Ringer

Keep in mind I've never been to hot on botany, but if I remember correctly plants can hybridize much like animal hybrids. The difference is plants, much of the time, will still be able to reproduce. They can do this fairly easily in part because they can self pollinate and create a whole new species of fertile hybrids. It is somewhat like if a mule was fertile and could mate with itself to produce fertile offspring. There are other ways for them to hybridize but for the life of me I can't remember them. Keep in mind that I'm not very good on botany topics so this explanation may not be a great one, but hopefully you get the idea.

If you knew all the genetic markers that influenced those things and were able to alter them while they're still in early developmental stage, like between 1-8 cells or so, I would assume it wouldn't be horribly difficult. It's somewhat like changing the sex of a child before birth or those things that we already do. And like those things there will be a sense of taboo for certain people, that's why we have ethics committees.

Although many plant are able to hybridize in ways that animals can't I doubt that that a rose and tomato plant are closely related enough to make a hybrid.

It wasn't a theory, it was just a paper by, if I remember correctly, a student that was virtually meaningless.

Well, AFAIK, there hasn't been conclusive evidence that humans actually have functional pheromones. There is evidence both for and against but, again this is so far as I'm aware, it isn't entirely accepted. If there pheromones that are released from women they should increase testosterone levels. Most pheromones are used for communication; since we have language the only thing I would think pheromones would be useful for in our species is finding a mate. Even then it wouldn't be really helpful because we don't use scent to detect other people for the most part. Short answer, there's no reason to think you are going to be feminized.

I have friends that vary widely in intelligence and interests; all you need to do is know what to talk about with who. If your friends only talk about things that don't interest you and you don't talk about anything that interests them how, exactly, did you become friends? I'm sure everyone has interests other than <insert preferred area of study> so talk about that if they don't care about <whatever was inserted>. And if all else fails take the advice my friends give me all the time, don't be a d!<k

I would like to think that if there were Romero type zombies they wouldn't really be dead, just metabolic rates drastically slowed. Both would have their pros and cons. Slow zombies could conserve energy much better and would probably be able to sneak up on prey better, but they would also be easily outrun and killed with virtually any weapon. Fast zombies would die quickly because of how much water and energy they consume but would be much more difficult to fight off.

There has been a remarkable amount of research on glial cells of late, all of which I think is amazingly important. The book The Other Brain is supposed to be a fairly well written book about some of the recent discoveries. I haven't read it myself, but it has been recommended to me from a couple of my professors.

The 28 days later zombies aren't dead flesh so they wouldn't really be rotting. That was Trip's, if he doesn't mind me shortening his name, point; we were all focusing on Romero zombies. Thank you, it's from the the oatmeal

One of the problems with those zombies is they don't take into account the dehydration that would kill them in maybe one or two days with the amount of energy they use.

It would only if the mutation affected the gamete that would fertilize or be fertilized for a sexual reproducing species. If it affected, say, the arm of the animal and nothing else it shouldn't have an effect of the offspring.

In case you get really bored, or procrastinate for studying for summer exams, here are a few links of zombie info. http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~jybarra/zombieplan.pdf http://io9.com/5286145/a-harvard-psychiatrist-explains-zombie-neurobiology http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/Zombies.pdf

If it can't be spread how will it reproduce? I think it would just be too difficult to control something like that. I'm not really that informed on viruses and how to regulate them and such so this is just speculation.

Probably the interactions of many cells is what causes consciousness. Like I said, I think I said this already, consciousness is poorly understood because there is no accepted definition of consciousness.

Personally I would think, ethical issues aside, that it would be far to difficult to regulate how much fat the virus attacks. If the virus wasn't stopped in time it would be the end of breasts as we know them.

I'm not saying at all that you were mistaken that synapse connection plays a part in memory loss and forgetting; I only meant to say that it is much more complicated than that because of all the different facets of memory, recall, and the like. Just like your parking example, just because you remember, in detail, an incident involving a family member that happened 2 years ago doesn't mean it's a true memory.

That explains exactly as much as saying self awareness. . . nothing. Is there awareness without being aware? If not then there is only awareness not awareness of being aware. What cognitive processes are involved in this. If it is only knowing what one is doing I would assume there are a vast amount of animals that are like that.

Well if the flesh of zombies is actually dead they wouldn't last long if only because there is no internal body regulation and the muscles and such would atrophy fairly quickly. But we could turn this into how close could something become a zombie realistically. But how they are portrayed they would be pretty well useless

Actually, when you recall something it does affect the connection that fire when it is recalled. That is one of the reasons memories can be altered and such. Also, as far as I know, forgetting isn't necessarily associated with the synapse connection per se, if only because memory isn't nearly that simple.

It's hard to say really. I think it's, in part at least, the cortex that allows more top-down processes that may lead to a type of self-awareness. The problem is that it is hard to really say what consciousness or self awareness really is and how to test for it in other animals. Even things such as theory of mind is extremely hard to pinpoint what causes one to gain this. It obviously has something to do with the frontal lobe because that has a large part of our social skills. But I don't think there is a way, now at least, to pinpoint where these things happen because even brain imaging is very approximate.

Define what you mean by consciousness.

First, wolves and wild cats are two totally different species so they would not be able to breed. Nature has given them a way to reproduce and nature has put evolutionary pressures on them. If they don't have the traits needed to survive they will not survive. Plants actually do cross breed quite readily though. You thought process is faulty because not everything survives and nature doesn't really care, if you don't mind the anthropomorphising, if any animals survive. Nothing is given a way out of extinction by anything but their parents; unless they had a novel mutation of course.

There is not a single section, part, or anything else of neurons 'are consciousness'. Not to mention there is no clear definition of consciousness.

It is not required, but it does happen. My point was that if someone uses words other than what they actually mean it makes all attempts at discussion useless. When someone uses their own definition instead of the one everyone else is using it causes misunderstanding for everyone. But, the fact that things do change in function, still doesn't do anything for his arguments because he just repeats the exact same thing. He uses the alphabet example over and over and it is as useless this last time as it was the first time.

Off topic but I convinced my future wife to let me wear a top hat and monocle during the wedding.