foodchain

Hi my name is ttyo888, I am rather new to this forum which I believe can give me answers for some info needed for a fiction which has a lot to deal with in island evolution.

 

I believe I can get my answers and constructive criticism here. The writing forums unfortunately do not have much realistic answers.

 

 

Info I have currently

 

The only problem is how or why the birds evolved into what I dream of

Here's one

 

I managed to identify the key species that will evolve to populate my island.

 

Basically, the area I posted in the Google Earth pic earlier. Has the following

 

Tubenoses, a lot of them

Frigates

Skuas from Antarctica

Gulls

Terns

Lorikeets

Pacific Black Duck= in the past they had giant tree-browsing cousins in Hawaii.

 

Swallows

Old World warblers

Monarch flycatchers

 

This is based on the avifauna of the French Polynesia but excluding the ones that are introduced by humans.

 

I can say that it's a case of well convergent evolution and adaptative radiation.

 

But what kind of conditions will tempt a bird to give up flying and start moving on fours? And also will they have island tameness which will be detrimental?

Well birds never lost being bipedal. I would think they would retain this feature much like penguins. If by chance you want all four locomotion as familiar to say a lion or a tiger or reptile, well I don’t know what to think.

I mean in do you ask for a concrete example, like birds having to becoming better diggers over time by using the wing in such? I would think some sort of direct physical contact would be required in the process at least somewhere, much like flight and the wing in the first place.

Here, you could present a topic on this, I am sure it has millions of links in which some are most likely real on the issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress

To elaborate. If a brain was successfully fully grown without any sensory input, would there be any activity registered?

How would you know, soon as you interacted with it you would cause some sort of change right:confused:

Indeed it does have null effect. We call that as 'silenced' mutation. It happens when a codon accidentally replaces another, but it also recognizes the same aminoacid as the former one does.

 

But if we calculated what is the percentage of 'bad' mutations and what is the percentage of positive mutations, I believe the number would change in for bad ones. This is why the term 'mutation' has become a synonym to negative effect!

Interesting effects. I made a thread about seed physiology months ago which got zero for replies. Look at it from an energetics point of view I wonder how much they simple "geometry" of seed physiology comes into play with function, like its structure. If you were to model its environmental physiology in terms of potentials do you think it would offer any valuable data? Such as a couple groups of seeds being exposed to familiar or required conditions yet changing soil moisture levels and direct soil contact to seed surface? I think it would be interesting if you could tag and trace large molecular complexes in terms change over time under such conditions. I just wonder if it would hold any serious impact on occurrence and placement of mutations if such holds any kind of developmental impact.

But genetic diversity is not due to mutations. It's due to the extremely high number of possibilities for nitrogen pairs to be arranged. If a gene contains 1000 bases, the possible combination is [math]4^{1000}[/math], bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. This is why out there the scale of biodiversity is so high, not due to mutations.

 

Typical Mutation! In the synthesis of red blood cells instead of GAG adenine is replaced with thymine giving GTG, and red blood cells have hook shapes, unable to bond enough oxygen. Mutations kill!

Not all of diversity is due to recombination, its simply not true. You carry a common mutation from primate history in which your internal ability to produce vitamin directly was affected, this mutation did not kill. Its a common misperception that mutations are only lethal, its simply not true and basic education in biology reveals this. Also as you would put it I would find recombination holding just as lethal a possibility in all reality, yet it does not always lead to such.

Was it not a mutation that allowed for a primates skull to grow larger by changing the physiology of its muscular/skeletal structure more so with the top of the skull and that mass of muscle for chewing? It was directly related to the jaw and common diet.

Mutation is a common reality of life and evolution, its not always fatal, sometimes it has a null effect even.

I found it a bit weird when I heard of mutations as an evolution mechanism, for a simple reason. Mutations are always harmful or silenced (when a misplaced codon recognizes the same aminoacid as the codon it replaced). I have not heard of any positive mutation so far, which by replacing codons accidentally caused a better development of any part of the organism.

 

It's like an earthquake happens in a city, and expecting from that earthquake to have positive effects on the city.

 

If there is any explanation of how organisms evolved by mutations, then I'd honestly like to see/read it.

I would just point out genetic diversity and say look at the positive reality of it. You carry all kinds of mutations or changes to genetic code, in fact its pretty much different individual to individual. A real simple view of mutation in effect is in microbial life. Just read on microbial evolution and microbial mutation. They are also one of the more simple organisms for say a study of forced evolution in a laboratory setting using mutation, in which via mutation the microbe population survives a decreasing level of fitness in a host environment.

One human mutation I like to use for example is a mutation in populations in Europe in particular due to life histories. Some individuals house a mutation making them immune to the aids virus. I believe it involves some kind of a receptor on a cell surface.

Is there any study on the possibility of the mutationist hypothesis as a possible evolutionary mechanism at the developmental level, sort of a norm of reaction type of effect in which hotspots for mutation may develop from say selective pressures?

Basically sort of a signaling process is what I am thinking about possibly, operating somewhat like any other biochemical process at a epistatic level. I mean recombination is a powerful thing really, I just wonder exactly its potentials. Metabolism alone seems to suggest how fine selective pressures can be, so does convergent evolution. So I am wondering if what brings about the mutationist perspective is maybe a product of evolution at a developmental level possibly via plasticity as part of a norm of reaction maybe.

Don’t get confused as to my position on NS. I am not saying adaptation directly embodies ultimate fitness for an environment, just that it does define itself prominently in adaptation period.

biophysics... (although they don't like to be called that these days...)

I have spent about three hours reading about that particular field only. I am confused as to if they go out into say the field at all or very much? Also what name do they go buy typically? Thanks for they help to. I always think I am about to hit the jackpot but I cant ever really make my mind up on it, meanwhile time continues to go on:D

I probably would not be so confused over the issue but more or less I don’t want to major in something I don’t want to do a few years out of college.

I am confused as to what to major in, really, I need help.

See, I want to apply quantum behavior to living systems, from an atomic through a molecular perspective. I am particularly interested in aspects of trying to define variables in terms of natural selection in a quantum perspective as it would relate to an organisms physiology down to a molecular viewpoint. When I think of biology my worldview of the subject basically houses evolution over time of energy/matter interaction or behavior, heavily in an evolutionary perspective.

For instance here is a neat study I would like to do. I would like to study phonon behavior in a comparative physiology approach between terrestrial and marine vertebrate to see if environment had any play on the evolution of the skeletal system for instance in both environments. Which I think has quite a few questions to it but such is what I generally think about more often then not in regards to scientific interest. Its not just QM I would like to use all by itself, but really pure physical processes like chemistry and thermodynamics. I also have a huge interest in microbiology.

Thanks for the replies. Interesting too, because a friend here at work also suggested processor over heating and RAM issues.

 

To foodchain - your solution is noted. In fact, hehe...I'm planning on moving ahead with it when we get our stimulus package checks.

If you worry about overheating I would suggest simply removing one of the panels to your pc, one on the side of the box should help though I don’t know your layout. Also, getting parts that have heatsinks and or fans built in is a plus. Also I don’t know for sure but I think minimizing the amount of parts inside the box physically itself helps with cooling, such as instead of having two 1024mb for ram just get one 2048 stick. Also physically removing the dust from the inside of your computer can help a lot, depending on your vacuum cleaner you can get a lot done without having to use cans of compressed air.

Also as mentioned in my earlier post it would seem as if the AMD processor family is more accessible cost wise then intel based strategies for say gaming or home entertainment really. A hot intel board with related processor and such can itself cost over a grand. Not saying anything about intel performance here just cost. Even the most pronounced system from AMD runs at about half the cost of high end intel, yet in the real world the technology works just fine, I would imagine more so now that desktop based 64bit computing on an OS level is becoming a reality.

First of all, my heart goes out to anyone who actually cares enough to read this, let alone respond. Most of these problems, if not all, I suspect are related. But I have no idea where to look, or what hardware to check out or suspect.

 

1) When playing Madden 2006, the only computer game I play and the only graphics heavy application I run, the computer will just restart at some seemingly random moment. Sometimes 5 minutes into a game, other times well after an hour of playing. I’ve used two different video cards now, and this happens regardless.

 

 

2) Sometimes the computer will just suddenly freeze. Will stop responding altogether and will presumably stay there forever. The mouse pointer frozen on the screen, no reaction from the keyboard. (haven’t actually experienced this one in a while though…)

 

3) Cannot access web pages that require some kind of security or encryption. So, no email, online banking…etc. I’ve actually found a lot of info on this and have tried every suggestion I’ve found.

 

4) The worst problem of all…when my computer restarts, it goes through this process of booting up and then restarting again midway through – sometimes it will get as far as displaying the desktop and then, click, restarting again. Of course, that’s if I’m lucky. Sometimes during this process it will get lost altogether – my monitor light will indicate no signal coming from the video card and the hard drive will eventually quit reading. I have to reset it or turn it off manually, and then the process starts again. Eventually, if I keep at it, it will finally boot up without interruption

 

 

So, there it is. Any ideas?

My short solution would simply be to purchase another computer. The freezing issue to me most likely sounds like a memory or ram problem. Another issue may just be your system clock along with your components, I suggest trying to obtain personal computers with integrated design strategies and of course os support. AMD systems are relatively cheap overall, and they are combined with ATI or have ati motherboards and gpu's based on amd microprocessors. AMD processors also make far better use of your ram, allowing basically double to be used I think. A simple example is a 512mb video card for such a board can be purchased for around 40$, go that times two and you have good video performance I would think.

You could also simply try to see if your system as such as all the latest drivers or if you have some kind of a virus problem that’s been alive to long.

If you buy from vendor you will get suck unless you plan to spend over a thousand dollars, building your own system can give you high performance with warranties in most cases for around 650, that’s barely more then economy model costs that have zero performance really, also you can plan your computer around upgrades and maintenance easier I think.

how can i ever raise a 1.3 gpa up to 3.0+ in 1.5 years left of highschool and 2 years of community college...is that even possible??? i know i can get strait A's, but i dont know if i can raise my average high enough

I think the reality of it is that you can at least raise your current gpa. Its not only this but the medical field has many specializations. So with that in mind you can have more options really to choose from in regards to higher education.

I would simply look around at say state universities even. You could also attend a local community college and graduate with honors with a two year degree, this would open up more options in regards to a university. A simple point is most large biology departments offer medical science orientated undergraduate degrees. Most of those programs are designed to prepare for transfer to more purely medical science programs for say graduate studies.

I do think though that you might also have to work at that same time unless you favor using loans a lot.

I am one who likes bugs. But then again don't most science geeks. MY question is do they still use Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT)? It is when then put disinfected maggots on and open wound to kill the dead skin and heal the wound.

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

Lol, I freaked out when I first watched that on t.v. They use cultured or clean populations of maggots over a wound. It speeds up the healing process, reduces infection and amount of scar tissue.

These two features of a sharks physiology I find really neat, and I really don’t understand the details with the evolution of such.

For instance these traits.

“The lateral line, together with the ampullae of Lorenzini comprise the electrosensory component of the sharks sensory system. The lateral line allows the shark to orient to particle movement or sound. It consists of structures called neuromasts which are located in canals that lie just below the surface of the skin or the scales. Similar to the ampullae of Lorenzini there are pores that open to the outside and movement caused by prey can be detcted by the neuromasts.”

http://www.marinebiodiversity.ca/shark/english/lateral%20line.htm

The following is a definition of neuromast.

“neuromast

one of a small cluster of sensory cells that are part of the lateral line system of fish and larval amphibians. Neuromasts are found either on the skin surface or in pit organs. They are used to detect the direction of water movement.”

http://zipcodezoo.com/Glossary/neuromast.asp

Every organism has a purpose, even if it is merely existence. Some of them have no choice in the matter in what they do, such as an amoeba, and some of them are left to their own devices to figure out the best way to do anything, like a wolf. Would this define consciousness? A caterpillar sifting through dirt for food. Would this be considered consciousness?

That’s what I was trying to get at I guess, its a broad topic:D

When a human uses vision, is there any real difference between that and any other organism using its physiology or what not? I mean I don’t know of any defining answer as to what is human nature, which I think is funny because if you cant reduce that you wont ever be able to answer for nurture I think. Therefore in the absence of understanding on human nature I don’t really think you can speak to any great detail on human behavior, simply because you cant really account for it as it would relate to anything human. So to me that means somewhat metaphorically that we live in the dark along with nuclear weapons:eek:

If you read papers on say anything neuron related from damage to the use of drugs for various reasons I think its easy to see the physical element of human life in regards to behavior and or will if you will. With that being said the amount of understanding that can probably exist on such a topic, from a population, culture, community or even down to an individual is probably just so damn massive.

I think this becomes worse because I do think that evolution fully applies to trying to be able to explain human nature/nurture. Therefore you have some sort of a "telescoping" of a topic in which you ultimately have to investigate because of that physical part of life.

For instance fatality related to vehicles every year in America claims a large amount of lives, this means loved ones and family members. What is the dynamic in American culture that accepts this overall? I mean is that more of a human nature question, human nurture question or really some mesh of both? So then without being able to account for either of those in explanation what is the explanation built on?

I just find such lack of understanding to be scary is all.

Basically I would just like to ponder the idea of using genetics along with microbes to produce machines. What I am looking towards I know sounds scientific if not old hat really as far as such is concerned. Really though what bounds would be in the way of engineering on such a level as to what you have may be bioorganic but only just such. I mean brain cells I guess of some type obviously could find use as say computer interfaces are used in modern machinery of various types such as automobiles. I mean if you could produced various microbes that ran various functions from a cyclic point of view going from of course stimulus that it could be preprogrammed for then the defining moment I would think would be obtaining a form of multicellular function. Basically I would think a type of stem cell would be useful, something of a skeleton that can be loaded with instruction really. I think the real use would be in the mastery of such so that you could have it interact with any physical medium. In that you can find very fine tuned activity produced by life, incredibly complex really, so with that in mind you could buy a pack of microbes that are engineered to be planted in the soil which could interact with the medium to build a house, I mean really what would be the limit at that point.

So I guess the big question is really how much could you interact modern molecular realities of say microbes and above, or what could you model them to work with physically and or chemically. I would say if you could unlock that you could program the ultimate green car that even biodegrades back into your garden, or really I would see no limit on the technology if it really could be mastered. I would also think that such a technology giving the realities of life would be the most sensitive or exacting or basically the best technology if it were possible.

From any point of view, be it beauty or the ability to survive intense amounts of radiation and the vacuum of space life has already shown such capability. To be able to master how life evolves or adapts to meat an environment to the point of what an environment in relation to what an organism is I think again that such a technology would basically for the most part be supreme as understanding correctly applied of course barring whatever actually limitations that may exist such theoretically be able to produce anything if evolution is truly open ended.

I don’t want to go off the deep end but in all reality from the atmosphere to the core of a planet I think could be open to being shaped if not controlled really by the possibility of biological influence if physically reality can be programmed into an organism the same way an organism can adapt and overcome.

I think you completely misunderstood my post. I am not arguing that time is an illusion. I am arguing that it is very real.

 

What is truly fundamental are those the things for which we have no viable scientific explanation. Time and space are currently axiomatic (aka fundamental) in physics. To me it seems that New Scientist has made the jump from a conjecture that states time is not fundamental to the position that time is an illusion. This is an untenable jump for several reasons.

 

First, it is predicated on an unproven conjecture. Deriving big sweeping sensationalistic conclusions from an unproven conjecture is, well, stupid. Even worse, the conjecture is, IMHO, wrong. The thermal time hypothesis makes the analogy that if we perfect knew the state of every atom/molecule in a collection of gas that temperature would not exist. We would instead have a massive, time-varying state model. Moreover, if we knew the state of every atom/molecule in a gas, even time wouldn't exist. Just because we know the state of every atom/molecule in a collection does not mean that higher level abstractions such as temperature (and possibly, time) have no meaning and do not exist. It just means they are high-level abstractions. A hot frying pot still burns even though temperature is merely a composite measure of the random kinetic energy of the metal atoms that comprise the frying pan.

 

Even worse, the conjecture is inherently unprovable. There simply is no way to perfectly know the state of one atom/molecule in a collection of gas. I will grant that this is possible for the sake of argument. Even granting this, we could never, ever have perfect knowledge of every one of the 6*10²⁶ atom/molecule that comprise a typical collection of gas. The thermal time hypothesis is not only not right, its not even wrong.

I simply don’t get how the dimensions of the concept even matter. Say you are trying to record the difference of shape of some part of an amorphous putty, or even the entire putty, you still are recording difference in time, so what is the point. Also, I don’t think the uncertainty principal would allow someone to have absolute precision in regards to understanding of every point like entity or what not in the universe all at once, I also think that goes against general relativity pretty much.

My point in my first post was simply that time might be little more then a composite term for the dynamic reality of say the physical universe, not much anything more, yet with various issues in physics, like general relativity, which produces a much higher order understanding of things then I can currently grasp as much as I would like points to time being more then that, more so in conjecture with say gravity and the warping of spacetime.

in reply to Cmac22

Yes, but in all reality direct observation is a physical process. So if expansion means that its expanding faster then the speed of light this does not for instance in time stop light. So the big question to me is where is the light from the edge so to speak?

Maybe its just not around anymore or it has simply not made it to earth for any various reason?

For it to have no edge I think would imply that its infinite also. Then again if I understand general relativity at all would that not simply imply just that, motion or that observation is a relative process? In that how can you guarantee distances and time to 100%, I just that what would imply some absolute frame of reference then also?

distance illusionary any more than statistical mechanics and thermodynamics make the concept of temperature illusionary.

I agree with you position about something being fundamental, it may be a bit reductionist but really if you cant answer for what is true fundamental I think it hurts anything else really in regards to understanding.

For me though I understand time as something real. Its far to applicable to physical reality to be merely artificial human construct alone. For instance with general relativity, and the time evolution operator of quantum mechanics. The periodic table with periodicity would imply that also I think, along with biological or chemical evolution in general. I think the problem comes with the definition again back to your original stance somewhat on the idea of something being fundamental.

I think the greatest thing QM has done for science is end the idea of determination being fundamental. So if determination of the next second of anything anywhere is not deterministic 100% then well time I guess is occurring really as it is physically then.

I was just wondering about the use of an integrated circuit and or software used as virus protection in a router. I have thought about as a good means of virus protection more so if you had two different ones going combined with any system anti-virus software.

I just don’t see how it can keep up with the change is all. People that develop a virus for instance obviously must be more then good at it, I really just don’t trust the software to back my computer in time against such. Personally most all of it is open source enough for any group of hackers to have it for whatever devious purpose. Plus the data and performance I think is all that matters.

Also for what its worth most name brand computer suppliers don’t go to great lengths in providing relevant data about systems they sell, your computer might have a two year economic focus after purchase, this would mean most everything else because it all follows the money.

As for security I have three different firewalls along with like two different security programs running in the background and my settings really are pretty constrained overall, I do like those pop-ups. Yet that darn addware or whatever still somehow finds a way in, along with a pop-up from clicking a link about twice a month.

For what its worth I would just suggest an external hard drive and simply cleaning your entire internal hard drive of just about everything. Virus software wont ever be able to protect everything. Plus its just lame having to hold all that overhead run time wise when using a computer I think.

Also computer technology advances so fast its almost like a motherboard is something you have to buy anytime you want to upgrade anymore.

Well I'm using division to come up with personality types. Im dividing archetypes until they take on new meaning and manifest themselves as something else.

 

These types are like windows into how/what people really are. I think they are people in their true forms. Gnostics believe that there is more to us than what we can see. There are other forces and thats what this seems like. Another force.

 

I never really understood the difference between Gnosticism and metaphysics. They both seem to cover the same territory. I mean they both try to explain the true nature of people.

Metaphysics is not spirituality. Physics by itself is just pure math, there really exists no point in simply trying to describe it more then just that. So, outside of this, the other part, that brings statements like what would happen to you as you went into a BH or a singularity or what not is what metaphysics used to be, when it was used, sort of like a duality thing, or a human thing, or what not.

Lastly about the personality types. Personally as you speak English I would assume some environmental reality made that possible. So in reality how do you account for environment in your types? As I understand the absence of environment, or say "culturing" a human in a sensory deprivation tank probably would only produce horrible results, heck the thought is even nasty alone. So basically that’s just it, in my humble opinion the "hardware" of what it means to be human such as having a human physiology is not really understood as well as I would like for say the reality of what psychology is in the modern world, or any related science. I don’t think you can really bring to bear the understanding that required for what they can and of course do in reality. Though I know this does not account for learning but that does bring up the whole environment bit again.

If you don’t believe me on the metaphysics bit that entire argument is alive and well in say philosophy but the majority view and I guess more or less in line also with history was metaphysics was the human interpretation of say math produced by physics.

 

Intelligent reasoning, logical deducting, abstract thinking, ……… you tell me.

 

One thing I do know for sure, that Pinto mare was standing there patiently waiting for me to come to the barn that morning.

Its not just that but for what it worth life is more then trying to find anti-knock agents going from chemical behavior. Yet on that note its still just the same chemical compounds if you will in general that makes up a fly compared to a human, sure no one will say a fly is anything like a human but that’s not really saying a fly does not have a thought. Last time I checked science cannot create a movie that would describe perfectly how a fly brain works, yet without that knowledge its easy to say a fly is just some pointless organic automaton, how is that again?

My dog likes to watch t.v sometimes. I have two dogs currently, both of the same breed, along with a few cats. They all act differently in regards to similar or different stimulus, that can further be changed depending on other variables, such as the environment or some other local events. Lastly if they were just stupid rocks incapable of thought, how could they ever get along with people. It just seems like common sense really, though I know that does not mean much.

Regarding souls, I don't believe that they are a physical tangable thing. They a meerly an abstract human construct which makes us once again feel like we are superior to all other life forms. It's also a nice way to face the fear of death. Unfortinately, I don't believe they exist. Somebody once said to me that they believed humans were not animals because we have soulds. I asked them to explain what exactly they thought a soul was. They told me that it was "ones personality". Can't all behaviors and personality traits be explained by biological concepts? As in, personality forms as a result of things experienced in life, which are in themselves affecting the make up of the brain. Not sure what my point is exactly lol, but I have one somewhere in there.

Lol, reading this thread makes me think no one has ever had a pet. I have had lots of pets and or interaction with mere animals to know that you can find personality in rats. Yes, it is all ultimately a biological thing though, but that can mean a whole lot more then even a B.S in the field on average I would say would reveal about just that word really in application to life.

A sould is a bs comment that cant exist outside of subjectivity, there is no need to debate that and yes I care a great deal about people in my life and people in general.