Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology

I have an issue on Natural Selection: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0508653103v1 The new study – published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – provides empirical support for the proposition that natural selection is a general force behind the formation of new species by analyzing the relationship between natural selection and the ability to interbreed in hundreds of different organisms – ranging from plants through insects, fish, frogs and birds – and finding that the overall link between them is positive. The question is this (bolded in red). Comments much appreciated. It's a forum debate, and I am simply asking wha…

This is my theory about where human evolution is headed. It makes perfect sense to me, from all that I've learned about biology and evolution. I cannot prove it, and I would approve of any attempt to prove or disprove it. I also welcome any criticism or comments. I wrote it as if it were known and true, but just understand that it is only a theory. _____________________________________________________________ In the history of life, organisms have evolved by process of elimination, meaning only the fit survive. If an organism is born with a mutated gene that works to it's disadvantage, it dies before it reproduces. This process makes each species do 2 things. One, be…

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/26/chicken.egg/ Duh. I could have told them that.

Localy in the town of Turner, Maine a strange looking animal was killed, apparently by a car. State wildlife officals, and animal controll officers declined to look at the remains. Since the animal was discovered it was believed to be the "Mysterious Beast" that has been firightening Turner residents, mauling dogs, and been the subject of local legend for half a generation. Untill now other sugestions for the identitiy of the "Beast" ranged from ordinary fishers and coyotes to fantastic beasts that seem right out of a D&D monster manuel. I tried to upload a picture I scanned of the newspaper to this post, but it was too big. I had to save it as a monochrome so it ha…

I understand that the human jaw and teeth are becoming smaller and weaker over recent generations because modern food is soft and mushy and easy to eat (please correct me if I'm wrong in this premise). What is the process that is causing our jaws to diminish? It can't be evolution can it? Evolution would be where a single individual was born with a mutation resulting in a smaller jaw. If the smaller jaw gave the individual an advantage over others, then this trait would be passed on to subsequent generations. But I can't imagine that is what is happening with our jaws. Please enlighten me. I don't understand how reducing the use of a characteristic would caus…

Suppose the neurological mechanisms that underpin belief were degenerate rather than adaptive. There is significant evidence that the dominant side of our brain is primarily responsible for our sense of identity. There is also significant evidence that our identity is constructed from concepts and ideas (not reality) particularly those that we are exposed to when young. Attempting to change those concepts that are part of our identity becomes increasingly difficult to near impossible with age. This is highlighted in a paper by Ramachandran http://kaleidos.org.uk/PDF/Ramachandran%20VS%20Evol.pdf I have proposed that this condition is the consequence of a relatively recen…

Ok so why do all primates have a bone in the penis, but humans do not? I am assuming since all other primates share this feature that it was given to them by a common ancestor. So why and when did humans lose this penis bone? Do hominid fossils have a penis bone? I would think it would be an advantage to have the ability to always be "erect."

Here are the results of a poll of several nations which asked if humans share a common ancestor with all other life on earth: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207858,00.html Does the US seem disproportionately low?

I don't usually read my dads Popular Mechanics but the issue he just got had a front cover titled "Are we alone". One thing I found interesting was this quote on page 73... " In 1969 the Apollo 12 crew found a common Earth bacterium had survived for three years inside Surveyor 3's stranded camera... with no atmosphere, no water, no energy or nutrients, and a temperature at minus 400F." Cool huh? Bee

What is the advantage of a serrated edge on a leaf over a smooth edged leaf ? i.e. what is the purpose of these serrations ?.

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr04.html Nylon is an artificial material first made in the 1930's. It is found nowhere else in nature. You can imagine the surprise on the face of two Japanese scientists when they discovered bacteria that are capable of digesting nylon. The bacteria, Flavobacterium, do this by a specific protein named nylonase. Since nylon is only around 60 years old, this is a benefitial mutation which gave rise to a novel characteristic in a very short ammount of time. I have not been able to get my hand on the acctual paper by the two Japanese scientists and the information on the internet is rare at best.Despite my best efforts, the …

Hi everybody, I have been pondering the whether and when I should post this for a while, but I have decided to get it over and done with. I was watching a very interesting Mindshock documentary on Channel 4 more than a month back titled Transplanting Memories. Ppl living within the UK may be vaguely aware of these documentaries. I even bothered to make notes on the documentary, which lo and behold; I am now going to use to write this post. Basically the program was centred on the changes in mental behaviour and personality of patients after their operations. Many underwent lifestyle changes, and also adopted the memories of their doners. For example one woman fo…

http://www.neoeugenics.com/ 1. Human intelligence is largely hereditary. 2. Civilization depends totally upon innate intelligence. Without innate intelligence, civilization would never have been created. When intelligence declines, so does civilization. 3. The higher the level of civilization, the better off the population. Civilization is not an either-or proposition. Rather, it's a matter of degree, and each degree, up or down, affects the well-being of every citizen. 4. At the present time, we are evolving to become less intelligent with each new generation. Why is this happening? Simple: the least-intelligent people are having the most children. …

In evolution, things happen because of mutations in the dna and therefore some feature is created that means that the new organism has an advantage over other, however what i don't understand is that with a complex structure like the eye how would it form, as surely it would take mutiple mutations of the genetic code and just one of them would be useless to the organism and would actually make it worse off therefore meaning it would be at a disadvantage over others of the same speices. This would mean that the animal is killed more easily and won't pass on that information to the next speicies so a structure like the eye would never get a chance to develop. Can an…

I know that the title itself makes it a speculation or pseudoscience thread,but today,they showed a dragon fossil on discovery channel.I am so confused.They were talking about fire breathing and flying creatures.They have theories to prove that they could fly and breath fire.(Weired!!!).By they I mean the group that discovered it.I don't remember the names though.I am so totally confused.How can it be?Why it never made a BIG news.Also,I did not find anything on net. How can they show something on TV with such claimes if they don't have proofs?And what about the fossils that were showen?They were complete fossils.Nothing was missing.All the detailes from teeth to wings to …

In 1844 he wrote a brief sketch of it, 1858 he writes and publishes the full book form...it sells like hotcakes. The title Origin of Species. the ideas are bascially... 1. Descent with modification. 2. Populations remain the same, but food is sparce, thus struggle of the fittest. 2. Genectic passing on of admirable traits which allow higher chance of survival...or natural selection. He pauses to catch his breath and further states that everything came from a common ancestor. Countryside parsons and minsters, most of whom were amatuer naturalists, biologists, and geologists, have NO problems with Darwin's ideas. They see it all the time. For them God …

I am going to be the devils advocate here and ask some questions. First of its believed that modern man originated from Africa and branched of from a common ape like ancestor. I always hear creationists and other people who don’t believe in evolution asking the question why are apes not evolving today. I know the answer to that, that’s not my question, what I wanted to ask was, how did first humans branch of from other apes. My guess would be that they were separated from other apes and were met with different conditions. Africa seems to have the same type of natural conditions all around. I would have thought that all the apes at the time would be evolving equally. I…

Since the emergence of our ability to understand and manipulate the world, humans have been changing the face of the planet. It is not just ourselves that we are affecting. In the same way that natural selection has been applying pressure on life for millions of years, humans have been doing so more recently. An important difference between natural and Homo sapien selection (H.S.S) is that the later is happening at a much faster rate. Our ability to travel around the globe in short period of time has altered many ecosystems around the world. Rats, cats, dogs, foxes etc are all common companions to traveling humans. Once transferred to a foreign location, local animal…

I was wondering about the canine or fangs that humans have (The teeth right before you hit the molars). Or is that just random people. Mine are slightly pointed, so naturally I was wondering if that came from ape ancestry? and how far back can we trace back our evolution, I don't see a reason for apes to have fangs, but thats just me.

Here is an interesting article from the University of Maine website. It is about a reasearcher from Maine studying gene flow and microevolution in Trinidad. The subjects of his studies are guppies, small fish that live in the rivers. Apparently they show varyation among seperate populations. The guppies near areas with high numbers of preadators are all light colors, but ones further up the river and above the waterfalls, where predidation is light, are brighter colors. The article seems to indicate that microevolution can bring about large changes bringing about new speciation faster than normal. http://www.umaine.edu/features/archive/v11/evolving.htm

Okay, perhaps I understood things wrong, but I have a phylosophical question regarding evolution. It started with me and a friend discussing evolution and world population, and we ended up discussing the reprecussions of human advancements on our evolutionary process. Mainly, the genetic view. Now, I'm not talking about morality here - it is obvious that the moral issue is quite charged, and may give a different answer than the physical and phylosophical answer. We ended up discusscing this issue: One of the main ways evolutionary processes - as I understand it - is the inevitable creation of mutations; we don't have to discuss "radical" mutations (like a chi…

Severian thinks so! If we were to translate his die example into a population, it would be one with 6 members, each having an equally likely chance of death. If this were the case with a population of animals, and the chances of any given member dying were completely random, we would see no trends because there would be no selection. Every single member of the population, regardless of what traits they have, would have an equally likely chance of dying. Severian, this is ridiculous... natural selection cannot be compared to the rolling of a die.

Sea slugs are pretty cool. Some of them look amazing. They do some really interesting things like incorporate chloroplasts and cnidocytes from their food into their body. They also incorporate many chemicals, which makes them a source of pharmacologically active compounds. They must have alot of admirers because they have a great forum that I happened across recently. http://www.seaslugforum.net/ If you have some free time there are some great pictures on there.

I’m a pupil of science. To me the creationist views of the world’s organized religions is ridiculous; but to say that life is definitely the result of random events as most scientists believe is not so easy for me to see. Evolution is definitely happening and it must take a lot of will power not to see it. I have not yet however come across any proof, or have been able to rationalize how a pool of complex chemicals could become “alive”. I do know that there is no clear line that divides what is alive and what isn’t, but there is one thing that does set life apart from all other things in the universe; and that is “purpose”. If you take life out of the equation, all other …

I recently read a book by David Grinspoon, who is a comparative planetologist for NASA. His book was titled "Lonely Planets" The Natural Philosophy of alien life. Using real scientific knowledge and the history of belief in extraterrestrials he presents a number of ideas and facts in order to educated readers and encourage them to speculate on the subject. At one point in the book he states that the characteristic of carbon to form long polymers is necessary in life as we know it, then he goes on to say that this property of carbon is shared by sulfur. Under certain conditions sulfer can form polymer compunds, molton sulfur is found in abundance on Io, and l…