immortal

It is just a matter of time where a group of scientists confirms it.

Links:

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/3/18/

There are many measurements that show that the fine structure constant is currently not changing and has not changed over a significant amount of time. There are a few unconfirmed ones where it might have had a slightly different value in the distant past, of which I am aware. To what experiment(s) are you referring?

Actuall I read it on webster world.

Here are some links:-

http://www.physorg.com/news3665.html

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~mim/res.html

http://moriond.in2p3.fr/EW/2003/Transparencies/2_Monday/2_2_afternoon/2_2_6_Murphy/M_Murphy.pdf

Immortal, I'm afraid the paper doesn't show what you claim it does. It is an important paper for evolution, because it shows 1) increase in information, 2) formation of a new trait by duplication of genes. The key sentences in the Abstract are: "We show that RNASE1B has evolved rapidly under positive selection for enhanced ribonucleolytic activity in an altered microenvironment, a response to increased demands for the enzyme for digesting bacterial RNA. At the same time, the ability to degrade double-stranded RNA, a non-digestive activity characteristic of primate RNASE1, has been lost in RNASE1B, indicating functional specialization and relaxation of purifying selection. Our findings demonstrate the contribution of gene duplication to organismal adaptation"

 

Look at the bold. That is the real key. Speciation requires reproductive isolation and this paper doesn't address that. There is no indication that RNASE1B causes reproductive isolation between duoc langur monkeys and any other species.

 

There are studies looking at the genes that do change during reproductive isolation:

 

1. M Nei and J Zhang, Evolution: molecular origin of species. Science 282: 1428-1429, Nov. 20, 1998. Primary article is: CT Ting, SC Tsaur, ML We, and CE Wu, A rapidly evolving homeobox at the site of a hybrid sterility gene. Science 282: 1501-1504, Nov. 20, 1998.

I apologise I was in a hurry and I do know that there are studies on speciation for example; the study of the phenomenon of ring species on some insect eating birds called warblers. Species is a human idea not a natural force. A individual is either undergoing speciation or has the potential for speciation. We are intermediates.

Species don't get selected. Individuals do. IOW, the entire genome.

 

I'll let Ernst Mayr explain the problem of Dawkins' reductionist version:

 

"Much confusion about this problem can be avoided by considering two separate aspects of the question: 'selection of' and 'selection for'. Let us illustrate this with the sickle cell gene. For the question 'selection of' the answer is the individual who either does or does not carry the sickle cell gene. In a malalrial region the answer to 'selection for' is the sickle cell gene, owing to the protection it gives to its heterogenous carriers. When one makes the distinction between the two questions, it becomes quite clear that a gene as such can never be the object of selection. It is only part of a geneotype, whereas the phenotypes of the individual as a whole (based upon the genotype) is the actual object of selection (Mayr 1997). ...

"The reductionist [Dawkins'] thesis that the gene is the object of selection is also invalid for another reason. It is based on the assumption that each gene acts independently of all other genes when making its contribution of genes to the properties of the phenotype. If this were true, the total contribution of genes to the making of the phenotype would be accounted for by the addition of the action of all individual genes. This assumption is referred to as the 'additive gene action' assumption. Indeed, some genes, perhaps even many genes, seem to act in such a direct and independent manner. If you are a male with the hemophiliac gene, you will be a bleeder. Many other genes, however, interact with each other. Gene B may enhance or reduce the effects of gene A. Or else the effects of gene A will not occur unless gene B is also present. Such interactions among genes are called epistatic interactions." Ernst Mayr What Evolution Is, pgs 126-127

 

 

 

Sorry, but "saving the colony" isn't the ultimate goal. Read EO Wilson's work. What the honeybee does is save its relatives. In terms of the Dawkins' reductionism you like, saving 2 siblings = saving yourself because those siblings will have the equivalent of your genes. The goal is saving their genes. It just so happens that the members of the colony are all siblings because the queen lays many eggs from one mating with a drone.

 

 

 

Natural selection acts on genes, not on species or individual. And similarly the 'fittest' that do the surviving are the fittest genes or rather the fittest genotypes, rather than the fittest individuals remember individuals die at the end; genes don't. I am not saying that you are wrong I do know that there is not a single gene that determines your height or hair colour its more like a gene complex that interacts with each other. The sefish gene theory looks on a genes point of view it does not rejects Darwinism but it adds to it. Dawkins says neither of the theories are right or wrong; they are equivalent.

You can look at evolution in two ways on a genes angle and on a organisms point of view.

Genes don't have control over the individual. Genes control by protein synthesis which is powerful but slow. But behaviour is very quick for example; you have to choose a mate and you know that you have to choose the best one's and reject the odd one's it would take time for the genes to make the choice but your instincts does it more quickly. Genes don't make choices for us but it will surely make us feel for the choices we make for example; novelty genes.

Well does an honey bee know to which species it belongs to and which are'nt. The honey bees don't save their relatives but save the colony and saving the colony is equivalent to saving their genes. Remember Evolution is not for the good of the species it is for the good of the genes.

I asked my physics teacher whether refractive index can be negative and he said that it can't be. But a group of scientist have made a meta material which has a negative R.I and it has made possible to make perfect lens which can focus at an area less than wavelenght of light. Do the laws in physics change often for example General relativity says it is imposible to travel faster than the speed of light but according to quantum mechanics it is possible for a photon to travel faster than the speed of light.

LINK:-

http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-6/p37.html

...

 

Quorum sensing is for the benefit of the bacteria species. That is, within the species.

 

But Biofilms do have different species of bacterias and also algae, protozoa and fungi etc.. which use Quorum sensing.

I think what Nirenberg and others did is that they synthesised poly chains like UGUGUGUG..... and they obtained the polypeptide chains with alternating amino acids (i.e. UGU- codes for cysteine and GUG- codes for Valine) and simillarly CACACACA..... and they obtained the codes for amino acids histidine (CAC) and threonine (ACA).

I do agree that without new technologies for gene therapy and a universal vaccine for cancer the probability of me getting attacked by cancer is very huge. I know that the road to achieve immortality has some ups and downs. There are genes like KLOTHO and MORF4, there are antioxidants, there are stem cell enhancers but I think these things are not sufficient to achieve immortality.

Yeah even I heard that. The fine structure constant is changing i.e. alpha = e*2/hc. If this constant is changing than one of the other constant should change. The value of alpha is 1/137. But there is no abrupt change and its just 1% true and 99% fluke. I think it is the speed of light which is changing. I don't know much about cosmos.

First, Dawkins is wrong with selfish gene. Genes cannot be the unit of selection.

Second, natural selection can never produce anything purely altruistic. There must always be a selfish component. Darwin himself stated this and used pure altruism as a way to falsify natural selection.

 

Fifth, quorum sensing is not symbiosis, but rather an intermediate step to multicellularity. The bacteria are acting somewhat as a multicelled organism. And there is obviously a selfish component to quorum sensing. Each and every single bacteria benefits from it in some form -- either in gaining access to food or in avoiding death.

First, everything makes perfect sense when you think at a gene level, evolution is all about survival of the genes, the mutations happens to genes and the genes (i.e.individual) with positive mutations gets selected and not the species. The species is selected only after the individual has passed this mutant genes.

Here is a link which suggests that positive selection of a single gene can create new species.

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v30/n4/abs/ng852.html

Second, yes there is always a selfish component, for example:- why do male honey bees sting even after knowing that losing their fangs would kill them, they sting because they are sterile they can't produce offsprings. So saving the colony is their ultimate goal.

Fifth, Bacterias communicate with each other with chemical substances called 'pheromones'. I do agree that they act as multicellular but you can't say this has 'not symbiosis' any mutual relationship with different species for the welfare of each other is called symbiosis. Symbiosis is not only seen in bacterias, for example:- Quorum sensing bacterias stay in symbiosis with fishes the bacterias provide light for the fish to catch prey and the fish gives shelter. I do agree that this is not purely altruistic.

I think Symbiosis evolved bit earlier than everyone would have thought. The fact that the mitochondria have their own DNA suggests that once these were independently living and somehow got inside the eucaryotic cells and exchanged genes. The endosymbiosis theory explains that.

E.coli doesn't always stay in symbiosis with the humans if it gets access to the urinary bladder it causes a disease called cystitis. E.coli has to maintain its ecosystem (i.e. host) in order to stay alive and replicate. Quorum sensing is a wonderful example of symbiosis. Genes sometimes can be altruistic.

that is...well...not completely correct. there is a reason that cells do not have a telomerase. if a normally non-proliferative tissue get by whatever means proliferative in a cancerous way, it's proliferative potency is limited to the normally lacking telomerase. if you artifically give all your cells a telomerase, cancer prevalence among your cells will drastically increase.

 

may i ask what relation you have to the topic? are you a student?

Yes I am a student willing to take up molecular biology as my future career.

I know there are different causes for cancer and plenty of mutated genes that lead to the abnormalities but if we can somehow prevent the primary tumour cell from spreading to other cells, the cancerous cell would die as it is alone. It takes a number of mutations for cells to be cancerous and it is not a problem if these cells die as cells are not very important (because new cells will arise all the time) and coming to my topic now I do agree that adding telomerase will be a bad idea because there is lot of uncertainity in it.

our cells also produce telomerase-inhibitase, which slows down the action of telomerase.

 

this means that telomerase can keep up with normal cell duplication, but not with cancer's duplication; anything that inhibits or removes telomerase-inhibitase (and thus allows telomerase to keep up with cancers replication) is, in actual fact, a (secondary?) carsonogen.

 

so yeah, making there effectively be more telomerase action would probably be a bad idea, possibly even over the short-term.

 

with ageing, is it actually anything to do with telomerase action that iliminates telomeres?

 

when a telomere is copied, it's length goes up or down by a few repetitions.

when you're old and lose your telomeres, is that because your telomerase isn't functinoing properly, or is it because, given enough time, you'll get several duplications in a row where the telomere just happens to shrink?

Telomerase has nothing to do with the abnormalities that occur in cancer cells it just helps the cells to divide infinitely. The abnormalities occur due to some mutations in the cells.

Sooner or later medicine will enter a new century with innovative technologies evoving all the time.

Here is a link of a company which uses electroporation technology to deliver genes safely and efficiently.

http://www.inovio.com/technology/genedelivery.htm

Genes "set up" our bodies for us, and included in this "set up" is the capacity for change later in life, the capacity to learn new things.

Genes set up our bodies for themselves. Evolution is all about survival of the genes nor the individual or the species.

The thing which differentiates us from the rest of the animals is that we have a highly developed culture. So any animal which has a high culture will be the most intelligent one. A baby entering a new world does'nt know anything about General Relativity as Insane_alien said 'memes have to be taught'. It looks to me as if the genes lose control over the individual (not entirely though) after it has entered the new world. There is no gene that says go sky diving or play rugby. If genes don't make choices for us then there should be something else?

I know its hard to say that evolution is universal unless we find life elsewhere. But if evolution is not universal then how the organisms would look like do they have wheels instead of legs or are we going to see the same stuffs again?

We can use nonviral delivery systems such as polyethylenimine(PEI), a synthetic polymer which can deliver gene safely into the cells. Since the efficiency of this polymer is low it is a long way from implementation.

Evolution is NOT creating life from non-life. Evolution happens after life exists.

 

But yes, evolution by natural selection is probably universal. I can't see any reason why living organisms would limit the number of offspring to only what the environment can support. Also, since it is impossible to completely faithfully reproduce any genetic material (second law of thermodynamics forbids it), there is going to be variation among individuals.

 

So, with variation and competition for scarce resources, natural selection is inevitable.

I think I am too young to argue with you but, evolution kicks in when something replicates. On earth the replicator is a gene (lot depends on whether you accept this gene has living or non living) evolution does'nt start after the over production of the genes. It does not matter whether it is surrounded by many other genes or it is alone it has to adapt itself to the environment to survive however the competition will be huge if it is surrounded by other genes. This selfish behavior of the gene created the things which we see around us. Its difficult to define life without evolution.

If you say that living organisms will not limit the number of offsprings they produce then why do humans limit it. If a human produces a single offspring and if the child dies out without spreading his genes then this would be disaster. Don't you think cultural evolution has diverted the path of biological evolution and I am afraid that one day memes might take over the genes

except, that telomerase tends to promote cancer as well, at least in humans... So much for the fountain of youth.

 

Even, with telomerase, this just means the cells don't age as quickly, not that they'll live forever.

You can always switch off the gene as soon as the average telomere length is achieved and prevent cancerous cells.

Is these ideas going to work.

As we all know that the life span of chromosomes depend on their telomere length. With the help of RNAinterference can we switch on the gene in humans which synthesises the enzyme telomerase and live forever.

Or else

You can overexpress the Klotho gene to produce more klotho protein to increase your life span.

All the organisms on earth have the same genetic code and if life evolved simultaneosly at different places then their should be different genetic codes.This makes a strong point in favour of theory of panspermia.

My second point is the triplet codon UAG as we all know is a terminator but in some methanogenic bacterias it codes for the amino acid pyrrolysine.Is this vast randomness which makes the evolution going.

Is Evolution is universal? Since evolution occured on earth it doesn't mean that on a different alien planet evolution should occur. There can be different designs to create life from not life.

Another interesting discovery two planets host to a binary system called CM Draconis having strong evidence for alien life.

Links

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2001/jan/m07-017.shtml

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2001/02/41483?currentPage=all

Thanks swansont that was a good link.

The below link will give the information of the planet which I am talking about. Sorry about the previous one.

Link:

http://arxiv.org/find/grp_q-bio,grp_cs,grp_physics,grp_math,grp_nlin/1/all:+AND+draconis+cm/0/1/0/all/0/1