CharonY

I have seen terms like model collapse. For example Shumailov et al. published a paper on that (Nature 2025).

I got a biphasic distribution on geography, it seems. Either dead on (probably the easy bits) or half a continent away (but strangely, the precise time period).

Hmm a pin makes it harder. Otherwise I would have just blindly guessed "British Empire", Or perhaps "Mongol Empire". Edit: It is fun, though.

Tell that to the billionaires. Or perhaps it ain't cheating if you are making the rules.

I think that train has long sailed. The cows have left the station and the barn has been converted to a redneck data center. I might need more coffee.

Peas in a pod. In a way FIFA found out earlier that if give the masses what they want, you can be as corrupt as you like. Trump turns everything more to shit, as in addition to the utter lack of morals there is also staggering lack of basic competency.

My working hypothesis is that we all got sucked into the dumbest possible timeline where satire has become reality.

It depends on what the charges are, I presume. The claim seems to be that he deliberately ripped up the sealant causing damages in excess of $1,000 (threshold for felony charges, I assume). It passed a grand jury, so the substance has now to be demonstrated in court.

The thread is going exactly where I thought it would be going.

Chickadees might believe so. Well, specifically spatial cognition that is. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.110905.1.sa3 Branch et al. 2026 eLife

DNA and RNA both just encode the sequence of amino acids in a protein. During protein biosynthesis, the mRNA is introduced to the ribosome, where the assembly of the proteins happen (and includes also tRNA as the carriers of the amino acids, as well as a few other element). This whole process can nowadays be done cell-free using a mix that basically are lysates of bacterial or eukaryotic cells containing ribosomes, as well as polymerases (to transcribe RNA from DNA) and so on. So in essence, by adding the right vector (basically DNA) you can produce proteins in a vial. You can easily buy those as ready-to-use kits. The main difference here is that they are using a defined set of purified 30-something proteins rather than lysates, making it costlier, but also better defined. Edit: because of that limitations I think we can infer very little mechanistically about early life. However, it could be a way to explore certain aspects of it.

Protein biosynthesis is facilitated by putting in E. coli proteins (i.e. the whole machinery) into it. It is an extension of pure in vitro models (where the same reaction essentially happens in a vial), with some interesting elements of encapsulation. It is still not tackling the tricky bits, but it is more systematic as other approaches.

Or projection.

There are proteins that modify RNA at multiple levels, some arose with metazoans, others are way older. From memory, the oldest systems likely originated from defense against mobile genetic elements. The role has diversified than over the evolutionary history. No, in the broadest sense it is not much different to any other (homeostatic) regulatory mechanism and/or RNA machinery. On the molecular levels our cells have a massive amount of mechanism to react to environmental and intrinsic signals, RNA editing is not really different from that. These mechanisms are part of any organism's ability to respond to their environment. It is therefore important to acknowledge that each of our cells has a massive biochemical flexibility and adaptability and they are not simple machines that blindly run a fixed program. However, these adaptations have certain boundaries though they are often ill-defined (think of it as the whole theoretical capability of the system). On the evolutionary scene, what really matters is whether and how the mechanisms for any of these mechanisms are encoded in the genome. The most common form of metazoans (including cephalopods) is mediated by ADAR-family proteins, for example, which are encoded by their corresponding genes. I think the issue here is that OP's idea of evolution is not precisely mainstream and there is also a somewhat artificial distinction between humans and "wild" animals. So one could draw parallels, but I think they might be largely semantic. One could argue, for example that the ability to create eyeglasses is fundamentally present in the genome in the form of brain development, formation of eyes that work in a way where lens correction makes sense and perhaps arms and hands allowing us to build things. But it feels more like a philosophical than biological distinction. And one should probably also be very clear on the relationship of concepts such as selective pressure, stressors and stress adaptation. For example, heat is a stressor but let's say in a particular habitat, it is very easy to escape heat stress by behavioural changes (e.g., plenty of areas to cool down). The question is then whether those behaviours have a genetic basis (e.g. hard coded to find cool spots) or learned. The latter is complicated as learning behaviour of course does have a genetic basis (e.g. brain development) but finding a link to natural selection (e.g. did heat stress changed the likelihood of certain allele frequencies related to brain development) is very difficult to tease out. In another example, let's say a mechanism has developed over the evolutionary history and now all members of the species now have sweat glands. Let's assume for simplicity's sake that this is determined by a single allele and all members of this species carry that allele (i.e. it is fixed). This is a strong indicator that there was strong positive selection for that allele (as all other alleles got lost eventually). But now that they have adapted, the natural selection is not suddenly gone. If it was, the allele would no longer be fixed, i.e. selective forces maintain it. Not sure whether that makes sense but that is just what quickly comes to mind.

In short: no. RNA is not part of the genome. RNA is basically a transcript of DNA. Depending on the type of RNA they can be regulatory, structural or part of protein biosynthesis (in the form of mRNA). RNA editing happens a lot especially in eukaryotes as our genome contains introns and exons. The latter is part of mature RNA whereas the introns are spliced (removed). As it turns out, there is quite a bit of additional processing that can happen and a lot of it is regulatory in nature. E.g., mRNA can be produced, but modified so that it is rapidly eliminated if the coding proteins is actually not needed. Or they can modulate activity, changing overall RNA turnover, help the immune system to distinguish own RNA from viral ones etc. Often these modifications are in non-coding regions, but not exclusively so. So RNA editing is a somewhat common process in many eukaryotes. IIRC the study showed simply that cephalopods had a high level of modified RNA and I think the rate in coding regions was also higher. I.e., it is more a quantitative rather than a qualitative difference. And most importantly, RNA modifications are transient, they affect the current active RNA pool but they are not inherited. I.e. we are talking about adaptation to a change in environment in a very short time frame (e.g., reaction to heat stress), but not something that happens on evolutionary (or generational) scale.

I think here you are using your preconception to interpret what you observe. And unfortunately, I don't think your interpretation is accurate, regardless is one is on the spectrum or not. It seems to me that the key thing you are missing is that socialization is work and not an automatic process. If you observed folks carefully, you would notice some common elements like poking around on a variety of elements to find common ground to continue socializing. Depending on where you are on the spectrum, it can be very difficult to pick up on those cues, so for some it is harder than others. But in the end, it is a learnable skill. Hobbies, like any other interest, real or pretend, are means to to establish a communicative situation between otherwise strangers. Your ideal concept of "friendship" seems to be one that should arise without effort, just by being intelligent or altruistic somehow, folks should like you. I.e. it is a very self-centered view that the world has to react to your innate qualities, rather than the fact that one has to first make efforts in finding a common basis with other persons and spend efforts to interact. Again, it is a skill that can be learned and needs polishing. Depending on where you start it can be a lot of effort, but it is a necessary one. And that in itself is a rational process and importantly, it is a communal process. You do not make someone your friend, but it is a process requiring effort from both sides. As such, as part of ones own effort, it should become clear that the time investment is worth it. In that context, enjoying the same hobbies is a very easy pitch an again, very rational. If you enjoy your time with someone engaging in common activities (be it dancing, reciting poetry, geeking out on any topic) the effort to build friendship makes way more sense. Denigrating elements, such as dancing as irrational just makes you feel justified in your judgment, but it is actually easier just to acknowledge that it is something not for you and you need to look for something else to connect to people, rather than putting others down for their interest, even if they don't align with yours. As it turns out, people judge you for being judgemental.

It is funny, or rather sad that this keeps happening. Back when Harper led Canada, there were efforts to save Canadian environmental freshwater data (GEMS). Now Canada is part of a collaboration to duplicate US data (including from the NIH. It just shows how leadership can rapidly undo years of scientific progress rather rapidly.

Reading comprehension. I said I should have said "selective pressures in human evolution has stopped". You cannot find it because I wrote "human evolution". Hence the 'should have said'. That being said, as swansont pointed out, there was a bit of that sentiment throughout, which I honestly wasn't paying too much attention. Especially as attempts at explaining evolutionary basics kept being ignored. This is definitely true for evolution, but I am thinking that it also depends a lot on how we measure selective pressures. Traditionally that is expressed as a selection coefficient and the rate is kind of baked in as it is indicated as a reduction in fitness (i.e.. Darwinian fitness (W)= 1-s). When we use molecular markers often things like the rate between non-synonymous mutations to synonymous mutations. So essentially the selection is expressed as a ratio of what we expect to happen in the absence of selective pressure relative to what we see, which kind of eliminates the speed as an element. There are more sophisticated measures like molecular clocking, but I don't think that this within the scope of this discussion. Ignoring that part at the very onset of the discussion already pointed to a degree of learning resistance.

My bad, I should stated "selective pressures in human evolution has stopped". The examples later including analysis of the Framingham study were specifically regarding detecting signatures of natural selection in very recent times (which, again, is exceedingly difficult). So IOW there is evidence of NS in humans over the last thousands of years, and some data on very recent events. So far, I have not seen anything that convincingly suggests that they are now suddenly one except your repeated assertions. Combining it with the issue that the comparison that you are suggesting is largely impossible (at least the way as it is stated, and with the caveat that I am not well enough read in the modeling aspects to know whether there might be a theoretical way to do so), are you going now to reconsider your initial assumptions or are we stuck on repeat?

It goes even beyond that, in a "not even wrong" kind of situation. Natural selection is, by definition, a relative force acting on a gene pool (be it species of population). It causes certain genotype to be relatively more or less successful than others. However, if we compare species, we are looking at entirely different gene pools and the comparison makes absolutely no sense. Let's assume a population where there are literally no selection (or any stochastic parameters) except for one. Perhaps the ability to eat fast. In any other scenario it wouldn't be a meaningful fitness benefit, but in an otherwise entirely flat landscape, this would be the singular driver (imagine the only peak in an otherwise entirely flat landscape). If you investigate it, it will look like strong selective pressure as it seems that the gene pool single-mindedly drives towards that trait. Conversely, a different species might have a much more complex environment, so the same trait is also there, but kinds of drowns among all the other forcings. How would one compare this relative shifts to each other? At least AFAIK there is not simple calibrant that one can use to be able to compare that to each other.

This is a science forum, which requires some sort of supporting evidence for assertion. A single (scientific) publication that would outline or even hint at it would be a sufficient basis for discussion. Yet so far we only have your belief. Even worse, it is pretty clear that you fail to understand the basics of it, specifically why a) you cannot group all animals into one big category and b) you cannot compare selective pressures between species meaningfully. And by ignoring these issues you just revert to repeat your assertion. Even worse, the arguments you present are not even inherently consistent. You somehow want to link lack of natural selection to a certain genetic syndromes and disabilities. For that to even start to make sense you would need to provide some evidence that somehow those factors do not in fact affect reproductive success (and this is likely again down to the fact that you conflate the ability to survive with likelihood of producing fertile offspring). That being said, there are plenty of examples of human evolution over the last few thousand years and I have yet to see any evidence that this has somehow stopped. In contrast, there are studies using population data, such as the Framingham study (a long term cohort on cardiovascular health) which suggested that some folks had children earlier lower cholesterol and some other effects compared to models where selection was not a factor (Stearns was the lead author in PNAS, probably around 2010s). The issue I had with these and relates studies is that it struck me as a bit improbable to find these effects in such a relatively short time frame. But the paper exists. I believe there were more studies using another population coming to similar conclusions I believe. I am sure since then there is more out there. I remember that natural selection was considered to be factor of different variations of metabolic syndromes, for example, and potentially with increasing sequencing results folks are able to test it. What you are doing is to take assumptions and wildly extrapolate them. I see less disabled folks surviving, hence there is no natural selection anymore. This line of reasoning, is disconnected to the mechanisms of evolution (which I very superficially tried to introduce, and which is getting ignored). Also the fact that we have more data on animals vs humans is not evidence. It means a) there are more animal species than human species and thus more researchers in the field working on various aspects b) animal models are more accessible for experiments. c) it is just very tricky in humans (it is also tricky for broader analyses in animals, but often there is something specific that one can pick out).

This is again shows a focus on the wrong elements. You should instead ask, do folks with blindness and deafness have higher or lower reproductive success than those without. This is the actual basis on how fitness is being calculated (the relative ability of a genotype compared to another). Surviving is not the key part of the equation. And again, you can only compare reproductive success within species not between. IOW, what you are interested in engaging with is more like a narrative discussion (similarly like would Godzilla win against King Kong) but it is not based on evolutionary science.

That is an interesting point. Generally speaking, specialist species tend to do develop within stable environments. The reason is that under unchanging conditions, there are certain optimizations (e.g. resource use) that provide relative fitness benefits (e.g. moving towards a set of fixed maxima in a fitness landscape). Generalists are more commonly found in changing environments, as optimizations do not provide the same fitness benefits. Humans are a bit different as they extend their generalist ability by being able to create fairly static habitats. I.e. they are not necessarily genetically as generalist as other species, but I would argue that their optimization of traits related to higher brain functions allowed them to expand the concept adaptability. Some other species do similar things, but not at that scale.

Except, of course animals that produce dozens or hundreds of offspring each season, of course. Again, this comparison makes no sense.

This is again conflating survival with reproductive success. Again, you still misunderstand the basic premise of evolution, in which fitness is not indicated by individual health or survival. Just the reproductive success over generations. This is a very basic mistake and keeps leading the discussion astray, as it is still based on erroneous assumption about what evolution and the role of natural selections (as well as repeatedly ignore, but equally important other factors ) are. Natural selection is not a magical element that purifies the gene pool, nor is it a singular shaping force. Rather, think of it as one of many factor that create a fitness landscape of a population. If we look at the gene pool, different genotypes are associated with distinct reproductive success rates (think of it as the height in the landscape). The landscape is highly dependent on the environment interaction with the genotype. For example in an area where Malaria is highly present, alleles associated with sickle cell disease are going to create hill (higher reproductive success) whereas in areas without, it might create a valley (lower success). The idea of that is that we don't look at singular observations and try to derive a story regarding fitness in population, that fitness is relative, not absolute measure, and it also has other implications (e.g. that gene pools could be shaped by local maxima, but not reaching another higher theoretical peak). Importantly, fitness landscapes are dynamic, that is the relative contribution of a genotype to fitness can change depending on the situation, even the frequency of a given genotype. So one aspect of the model you are proposing is that in humans the fitness landscape is fully flat or at least flatter than any animal on earth. The latter, as mentioned can of course never be validated as we do not have the means to fully reconstruct this model for all animals, and it therefore remains an assertion that cannot really be discussed (it is equally informative to speculate which favorite superhero would be the other one up). However, what we can address is to assess whether the human fitness landscape is indeed flat. If that is the case, one would assume that the human gene pool is exclusively formed random effects (i.e. there is not fixation). That, of course is not true. Studies in current humans have shown significant selective pressures to make us who we are over the thousands of years or so. The challenge is now that we cannot obviously find any evolutionary signatures for changes in the last 100 years or so. However, we can go beyond mere assumptions and actually look at the literature. There is a large body on mate selection among humans which includes certain cues (such as the major histocompatibility complex) that affect this rather complex behaviour, which, without doubt continues to happen. If that wasn't the case your are basically stating that humans engage in random mating, which is clearly not the case. Likewise, reproductive success is not equal in all humans, though there are complex factors pertaining to it. As mentioned, but not fully connected, humans engage in deliberate limitation of reproduction. Here, we have to ask ourselves, a) are all humans doing that at the same rate b) if not are there genetic differences between the groups (at scale). In case of b) and assuming there some populations are more fecund in but not connected genetically, we would still see shifts in the fitness landscape, but they are more likely stochastic. I have to stop here but both, population limitation amplify even weak selective forces due to bottleneck effects and there are selective forces which, while lessened in absolute terms, will still relatively form our gene pool. But the bottom line is a) trying to do a superficial comparison between vastly different populations is going to be exclusively speculative and just-so stories and b) human evolution continues to be shaped by the an environment where cultural aspects have a strong impact but we we there is no evidence that somehow we have approached anything like a W-H equilibrium (or a flat and static fitness landscape).