Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

I’m curious about how biological processes arose from pre-biological ones (i.e., how life arose). The “RNA World Hypothesis” suggests that RNA-like molecules are a good candidate. However, in order to entertain this hypothesis, one has to presume there was either a natural abundance of nucleotide monomers floating around – in an environment that encouraged them to form into polymers… or, there was some natural process that was essentially producing RNA chains, of various lengths and consisting of various nucleotides. Question: Are we aware of any natural (non-biological) environments on earth today, or any natural (non-biological) mechanisms, by which nuc…

Is there a connection with brain power and eye sights? Take insects they have tiny brain and horrible eye sights!! Two balls would not work, they need many eyes!!! Dogs and animals eye sight are not as good as people but way better than insects!! As they got a bigger brain!! People got bigger brain than dogs and animals and better eye sight. But does size of the brain also determine the eye? If people got bigger brain they would need only one eye ball? But if people got really dumb they would need 3 or 4 eye balls or more to compensate for the bad eye sight? As in the future people could get bigger brain and bigger head and only one eye ball.

Just came across an Interesting article.......... https://phys.org/news/2017-06-prebiotic-atmosphere-accretion-disk-baby.html extract: "An international research team, led by Chin-Fei Lee of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA, Taiwan), has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to detect complex organic molecules for the first time in the atmosphere of an accretion disk around a very young protostar. These molecules play a crucial role in producing the rich organic chemistry needed for life. The discovery suggests that the building blocks of life are produced in such disks at the very beginning of star formation and…

I don't know the right words to search google for the fibre orientation and general structure of finger and toenails. All I get is the parts of the nail area when I want to know composition and structure of a nail itself. Any ideas?

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-scientists-moon-saturn-chemical-membranes.html NASA scientists have definitively detected the chemical acrylonitrile in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, a place that has long intrigued scientists investigating the chemical precursors of life. On Earth, acrylonitrile, also known as vinyl cyanide, is useful in the manufacture of plastics. Under the harsh conditions of Saturn's largest moon, this chemical is thought to be capable of forming stable, flexible structures similar to cell membranes. Other researchers have previously suggested that acrylonitrile is an ingredient of Titan's atmosphere, but they did not report an unambig…

As it seems the ideas of the outstanding microbiologist and evolutionary theorist, 1965 Nobel prize winner, Jacques Monod, 1910-76, may throw some light on the “junk” DNA issue. And they may do upon the paradoxical essence of biological evolution, as well. He has stated way back, that as regards spontaneous evolution, the crucial part is played by “two things: (i) reproduction true to type of the structure itself, and (ii) reproduction equally true to type, of any accident that occurs in the structure. Once you have that, you have evolution, because you have conservation of accidents”. [Le Hasard et la Necessite, 1970. Cit. by Jacques Monod. Chance and Necessity, 1…

I still find it hard to fathom the millions of life forms (plant, insect, hominid, homo sapiens etc.) that have evolved from the original bowl of soup....yes there were many different bowls of soup scattered across the globe (had to of been) but the primordial soup would have had the same or very similar ingredients. What is the theory on how we got so many life forms from the original primordial soup? Over time I'm sure new bowls of soup arrived starting a new life form. Why have we not witnessed a new life form appear in the last say 500 years? Besides in the lab...

I'm in the process of creating an as-of-yet-unnamed species of humanoids from the fictional planet Salacia (sah-lah-chee-ah) that evolved to a humanoid form (head, torso, two arms, and two legs) in that planet's ocean. Originally, they were supposed to be amphibious with two slits for a nose, gills on the sides of their necks, hands with three digits (thumb and two fingers), which are connected by flexible webbing, and feet with three toes, which are connected by rigid webbing, while being able to reproduce with us. Currently, however, their working status is a species that started as solely aquatic mammals before moving onto land and losing the gills and webbed hands/fee…

"Anyone who does not believe in evolution is either ignorant, stupid, wicked or insane." - Richard Dawkins Dawkins may be intelligent. He is of course learned. But unfortunately he is blindingly ignorant and has not wisdom, or else I would not be able to expose his lack of it. For a man of such fame, or to many minds, infamy, as well as fame, Dawkins maintains a singularly bad set of teeth. One might think that with the millions he has earned from the sale of his books, he would get his teeth fixed, to be more presentable on the rare occasions when he smiles, but no, Dawkins clearly doesn't want to look normal or healthy. Now for many of us, selecting a mate is the big…

I read an article today, which is relatively recent, but which touched me as a human. Humpbacked whales apparently save seals by fending off killer whales and it seems as if the behaviour is deliberate. I have copied parts of the article below and I would expect the Darwinian reply, but is there an alternative? First, excerpts from the article (bold emphasis is mine): https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230950-700-i-saw-humpback-whales-save-a-seal-from-death-by-killer-whale/ The scientist involved, Robert Pitman ( a marine ecologist) offered a Darwinian approach to the apparently altruistic behaviour of the humpbacked whales. Pitman believes th…

Is it true that smarter people tend to have less babies than dumb people? If so, over time, is it inevitable that dumb people will become the majority in societies?

Given the evolutionary narrative, the traits in a population that are advantageous in a certain environment get passed down to future generations because those traits helped the organisms to survive. That's a nice story, but it begs the question: from where did the functional traits come from? Saying that an individual who owns a gun will be selected(will survive) in an enviornment where the gun is necessary for survival, does not explain the origin of the gun. If we appeal to random mutations for an "answer" to the origin of traits this is like appealing to random re-arrangement of particles that comprise a gun for an "answer" to the origin of gun. Given the poly-3D …

In order to rearrange the sequence of nucleotides and thus, find the information for bio-structures that are beneficial in a particular environment, an organism(or population) requires resources(mutations). Given the most optimistic estimates, there have been only 10^43 mutations in the history of life(1). But, the adaptation to a particular environment is pretty demanding in terms of resources. For e.g., we need 10^11 mutational resources in order to extract simple ATP binding function(2). Given the fact that binding(sticking to something)can be achieved with myriad number of 3D shapes this is pretty trivial adaptation task. When simple binding is not enough and adaptati…

I dont get why do we have a curvy fulled with fat shape in our back, in evoliton we adapt and make our lifes easier but did our asses evolved to sit and produce better things while resting or we have asses in first place and learned to use them? I mean if we evolve things that conforts us while sitting, why dont we have i dont know double explosive shotgun in our ankles or car tires in our back, i want to learn what is the limit.

Science agrees with change over time but there is zero support for any organism evolving outside of its species. Microevolutionary changes for a single protein are exponential and due to the laws of nature isn't sustainable to progress and obtain macroevolutionary development. The current explanation of how Darwinistic evolution occurred has no answer...scientifically, that's not a proven idea. Remember, the argument isn't does evolution or change over time occur but rather Darwinistic Evolution by means of natural selection.

Hello everybody. Should the outcome of a gene duplication phenomenon also include the possibility of pseudogenization, if so, is it included in the gene dosage bunch or are those two distinct events? Also, is gene dosage responsible for the creation of "junk DNA" same as a pseudogenization event? Thanks in advance.

I just heard on a podcast that female chimps will mate with anyone, unlike human females who are selective and mate across and up dominance hierarchies and have hidden ovulation. Why is it that female chimps are not selective? I imagine gestation is long, like in humans and number of possible offspring limited, again, like in humans.

Any thoughts? It seems to have soft tissue in place as well.

This is not a literary discussion but a question that arises in my mind about the extra "stuff" that makes us humans. Having just read "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/786 one of the major characters is a man of reason called Gradgrind, who believes that facts and figures are solely what is required to turn out a well-rounded individual who has reasoning capacities. One of his quotes is as follows: Towards the end of this proto-Socialist exposition, Gradgrind gets a tough reminder that humans cannot live on facts alone by his own daughter whose life has been ruined by parental insistence on pure reason: Don't …

Is the method to generate sound in cetaceans analog to a human vibrating lips as in playing a trumpet ? Are the pressure waves in the melon organ direct result from 'lips' closed and opened obturing/releasing air many times per second ? It does imply some air exiting past their 'lips' while vocalizing; is that right ? The melon or spermaceti organs are to enhance volume by resonance, as a guitar body does, is that right ? Is the animal sound emission omnidirectional and its echo reception directional ?

Hi all. I am unable to find answers to these questions after some online research.. Maybe I am not searching for the right keywords. If you can help, I would appreciate it. Is infanticide in some mammals (e.g. lions) an instrument of natural selection? If so, what evolutionary advantages does it offer? Are there any studies on the subject that you can suggest? Thank you.

Hi All, I'm new on the forums, and this is my first post. Thanks in advance for any help, or info you can provide me with. My question would be pretty simple. I am wondering if this is a Pre-Human skull? Maybe Hominid in origin? It was found in Southern California, in my yard. I live in an area that is basically built on a land slide. My house was built in 1920. I believe this would have had to have come down the hill at some point a long time ago, as it was not deep in the ground. I found a bunch of really strange animal parts at this point also. Many were under the house itself, which was built on a dirt, and rock foundation. Also, I believe I litera…

Right so tears release lysosomes/lysozymes, hydrolyse irritant material, flush said material out of your eyes. But why then, do we do this when we are sad. Indeed, how does sadness provide any evolutionary advantage at all? Sadness is, quite possibly, one of the most unproductive emotions out there. Anger gives you strength and drive to action, happiness is widely proven to be good for your health, and it usually comes about as a result of beneficial circumstances, which drives you to put yourself into those circumstances again. But sadness is debilitating. Some people experience it so strongly, they are quite literally bed-ridden. Why does this still exist/why did it dev…

As an aspiring Biology teacher, I thought of a way to express how organisms evolve after a long period of time - never spontaneously transitioning into a new species. I've seen that it's hard for people to comprehend long intervals of time and change. There is also a massive misunderstanding in how evolution works when creationists point to "missing links" in the evolutionary tree. The only way we wouldn't have missing links is if every organism fossilized (If using the gradient to explain this, we'd state that we would need to find every incredibly thin pixel layer of the gradient). I know evolution can't be explained so easily but I thought it would be easily understoo…

I found this item on the BBC website very interesting. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38985425 It is an unpublished essay by Winston Churchill on the possibilities of alien life. In it, apparently, he even speculates on what has come to be known as the Goldilock's zone.