal spermatozoa. Addition-
ally, epididymal spermatozoa are known to be able to inter-
nalize foreign nucleic acids into their nuclei. This completes
the communication channel between somatic cells and germ
cells required for Lamarckian inheritance.

This communication channel was original proposed in the
1990’s. Steele et al’s Lamarck’s Signature suggested that so-
matic mutations might be passed to germ line cells through
an RNA channel (Steele, Lindley, and Blanden, 1999). Af-
ter decades of work across multiple groups, evidence is
mounting that Steele’s hypothesis was largely correct.

Overcoming Entrenched Dogma
About Pseudogenes

Biologists have long known that not all non-coding DNA is
junk DNA. However, pseudogenes have long been consid-
ered the standard bearer for the junk DNA concept. Since
pseudogenes look like defective, non-coding copies of ordi-
nary genes, it has been often assumed that these are evolu-
tionary leftovers—genes which once coded for something, or
a copy of a gene that once coded for something, but which
some accident of mutation incapacitated its activity.

While the evidence for the activity of pseudogenes has long
been known, the idea that pseudogenes indicate junk DNA
has been ingrained in biologists. A group of researchers re-
cently published a paper pointing out that the prejudices
that biologists have about the status of pseudogenes as
junk DNA is impeding the progress of understanding the
way that the genome functions (Cheetham, Faulkner, and
Dinger, 2019).

References

Cheetham, S W, G J Faulkner, and M E Dinger (2019).
“Overcoming challenges and dogmas to understand the
functions of pseudogenes”. In: Nature Reviews Genetics.
doi: 10.1038/s41576-019-0196-1.



Volume 2, Issue 1

REFERENCES 41

Hössjer, O and A Gauger (2019). “A Single-Couple Human
Origin is Possible”. In: 2019 (1), pp. 1–20.

Jeanson, N T and A D Holland (2019). “Evidence for a
Human Y Chromosome Molecular Clock”. In: Answers
Research Journal 12, pp. 393–404.

Nemati, D and E Holloway (2019). “Expected Algorithmic
Specified Complexity”. In: BIO-Complexity 2019 (2),
pp. 1–10.

Sciamanna, I et al. (2019). “The active role of spermatozoa
in transgenerational inheritance”. In: Proceedings of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 286.20191263.

Steele, E J, R A Lindley, and R V Blanden (1999).
Lamarck’s Signature: How Retrogenes are Changing
Darwin’s Natural Selection Paradigm. Basic Books.

Swamidass, S J (2019). The Genealogical Adam and Eve:
The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry. IVP
Academic.


