Paralith

you want more blood flow to an injured area because it more quickly and efficiently delivers the cells that will prevent infection and aid in healing, such as the formation of a scab (platelets). stimulated HCl production probably leads to quicker digestion of whatever food is in your stomach, and to the absorption of the nutrients in that food. being stressed takes up energy. it's never a good state to be in.

So a lot of people seem (forgive me if I'm making assumptions here) to be going with the idea that adaptibility can be an indicator of intelligence. Well, a tubeworm may be highly adapted to its specific environment, but can a given individual tubeworm adjust to a radically new environment within its lifetime? No. I think foodchain was kind of making this point a few posts back; what highly intelligent animals can do that less intelligent animals cannot is to adapt within an individual's lifespan. Human behavior is highly plastic, and especially with the use of technology, we can adjust to wildly changing conditions and still go on as normal; relatively speaking, at least. Whereas you plop a penguin the jungle and it's not going to do so well. With most animals generations have to pass and natural selection has to take place before they can tolerate the types of changes people can tolerate. When you're talking about non-human animals, gauging intelligence by this standard can be somewhat difficult, since humans are leaps and bounds beyond most other animals in this regard, and some of the most intelligent animals are still bound to specific environments due to their physiological requirements. But I think the presence of cultural adaptation, with behaviors generating within a lifespan and spreading horizontally to other individuals, can be a good indicator. Chimpanzees and the latest example of fashioning spears to hunt bush babies is a strong sign of their intelligence.

I'm not sure that there really could be a specific genetic change that could lead to resistance of the acceptance of a specific meme. I mean, a meme is (usually) an idea, a concept, something we are capable of having due to the structure of our brains. But how do you separate one specific thought in your brain from all the others? What change could be made in our physiology that would automatically cause us to think, "Well, that idea is a load of hooey. I'm not going to do that." Maybe I'm wrong, but neuroscience definitely hasn't gotten far enough to understand how that would work, even if it were possible. Edit: so I think I was a bit too hasty. A lot of basic human emotions are rooted in our genes, so if we could develop a general negative emotive reaction to a certain concept, then perhaps it would work, though it would depend on the complexity of the meme. Something like celibacy just doesn't sound like a fun idea, because that goes against the basic urge to mate that every animal has. But just because it doesn't sound like fun to most people doesn't mean that no one is capable of it; humans have the willpower to go against their emotional reactions if that's what they really want to do.

One of the popular (but accurate? who knows) hallmarks of intelligence is some form of self consciouness, usually tested by seeing if an animal knows he/she is looking at him/herself whey they are looking in a mirror, and not at a different individual. By this test we have great apes, dolphins, elephants, and I believe some parrots (though I'm not positive about that) as being conscious of the self.

My apologies - I didn't mean to imply that our genes are looking out for us or something. It was just an easy way to phrase what I was trying to say.

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. It kind of brings up the question of whether or not we should consider learning capacity when it comes to intelligence, or just take the average? We've been talking about what humans are capable of when hooked up to various prosthetics, but would other animals display similar leaps and bounds if they were similarly augmented?

well, i think we went off on the appendage tanget because we were talking about different animal brains being optimized for different kinds of tasks, thus how can necessarily say that one animal's brain (and therefore it's intelligence?) can be called more advanced than another's? clearly some are more advanced, ie. insects (an individual insect) vs mammals, but you know what i mean. so we used appendages as an example - some of us saying that an octopus can handle it's 8 highly flexible limbs better than humans could. thus the debate. but it's probably good for someone to say that motor control probably does not equate with the usual definition of intelligence.

Here is the study where they used tactile sensations on the tongue. It may not be sight exactly, but the participants learn to recognize shapes and orient themselves in a room - even the visual cortex is activated by this. http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/128/3/606

Actually, the prosthetics resemble a human limb much more than they do an octopus limb. An octopus limb is not supported by bone and potentially has an infinite number of points of articulation. A human limb has a very finite number of points of articulation. And I'm a woman, by the way.

I know that with a lot of freshwater aquatic snails, they're farily amphibious and can exist both out of and under water quite well. And when they're not in the water, then they're probably in moist, muddy, cool areas, like under plants and such, where they're not as visible. The same probably goes for the worms. And again, a spider that can glide on water can probably also walk on land.

I never said the degenerative effect of distance would be that noticeable. Diffferences of miliseconds. To our eyes differences that aren't obvious. And what is a difference in neuron firing "strength" if not a physical difference in nuerons? Either an action potential is reached in a neuron or it isn't. It is an all or nothing response. Firing might be slower if say the myelination on the axons is getting "worn" away somehow. But again, a physical difference. And I know that in the case of the elderly, things like hearing and sight decline from changes in the eys and ears, and movement is hindered by things like arthritis. That's why I'm focusing on things like memory and problem solving, as an EXAMPLE for how physical changes in the brain lead to differences in cognitive capacity. All of biology is ultimately rooted in some type of physical structure, and to assume that differences in ability are not effected by differences in structure is incorrect.

It's not that I think a human couldn't control 8 appendages. It's more the degree of control, especially when it comes to the autonomy of those appendages. It's like an octupus has a little mini brain in each leg, allowing quicker action-reaction loops based simply on physical distance to the processor. Humans just don't have that. It may be a difference of microseconds, but it can make a significant impact when it comes to catching food or evading injury just in the nick of time - and doing it better than your competitors. I think you may be underestimating the effect of nervous system/neural network architecture somewhat. Let's take for example elderly humans whose memory and other cognitive capacities have undoubtedly declined. Surely they have the same type of brain as all other younger humans do. What could be different? Are some of the neurons flickering out and dying? If so, clearly neuron number is in some way related to cognitive ability - say, making sure all the connections in a given pathway are present. Perhaps a weakening heart is decreasing bloodflow to the brain. In that case animals with more efficient blood delivery to the brain should have higher cognitive ability. These are all just random ideas I thought of here and now, but I think there is clearly something physically going on inside an aging human's brain that can potentially lead to a decline in certain cognitive abilities.

First of all, I'm assuming by "animal brains" you mean "vertebrate animal brains," because octopi are animals. And second of all, that's not entirely true. Not all of an octopi's brain is in it's head. A large part of its nervous system is localized in each of its legs, each which are capable of a remarkable amount of autonomy. Humans do have something similar, where certain reflex arcs, such as those responding to intense pain, only go to the spinal chord and back, causing you to jerk away. But this is not nearly to the degree that it is in octopi. There is an actual physiological difference. However, that being said, the human nervous system is capable of some pretty incredible feats. A blind person can be (and has been) equipped with a camera and a computer that translates images into sounds, and after a time, actually learn to see this way. I've seen a video of a man who was equipped with a third robotic arm that he controlled via sensors placed on his back muscles, and after acclimation could use all three arms simultaneously, and with ease. This phenomenon is called sensory substitution - look up Paul Bach y Rita for more information. I think 8 arms would probably be quite the challenge, but possible. However, octopus arms are capable of a greater range of movement than human arms, and as I said before are capable of a good deal of autonomy. To acheive that level of control with 8 arms of that kind would be a lot harder, and probably cross into the realm of things the human brain is not physically capable of.

haha, I love that! And it's so true. Different animal's cognitive abilities are optimized for different kinds of tasks, depending on their "evolutionary needs," shall we say. Humans for example have a very high social intelligence, because we are a highly social animal. Probably because of this, we also identify other highly social creatures as being intelligent, because they are optimized for similar tasks - that's why chimps and primates in general, dolphins, elephants, dogs and eusocial insects keep coming up. Animals that are capable of high levels of cooperation to get a job done, that are good at communicating with each other. Meanwhile, other animals have brains optimized for navigation, or coordination, and other things that aren't as immediately relevant to every day human life. If you wanted to try and find a truly objective way to measure "intelligence," you'd probably have to go into some hardcore neuroscience to measure complexity of neural networks or something like that.

What does the elephant say to the naked man? "Gosh, it's cute, but can you really breathe out of that thing?" =p

there are definitely many more factors in aging than just telomeres, even if they are one of the larger factors. also, though still in the process of development, the possiblity of gene replacement (or at least, gene addition) is increasing with the use of retroviruses. still a very long way from implementation, but it is in the works.

Not exactly. A yeast is defined as a unicellular fungi in a liquid or moist habitat, no matter what family/group it belongs to. Yeasts are not a monophyletic group, more of an ecological one. For the majority of the time, most fungi are haploid, and reproduce asexually by forming spores, or in yeast's case, budding. However they do have the ability to reproduce sexually, and when they do, they form fruiting bodies that are diploid or dikaryotic (two different haploid nuclei in each cell that have not yet fused together). However, most yeast, especially commercial yeast, never get to that stage because they don't need to. They're provided with all the resources they need and never experience the stress that usually drives them to sexual reproduction, and therefore the production of spores that can disperse to newer, hopefully more favorable, areas.

photosynthesis consists of two types of reactions. the light reactions are those that convert sunlight into chemical energy. the dark reactions are those that take that chemical energy and use it to fix atmospheric carbon into organic molecules. one of the primary enzymes used in the dark reactions is rubisco. the problem with rubisco is that it not only binds to CO2, but also to oxygen. If it binds to oxygen, no carbon fixation happens, the energy gain from the light reactions is essentially wasted. open stomata bring in CO2, but let out water. You need to keep bringing in CO2, because if you don't the concentration will lower, and rubisco will start binding with oxygen more and more. But in hot and arid temperatures, you lose precious water too fast by keeping your stomata open all the time. C4 plants adjust for this problem by conducting the light reactions and the dark reactions in separate areas. At night they have their stomata open, and whatever CO2 they absorb, they fix to organic acids - store it, in otherwords. And by having your stomata open at night, when it's cooler, you lose less water. During the day, stomata close, and light reactions go on throughout the leaf. The stored carbon dioxide moves into the bundle sheath, a rather thick, tightly sealed "tube" usually down the center of the leaf. This makes the CO2 concentration in the bundle sheath far higher than the oxygen concentration, so the dark reactinos can go on with little worry of oxygen binding to rubisco. Most grasses are C4. I find wikipedia doesn't always have the clearest explanations, especially if you're not already familiar with the topic.

Could this be what you're talking about? http://www.springerlink.com/content/p55069530x55704n/ first thing to come up when i typed "bacteria starch butanol" into google. this: http://www.ilcorn.org/Corn_Products/Butanol/butanol.html also mentions starch more specifically.

I have just a few comments in relation to the permafrost issue between KLB and SkepticLance. I think I agree more with KLB in that yes, plants will eventually take over permafrosted areas, but it will take a very long time - even with rising temperatures. Warmer temperatures do help plant growth - it frees up water from ice or snow, and especially in woody plants it decreases the likelihood of air bubbles forming in xylem vessels, which usually takes that vessel out of commission, permanently. But temperature alone isn't enough. The biggest factor with plants is sunlight, especially intensity of sunlight. Higher latitudes, due to the curvature of the earth, simply don't get the same intensity of sunlight as do areas on the equator. There's also the issue of nutrients. This is a highly limiting factor in plant growth. It might be warm, there might be plenty of water, there may even be sunlight - but without enough nutrients to build off of, especially nitrogen, plant growth rate won't increase much at all. And in colder nothern regions where there are few microbial and other agents there to decompose whatever plant matter there is in the ground, those nutrients will be trapped and unavailable to growing plants - at least in any extremely significant quantity. Of course, as temperatures increase, conditions will probably become more favorable for decomposers, but it will still take time for them to disperse into those areas and to free up those nutrients. Nitrogen fixation especially is a very high energy process. Factors like these are also why I'm extremely skeptical of greening earth types of theories - yes, plants need carbon to grow. But they also need sufficient sunlight, sufficient nutrients, sufficient water, etc. A substantial increase in just one of the elements of the equation doesn't mean the rest are ready to follow. Just thought I'd add my two cents.