Ericchiriboga

E. O. Wilson (and others in the minority) consider humans to be eusocial, arguing that menopause constitutes a sterile caste, similar to worker ants. He also made the argument that it's (respectfully) possible that homosexuality is a eusocial caste or culture-imposed monastic orders are. My thoughts are as follows: I feel the homosexuality argument is a little flimsy, as it's been documented in non-eusocial animals (and seemingly appears too infrequently to be "caste"), and invoking something like a religious order as evidence of eusociality seems odd to me as it implies that some cultures are more eusocial than others. The postmenopausal argument is a little thought-provoking, but it's a little hard for me to conclude humans are eusocial solely on the basis of that. Does it mean that each family is then one little eusocial unit, comparable to a whole colony of ants? It's just so radically different from eusociality in every other form I know, genetically and behaviorally (I will admit I'm more familiar with it in ants and bees and not so familiar with it in shrimp and beetles). There are also a few other mammals like killer whales that undergo menopause as well; are they eusocial, too? I don't know, my natural inclination is to not really buy into this, but I'm open to having a discussion on the topic.

My mind was blown when I first learned about the epigenetic theory of aging, specifically that in rats we successfully "reversed the clock." I'm not saying that it's 100% true, because I'm not sure, but on some level I think it's going to revolutionize aging and medical science. But, you're essentially arguing that epigenetics is always just a manifestation of genetics. Which I feel is maybe a little a reductive. We inherit epigenetic patterns from our parents and have our epigenome influenced by the environment as well as our previously existing epigenome. I see what you're saying, but I just don't feel like it captures the breadth of it.

So, gram negative flagella have the L and P rings to help act as bushings in the LPS and peptidoglycan layers, respectively. Gram positive bacteria have a thick peptidoglycan layer, but no P ring to help the rod component rotate easily through it. I was just wondering if the biology of how it rotates despite the lack of a P ring is known- are there any known adaptions of the flagellum to allow this? Any elucidation to satisfy my curiosity would be nice.