Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells by William Martin and Michael J Russell proposes that Chemosynthesis makes oxygen. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis Oxygen combines with iron to make iron oxide (in prehistoric oceans), that we mine today to make iron and steel. The source of that oxygen is attributed to photosynthesis by microorganisms that made stromatoliths that are now fossils from about 3.5 Gyr ago. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron#Occurrence Fossil stromatoliths and iron ore deposits are …

Okay, I'm not really a science major (not yet), and I haven't done any school-related science study since highschool (only a bit in leisure time), so what I say may be a little bit like "old news". I'm here to learn more than anything. Now, my question in this thread is if you have considered the potential reasons behind things society does and people do in evolutionary terms? I'm pretty certain that everyone here has! Take, for instance, celebrity "worship". People consider celebrities "heroes" to them, which could easily relate to tribal leaders or war heroes in early civilization. Many celebrities are also activists, and many of the fans try to imitate them and fol…

Im not a scientist, but as far as I know species have been evolving over about 3 billion years? But am I right that it can also occur quite rapidly, eg changes in the teeth of urban foxes, or hedgehogs acquiring roadsense? cheerz GIAN

Is homophobia a consequence of natural selection? viz heterosexual men are evolutionarily required to be attracted to the opposite sex because if they weren't they wouldnt reproduce and so the species wouldn't survive. At the same time the heterosexual male animal needs biologically to be reasonably repelled by homosexual sex, because if he weren't he wouldn't spend so much time reproducing and the species wouldn't survive so well; an example of Evolutionary psychology( as indicated by darwin and developed by William James et al..) I only ask because a lot of psycho-babblers, pundits and gay-rights people imply that homophobia is culturally constructed. But this d…

Hey, Does Price Equation, when it comes to explain how the altruism trait can spread, breaks down if a group has only one individual who has the trait? If the Equation needs more than one altruistic individual (and actually many individuals) within the group, is it not the case that the Price Equation is a non starter when is comes to explain how altruism can spread within the population? Thanks

Bacterial cells accomplish mitosis (replication) in 30 minutes. Human cells require 24 hours to accomplish mitosis. Mutations in DNA occur roughly 1 in 100 million DNA replication cycles. This means DNA in one day bacteria replicate 48 more times more than humans do. Now take the existence of the homo sapien, about 600,000 years relative to the existence of bacteria, about 3 Billion years. How is it that humans remain alive relative to the huge difference in bacterial mutations relative to human mutation. Sure some mutations are bad, possibly fatal, but in the course of 3 Billion years, I would think bacteria would have been the end all be all upo…

Hi, all! Based on evidence, I'd like to know how and why dinosaurs evolved into birds? What was the selection pressure for them to evolve wings? Also, why did they become smaller? Does it have to do with evolving wings for flight? I was actually under the impression that the selection pressure for them to evolve into birds was due to the asteroid that hit Earth. I thought that because of the asteroid, food supply was short and this resulted in dinosaurs becoming smaller and flight based to hunt for bigger food. Turns out I may have been wrong with this assumption as pointed out by another poster in another thread I wrote awhile back. And yes, I know google is frie…

Hi everybody! As you know, some kinds of animals have poisons in their body. For example in their skin, their giblet, etc. This can halp to survive the kind of animal by killing its carnivore enemies. By why this don't happen for all kinds of animals? Why all of them are not poisonous? Thanks.

I read this article earlier and was wondering if it was possible (and any resources on how) to cultivate amoeba that grow on the scale of inches as displayed in the video:

There's a lot of atrocious traits of human beings that are explicable when you consider the fact that they made sense long ago, and those traits have simply become obsolete because civilization progresses faster than evolution does. For example, Mankind loves violence. There's even a sporting organization nowadays that simply just puts martial arts experts against each other, simply just to beat the crap out of each other. It's called "UFC." However, this trait of humanity makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because, in the days of Cavemen, it was a "kill or be killed" world, so it makes sense that natural selection would give a survival advantage to peop…

A Danish biochemist (name escapes me) believed he has abiotically synthesized the precursor to the original lifeform that eventually led to bacteria, eukaryotes, etc. A droplet of oil was mixed into a petri dish, causing it to aggreagate, acting as a protobiont or lipid bilayer. Nex thydrophilic molecules were injected into the oil droplet. When the hydrophilic molecules reacted with the surrounding water, it propelled the oil droplet all around the petri dish (metabolism) even allowing it separate at times (replication). Once other oil droplets were added, collisions ensued resulting in the oil droplets sharing their internal chemical strucutres with…

Is physically passing on the evolved characteristic to a subsequent generation necessary for the change to be classified as evolution? Or is just the appearance of the change itself enough? An does this term only aplly to the first time the change occurs or can it also apply to any instance of this change? For instance if I take two petri dishes of culture and allow (stimulate) identical (evolutionary ?) changes in each and prove that they are transmitted to the next generation by allowing this to happen in one dish, but prevent transmission in the second by killing all the culture or otherwise. Do both instances qualify as being called an evolutionary change?

For those who dream of a better life, science has bad news: this is the best it is going to get. Our species has reached its biological pinnacle and is no longer capable of changing. That is the stark, controversial view of a group of biologists who believe a Western lifestyle now protects humanity from the forces that used to shape Homo sapiens. 'If you want to know what Utopia is like, just look around - this is it,' said Professor Steve Jones, of University College London, who is to present his argument at a Royal Society Edinburgh debate, 'Is Evolution Over?', next week. 'Things have simply stopped getting better, or worse, for our species.' This view is controvers…

---Start--of--Note-------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a much more speculative side topic to the main topic “Early Life! -- Life could only originate early or not at all.” If you question the thesis of the main topic, read the details and post a comment in the main topic – not here. This topic is a discussion under the assumption that the thesis in the main topic is right: Life could only originate early during meteorite bombardment (and not later). Life originated on Earth and not from another planet. This means we cannot deduct from early emergence of life that origin of life is a likely event. ---End--of--Note---------…

We like what we lack?? A very simplistic short version, but its the gist of what im trying to say. Japanese, Chinese, Philippines people in general would like the opposite to have blue or green eyes, because the countries themselves have a population that generally lacks this feature. More so than populations that have a lot of light-eyed people. Is this true? Is this testable? Can this possibly be appiled to other traits in general like height or even body type? My anecdotal evidence, which is the strongest kind,lol, is when i went to Asia, i noticed so many of the girls liked guys with light eyes and skin. This can be explained by possibly cultural more…

Hi! Im new here and i have many unsubstantiated ideas on evolution that im sure very people will disagree with,lol. I do, however, want to attempt to prove them, or even unprove them, and i can move on. The problem is lack of research and data, and i hoping to learn here on how, when, and where to test/ develop, and gain access to databases for info regarding my theories. My first one, out of hundreds of ideas in my head, is the hypothesis of genetic mirroring/dysmorphis between the two human sexes. Meaning that our genders are becoming more dysmorphic with time. Example: bone structure. I believe that our bone structuress are sexually dysmorphic, but ill pi…

Do those microrganisms that make us ill get illnesses themselves sometimes ?

Well, I recently learned that higher levels of oxygen in the past resulted in animals that are much bigger than similiar ones living today. What this makes me think are the plants, how were they at pre-historic times? Were the trees smaller when the dinosaurs dominated the earth? Did the trees get bigger as the carbon dioxide levels rose? Or did it only result in a biomass increase rather than individual size?

I was looking online but was unable to get a clear understanding of the differences between them. Would anyone be able to clarify them.. Thanks so much.

Ask anybody who smokes weed and they will tell you they like nature. The stereotypical stoner hippies always want to save animals and forests. I began smoking about 3 years ago on a casual basis and since I have taken an intrest in biology and evolution and I think it is because of weed. So you have to admit that there is something in weed that makes you like and appreciate nature. So there is something in the chemical THC that when the brain gets high on it over a period of time it slowing makes you like nature. But is this just a fluke of evolution that this plant gets this unusual chemical or is there something behind evolution...like a god. So how does sci…

For billions of years, the only bright objects in the night sky were stars or the moon. Night-flying moths used to navigate in a straight line. Today, the instinct to fly toward bright objects causes moths to exhaust themselves fluttering around streetlights and banging against brightly lit windowpanes. This behavior is not adaptive, so why does it persist?

Anybody who's ever had a kid knows how hard it is to convince them to eat nutritious meals. Even as adults, we still prefer fattening foods like burgers and pizza, and high-sugar foods like dessert and soda, over "nutritious" foods like broccoli or brusel sprouts; it's simply our matured sense of responsibility (juxtaposed to that of children) that cause us to eat the nutritous foods more often, at the expense of flavor. It's so consistent that we can eliminate any possibility of it being a fluke; it's a trait of the homo sapien species. Sure, there's the occasional exception, but then again, there's also the occasion person born with six fingers. However, when …

After the KT asteroid impact 65 million years ago, why did herbivours survive? If the asteroid threw molten rock high into the atmosphere, which rained down all over the Earth, that would have burned up all vegetation on the planet. That global-wide fire would have been followed by an "Asteroid Winter" and no plants would grow for months or years. What did the surviving mammal herbivours eat during this time? Herbivours should not have survived, and yet they did.

So I saw Jurassic Park 3D over the weekend. It is one of my favorite movies. While it is inaccurate in certain areas, I find the experience enjoyable and growing up the T-Rex was one of my favorite movie villains (in a sense). I read a few things where it said that dinosaurs had feathers rather than scales, so I got to reading about the Tyrannosaurus Rex and wondered if they had feathers too. I couldn't get a clear answer, some said yes, some said no. So which is it, did the T-Rex have feathers or not?

I have heard a lot of talk about how the development in language was a turning point in human evolution. But, why exactly was it ? And what areas of the brain got bigger due to language. On a side note, did other very 'human' traits such as culture, art, rationalism come about due to language ?