Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

I am beginning my undergraduate studies for a Masters in Social Work and am taking psychology 201. This has us studying the basic structures of the mind and my reading is leading me to questions not addressed yet within our course work. Has anyone established an evolutionary benefit of the brain's neural crossover effect? Everything provides a benefit it would seem, so what theory's have been put forward for the left brain controlling the right hand and so on? Also, how far down the evolutionary track does this trait go ? I know that they have discovered many animals literally sleep with one eye open (dolphins, ducks) and that this has to do with hemispheri…

For mutations to occur evolution they have to be in the germ line for natural selection to take this process from here. Please help me with the math: My understanding is there are 50 and 500 billion mutations in humans in every generation. At 1/10 of 1% rate there is 2 to 20 million mutations per year. Out of these numbers how many actually occur in the germ line? The average female produces 2 million eggs at birth but by the time she can reproduce she only has 200 and 300 viable eggs in her lifetime. On average women produce 2 children in their lifetime. I don't see how natural selection works in evolution regarding mutations. If anything it works…

Please correct me if I am wrong here it is my understanding that during the dinosaur era that they dominate the entire planet and that the only mammals that existed were ground dwellers. This makes sense to me because given their size I cannot see any other species being able to exist at the same time as them except ones that were night creatures. Here is where it gets confusing to me. Dinosaurs evolved birds. Okay I can see the body of birds could resemble a small dinosaur lineage could produce a bird over time. Now since dinosaurs are considered a reptile and only reptiles can produce reptiles then no mammal species can originate from reptiles during this tim…

Hey, first post in quite a while. Well, I was wondering, do girls, or females of any species, share the same drive for sex as males? I've seen quite a bit of talk about it, but is there any legit scientific studys on this? Thanks guys. Just out of curiosity.

Ok this is my first post on the forum, I apologise for the length, but the topic is an emotive one so I wanted to explain my interest in it and why I feel it ought to be discussed. I'm not hostile to people disagreeing with me, but please refrain from personal slander or emotive irrelevance. I'm interested in having a serious and constructive debate, not trading barbs or having to explain that no I dont admire Adolf Hitler or support any policy of ethnic cleansing or human breeding program . Anyway... What reason is there is there to believe humans to be equal? In particular, what reason is there to believe that human populations that have evolved and adapted…

Intelligent Design and Transitional Fossils - by Calilasseia. Let's start with so-called "irreducible complexity", shall we? First of all, let's dismiss the canard that this was alighted upon by Michael Behe. It wasn't. He simply stole the concept, and tried to present it as a purported "problem" for evolutionary biology. Which becomes hilarious when you realise that the evolutionary biologist Hermann Joseph Müller alighted upon the idea of "irreducibly complex" structures not as a "problem" for evolutionary biology, but as a natural outcome of evolutionary processes. Here's how it works: it's called the Müllerian Two Step. Step 1: Add a component; Step…

Has any life been found in space? Anything at all, viruses included.

Does anyone know the species of this mushroom which I found on the on the UT Knoxville campus. Its morphology is curiously suspicious and I suspect that humans might be involved, somehow, in its reproduction.

So in my invertebrate class a while ago we were discussing brain parasites and I couldn't help thinking about 28 days later. Maybe it's because I watched a fringe episode a few weeks before with a brain parasite infecting humans. Some parasites will affect the behavior of their secondary hosts to make their way over to a target host for example; toxoplasm will affect mice to be attracted to cat pee which they obviously wouldn't be otherwise and therefore be meals for the cats... we talked about a few others. Now I can't claim that I have the greatest background in parasites but what if... A brain parasite somehow evolved to be transmitted through blood and saliva through …

Okay, so what makes us so different...to go so far from the jungle... Bipedalism, language, opposable thumb...okay, what else. What allowed us to go out of Africa?

I was wondering what if there was a man that could live forever. Would he evolve?

I have been looking for weeks for a good answer to this question, and have yet to find one that makes total sense. Why are humans the only primate to lose its hair? One of the best explanations that I read to date said that when humans were almost extinct we resorted to being fishermen, and as aquatic apes it was more beneficial to lose the hair in favor of sweat glands. Another good explanation was sexual selection.. less hair meant more skin contact which heightened sexual pleasure, and as emerging intelligent thinkers and sex machines, it was sexually selected into us. Would love to know what others think.

I thought id satrt a thread... and as a starter im a little confused with the sections of the inner brain

Is there a way to possibly speed up an animals evolution?

This is my first post here. I will post an intro soon, but first I would like to ask if anybody has more detail on the Lenski experiments with bacteria. In particular I am interested in the increased size of the bacteria noted in all of the cultures, as apposed to the more famous result re: the metabolic improvement to digest citrate. I haven´t had much luck with googling for it, as I get swamped with this more compelling aspect of the research. I was reading the The Greatest Show On Earth, and Dawkins explained the Lenski research, mentioning the original spurt of size increase. He alluded to there being no clear explanation for this, and a hypothesis immediately came to…

Okay if natural selection only selects the most beneficial mutations to the organism, then how does sky diving, or skiing, or even wearing a condom benefit humans. In a way humans are going against their nature, we engage in tasks that are not beneficial to our own survival, using a condom ensures that we don't pass on our genetic material, when clearly natural selection should have programmed us into sex maniacs to ensure that we propagate and survive. And why do people adopt other peoples kids? Some birds actually through out their cousins from the nest to ensure their own survival. Humans are a complete 360 from what nature should have made us. So, whats going…

As I think about Protopterus aethiopicus, I think that maybe while undergoing its evolution and possible genome size increases through that evolution... that maybe it picked up characteristics of making proteins that other species in the world don't. Perhaps it has certain anatomical and physiological characteristics that other animals do not, and those aspects may be locked up in its genome (perhaps unexpressed). Are these things a possibility? Am I giving the the Protopterus aethiopicus too much credit for having such a large genome while still being able to live?

Just a figment of my wild brain.... Is it possible for a rodent to change its teeth from this to this? to

Hello,this is my first time here.I am here to ask a question about carbon dating.I understand that it is not accurate over about 60,000 years in the past,but I am seeing creation sites trumpeting a situation in which supposed dino bones were given to Oak Ridge lab without telling them what they were and they came back dated at 16,000 years.Every site seems to be repeating this one incident verbatim.I have looked on the net for an evolutionary response to this,but have not found it.Anyone know about this?Was it really dino bones,or did they hoax the lab?Does trying to use a method that only works back to 60K years ago give whacky results when tried on things millions of ye…

Hey all, I'm taking a speech class this quarter and for the persuasive speech, I submitted my topic as 'Why Life Most Likely Exists Elsewhere in the Cosmos'. Whether it be microbial life or actual sentient life with comparable or greater intelligence, I'm not sure, but with the sheer size of our galaxy (400 billion stars) along with the size of the universe itself, filled with outrageous amounts of galaxies, the probability for at least some kind of independent development of basic microbial life seems great. So, one of the main reasons for me is the fact that we evolved. We're the products of (roughly) 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution. Therefore, seeing…

According to Science Illustrated [Nov./Dec. 2008 AD], pg. 33: So, sleep cycles are ubiquitous to all Earth animals. And, all smarter & more neurologically advanced species need more sleep. And, all Herbivores have evolved to sleep less, surely b/c: Herbivorous diets require far more time to consume Herbivores, consuming less protein, typically possess smaller brains So, surely, this is why the huge dinosaurian Sauropods had such small, practically pea-sized brains — they were so big, they literally could never stop to sleep, their round-the-clock gorging requiring them to simplify their brains & neurology, as much as possible, so they could keep…

Its important to notate that Evolution requires an increase in the amount of information of a genome, and we simply do not see that anywhere. I'll give you an example that is commonly used for Evolution and is not truely Evolution. Antibacterial resistance. When bacteria becomes immune to penicillin, it doesn't become something new for one, it simply produces a lot of penicilllinase. After the massive amounts of producing the penicillinase, it will become immune to the penicillin, however, when put back into the wild, the bacteria will die off, as it is not fit to survive. The same would be said of the rabies virus if your example were to actually occur.

Its hard to explain without drawings. Evolution happened with intelligence as well as everything else. I have pieced together 3 versions I believe exist. I believe I came across some scientist with simlar results. Simple intelligence External inputs feed directly to the sensors causing a reaction which spurs an action. Similar to a plant bending to light. intermediate intelligence External inputs feed directly to the sensors causing a reaction emotionally tagged information feeds into an organizational area which can also effect an action. Actions created can be picked up by the sensors again creating a feedback loop. Most animals Advanced intel…

An excellent presentation of genomic data from professor Dennis Venema, an evangelical biologist at Trinity Western University, on evolution vs 'alternatives'. CqsvEwByKU0 I'm not sure I've seen a more concise presentation. What do others make of it?

Here's a semantic question that 150 years of anthropology hasn't been able to agree on an answer to. Let's see if we can do it! For some reason, we feel the need to look back into the fossil record and point to some individual and say "why, there is the first human!" Obviously there are problems with doing that in a phyletic lineage and questions as to how meaningful any such "first human" could really be, but that's not what's at issue here. Obviously people are going to do it, so what distinguishing features do you look for before you pull out the "h" word? How far are you willing to extend it? Is any biped a human? Only members of the genus Homo? Personally I l…