It's about 2/3 of the way down.

“Resistance is caused by natural mutation of a single amino acid residue, which causes a 1,000-fold decrease in affinity at the saxitoxin-binding site in the sodium channel pore of resistant, but not sensitive, clams.”

Note the word 'decrease.'

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Replying to:

Please, ONE legitimate complaint?

Here is another. It relates to a paper found in the journal Nature (Nature 2005, 763-767 (7 April 2005)), and is part of a lengthy thread back a little ways: http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/723537/2. I suggested that single point mutations can drastically increase an organism's chances for survival.

You wrote:
"The clam mutation is a deleterious mutation. The subpopulation of clams actually LOST the ability to metabolize saxitoxin."

This statement has no basis in reality. Nowhere in that paper is saxitoxin metabolism even mentioned. In fact, you won't find a paper anywhere in which saxitoxin metabolism is connected in any way to this mutation. You simply made it up.

And that has what to do with metabolism?

I mean, I know that you made it up, it's just funny that you won't admit it.

Bryan,

I thought that in an earlier posting you said that the clam mutation was the result of 3 SPM's, was I mistaken?

Do you know the PDB designation of the protien that we are talking about?

Thanks,

Joe

Sorry, Brian. I misspelled your name.

I also found the item that you said before.

" Even more amazing, you can take a voltage gated sodium channel, and with just 3 mutations, you can change it into a functional voltage-gated calcium channel! 3 mutations and you completely change the function of that protein. "

I am sorry again, that was a different topic.
If you do not know the PDB designation, do you know the scientific name of the clam species?
I will try to go back and find the link to the article. I am sure that it is in there.

Joe,

The clam species is Mya arenaria.

The sequence allignment is laid out in the paper (which I can't link directly for copyright reasons, but I gave the reference in my last post). I suspect the PDBs are given in the supplementary material, but I haven't looked.

You want problems with your site? Fine. You still insist on claiming that the Big GBang and the Origin of life is evolution. YOu claim that we don´t see things evolving today, but we do. We see beneficial mutations everywhere. That´s evolution. It just doesn´t happen at super speeds, like Answers in Genesis claims. When I asked you to explain the super evolution that is needed for the Noah´s Flood model to work, you dodged the question like it was a herd of stampeeding elephants. Stasis is what we call the periods in between points of punctuated equilibrium where evolution is slown down. It is slown down because natural selection is lower as trhe organisms have adapted to thier environment, and must wait for another change so that the selection process is strong enough to drive evolution. I even sent you an email explaining this and I never got a response. It looks like you just don´t read what you don´t like.

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Replying to:

We acknowledge and correct errors if a LEGITIMATE criticism of our website is presented. See our posting:

http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/723537/
(Refer to 'e'in posting)

"In regard to your comment,
“mutations do not render DNA non-functional. You are deliberately trying to mislead the majority of the public who are not versed in genetics.”

You are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT in pointing this error out. While it was meant to directly relate to the specific mutated gene within DNA, the DNA as a whole is obviously still functional. The correction has been submitted and should be done on Monday. Thank you for pointing this out."