Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

After two decades of examining different types of organisms through a microscope at the lake in Norway, scientists claim to have discovered one of the oldest organisms. The findings were believed to be the oldest human ancestor believed to have existed millions of years ago. Scientists found that single cell organism that has evolved its findings suspect approximately one billion years ago. Cells are not the categories of living organisms such as animals, plants, parasites, fungi and algae, but the cells of early human species. "We have found a branch of the tree of life (structural classification of living things) are not known to live in this lake. It is unique,…

I am currently studying human evolution. There are questions currently puzzling me about the conclusions reached by archeologists from the evidence found by studying ancient skeletons First a few musings.. Dogs have been bred for a couple of thousand years or so, a trivial period in evolutionary terms, yet they show a huge variation in shape, size, behaviours etc. I am aware that there are two forms of selection at work, natural selection and human selection, but it seems to me that hominids dont exhibit the same drastic variation in their organism even over vastly greater peridos of time. Over the period of time since Sahelanthropus tchadensis (say 7 million …

Hi, I have been given the following paper by my course tutor to review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19377097 Having read it I have become slightly puzzled by it. http://www.jbc.org/content/284/27/18377.full What I couldn't work out is why when the researchers had created such a unique condition wasn't an evolutionary and adaptive explanation given in the paper rather than just assume that this 'zinc concentrating' mechanism was common and innate to all strains of E. Coli. After all the condition they created would be so rare in nature that there would almost never be a reason for it to exist? So why should it be considered useful to regard it as common? Was it…

Are there any currently living species that could be considered a common ancestor to any other species? Also, have any actual common ancestors in the fossil record been identified? If not, is it because the concept of a common ancestor is more of a theoretical determination? In other words, we know that evolutionary theory requires common ancestors but we have no way to make an absolute identification and can only suppose that a particular fossilized creature could potentially be a common ancestor to something else?

most creatures use gestures and body launguge companied by chemical language ( Pheromones , Psychedlic Compounds ) and possible senses that we have yet to discover or understand. Vocal lanuage is common of most higher familys of animalea . And Plants and fungi can possibly communicate from plant to animal via psychedelic compounds , but is there any information on plant to plant synntax ? Fungi to plant ? fungi ti fungi?Are all chemicals a form of communication. such as a chemical setting off a certian receptor thus causing a recation. i beilve all is communication including the synapes between nerouns . im gonna keep researching and see what i can find.

How was the contact between human species during the evolution? Can you suggest me research sources about it?

I saw many videos on youtube on animals mating. It looks like animals have sex for only one purpose and its to re-produce. However, human beings have sex for fun. They have sex with opposite sex, same sex and children too just to have fun. Although they found gayness in other animals too but I think they are just confused for the moment and eventually they found opposite sex to reproduce. Human create more ways to have sex such as different sex position. The most distinct sex is oral sex. You only see this behavior in humans so far. Is this feature also a another distinct feature make human a human? Human like to play sex and have long blow jobs instead of making babies…

Hi there. A question came to my mind another day, and I decided to ask around so that I would know whether somebody studied this topic or not. I tried google, but thought it might be easier to try a forum. Here it goes. Anal sex demands that the rectum is large enough to accommodate the penis. Because it is a so widespread practice, for example, see inmates in prisons, ordinary couples, etc., I suppose it has accompanied the human race since it beginnings. It seems, also, that that "ice man" found in Europe and that lived some 5,000 years ago had sperm in his rectum, which proves that he was either gay or raped. Then, I think that in the early past of the human ra…

Tropical forest biochemistry, the driving force in human evolution. The evolution of the large human brain remains one of biology’s greatest unsolved mysteries. Primates generally have a relatively large brain to body ratio, apes, the extinct hominids and particularly humans have taken this trait to extreme. No theory to date has come close to explaining this phenomena. Some of the key elements The relatively large brain to body ratio exhibited by primates generally The continued expansion of the brain from apes through the extinct hominids to humans. The rapid and accelerating expansion of the brain in the later phase of human evolution. The abr…

Hi. Is there any living organism with a wheel+shaft-like appendage ? There is feathers, cilia, tails, joints, paws, hooks, scales, wings, hair, and dozens more, but seems mother nature has not invented the wheel.

I'm trying to find 1.the latest known ancestor we have that looks more like a primitive monkey (or a new world monkey or a lemur or a sifaka or any monkey with a prehensile or non-prehensile tail, preferibly prehensile) than like a human ancestor... 2.I am also searching for the latest common ancestor of gibbons and humans, 3.the latest known common ancestor of gorilla and humans, 4.the latest known common ancestor of spider monkeys and humans, 5.the latest known common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans and 6.the latest known common ancestor of orangutans and humans, maybe 7.the latest known common ancestors of bili apes and humans too, and …

Hi all. I have always had an interest in evolution, particularly human evolution. No family and friends are really interested in this area, so it's nice to find a forum to read and exchange views. I'm fairly widely read on the topic, and have a particular interest in Alfred Wallace, and his thoughts/beliefs. I'm also wondering if there are any museums/exhibits/sites which can be viewed by an everyday fellow like myself, either in Austraila or Asia. I would love to visit sites which have helped develop this theory. Thanks very much, Mark

This is often used as "evidence" against evolution by creationists. Obviously we know evolution happened due to multiple evidences and facts, but I have looked this up and none of the sights explained it to my satisfaction. I'm 15, love the science of evolution, and want to understand it more. Plus, almost everyone I know knows I'm an atheist, and they are always challenging me to debates. They know I don't have all the answers, and when I can't answer a question, they take it as some kind of huge victory. This annoys me. How did it happen? If two animals depend on each other for survival, how did they evolve? Were they both already there, and then something happened …

How mutation helps in evolution?

Hi there, I was wondering what peoples thoughts were on how 'culture' emerged in Homo sapiens in reference to evolution. How did it emerge, and when did it emerge? ie- was it due to language development, physiological development, increased cognitive function or tool use etc that caused culture to emerge? I know it is difficult to define culture, but just curious to what everyones thoughts are? Yaz

Hello there. I am a non-scientist in search of some answers. I wholeheartedly accept evolution as science fact. Those more learned on the subject than I have assured me that it happened entirely apart from an intelligent designer and I take them at their word. So I am not "one of those," but I am having some trouble wrapping my head around a few particulars about evolution. 1) How exactly did single-celled organisms evolve into multi-celled organisms (complex organisms?)? I can't wrap my head around this question. Presumably there was a "first," complex organism, how did this creature make the transition if evolution is such a gradual process. 2) How d…

What is life?

On my walk home this afternoon I was wondering if humans will evolve dramatically or even further than we have already, not acknowleding the evolution knowledge and technological of course. I was just thinking on the premise of natural selection. Have our emotions evolved too much for our physiology to evolve or change any more dramatically away from its current state, what factors could affect this evolution? I'm not sure if this will make sense so please say if it doesn't.

I scraped the upper epidermis of a petal of Saintpaulia ionantha (African Violet) with a scalpel and placed the sample in a glass slide with water, put a glass coverslip on top. I used magnifications of 60x, 150x and 600x. These are the results. If you found this topic interesting, please just click on the ( + ) sign. Thank you for recougnising my work.

Hi, I am struggling with a phrase in a text book I am reading at a section discussing gene duplication (note this is not a question for amateurs). The phrase reads "the Genomes of many jawed vertebrates appear to have four diploid sets of many major genes." I have read this phrase several times, and for what ever reason it just isn't sinking in what it means? I mean I understand that the chromosomes of almost all living things are diploid in one way or another, but what does "four diploid sets of many major genes mean in reality? Would anyone care to expand on this?

I just thought of something this morning regarding biology in women, and female gorillas. Women have 2 breasts, not 4 teats like on a cow's utter. Were women meant to give birth to twins? It seems to make more sense considering they only have 2 breasts. If that's the case, why can cattle only have 1 calve each year when they have 4 teats?

At the risk of making myself sound silly, I have the following question: I am currently taking evolution in university, and am having trouble grasping a concept. With self-fertilzation, I can understand why there would eventually be a deficiency of heterozygotes (ie: A1A2 self-fert will continually have a chance to add A1A1 and A2A2 offspring to population, along with those A1A1 and A2A2 plants self-fertilizing themselves). For some reason, however, I am having difficulties in envisioning how inbreeding (in animals) actually leads to a deficiency in heterozygosity in a population. I know that it happens through inbreeding and assortative mating, but not WHY. Could som…

Hi all...I am back with another population genetics question. For the record, this is for my course in university, "Principles in Evolutionary Biology", and population genetics is the topic for our first midterm. My instructor is quite poor, and has a very thick accent so it makes things difficult to understand. To top it off, my book briefly explains the things he wants us to know, yet dives very deep into mathematics, most of which we are not required to know. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could answer some questions for me, based on this figure: Why does the allele frequency increase so quickly when the advantageous allele is dominant? The best I c…

Would this work if I leave a huge bucket of water floating in a vacuum in space and say I included a bunch of other elements like carbon and nitrogen (and anything essential for life) into the bucket then if I came back in 500 billion years, would there be life in the bucket?

I am not a religious person that believes the story of how life was created here by a God but I also do not accept from science that no living entity from bacteria to humans ended up with their traits by chance or lucky accidents. We are just beginning to understand the behavior of nature and while much does not make sense to science, the behavior right down to the cellular level is providing lots of evidence of many defenses in place inside at the cellular level and also at the species level to enhance their chances of survival. When science removes the mysteries of life processes and are able to explain the process in detail and them eventually understand the "why…