immortal

Well many biologists would put viruses as the bridge between nonlife---> life I would categorize them as true living organisms based on following points using the definition of life. We call something as life if it does the following basic things:- 1. Metabolism - living things have to metabolize because they have to reduce entropy. In viruses the protein coat (i.e. capsomeres) are arranged in a icosahedral symmetry which helps them to stay in the minimum possible energy. So IMO viruses don't have to metabolize and they have evolved ways to maintain themselves in the right stable configuration. 2. Sense the environment - as we all know that viruses have information(proteins) in them to bind to their specific receptors of the host so they are sensing the environment. 3. Replication - Is self-replication is the criteria for a cell to be alive? I think still we don't know why do we need heredity or why do we have to pass on our information? Yes even prions can be considered as alive because they can sometimes cross species barriers by changing its conformation, they can be passed on to the offspring through the ovum and they have a prion determining factor which can change the other proteins to its same kind with help of a chaperone. Like other micro-organisms they can be infectious or symbiont with the host depending on the configuration it takes after it has crossed the species barrier. For example:- people(including myself) have been eating sheeps from past times and no ill effects have been found but suddenly people(excluding myself) who eat cows are at the risk of getting Creutzfeldt's-Jacob disease. In some organisms they can act as temporary adaptations where the environment changes and again gets normal this can be done by changing the proteins into an inactive state and activating it when the conditions get normal again.

Well I said that based on the sickle cell gene which provides protection in a malarial region. If I could remember exactly there was a report on NGC where there was a selection of a population of sheeps which were struggling to walk properly and this kind of selection was because of the owner who provided food for them and those sheeps which were normal and more in number went first to eat but they did'nt had sufficient meal due to large numbers and there by less food. But those abnormal sheeps which went last and fewer in number had enough meal. The force of natural selection acts using different agents here the agent was human beings.

IMO there is no such thing has a bad gene or a good gene they just become bad in a particular environment and when the environment changes the same gene which you called it has bad may not be bad at all. Now a days I am hearing that some people wants to have a conscious selection so that they can eliminate bad genes and I am afraid that this conscious selection will never be able to design things as efficiently as natural selection and it may lead to extinction. Cultural evolution does'nt block biological evolution it just takes it in a different path and we are still evolving. Many say that things are changing due to global warming and we need to use renewable resources to stop it. I think it has already reached a point where it can not be stopped unless we find some high tech solution. The problem with humans is that they don't want to change they want the environment to adapt according to them. I think this is the time to change not only mentally but also biologically and the best way to get prepared for the changing environment is to have reproductive success so go on and produce as many offsprings as you can and one thing don't take too much burden and I think we need to take chances very seriously in a world were everything works by chance.

Well I too vote for the second one because once life gets started it never looks back. Even though I think that the nature had the same kind of challenges to create nonlife -----> life and life -----> complex life it is more likely that complex life can come from simple life. For example, one challenge was the end replication problem which arosed when circular chromosomes evolved into linear chromosomes (i.e. dna polymerase can not synthesize DNA of the other strand due to lack of free -OH group at the end of chromosomes) this would have been lethal as it causes fusion of chromosomes but nature as always had find solutions to problems and the solution was the enzyme telomerase and there are other mechanisms which have evolved to solve this problem. Whether or not humans and plants are complex organisms I think eukaryotes are surely complex than prokaryotes. What makes an organism multicellular is that its ability to make cell to cell adhesions which are provided by tight junctions, belt and spot desmosomes which have proteins like desmoplakins and desmogleins in their matrix and gap junctions for effective communiction. I think similar primitive proteins might have played a role in making multicellular. Having introns and exons which can produce different proteins using the same gene in different cells through exon reshuffling and splicing adds some complexity and genome size does'nt matter much. Complex regulation in mRNA processing using trancriptional factors, repressors and different ways of regulation of start and termination signals is quite complex. On the whole through constant programmed genome modificatons due to stress by transposons making translocations and gene duplications it is quite likely that complex life can come from simple life.

Transpiration is the process of loss of water from the aerial parts of the body in the form of water droplets. It was Curtis who stated that Transpiration is a necessary evil. Transpiration is an effect which either opposes or favours the cause that produced it depending on the availability of water in the soil. It is just an emergent property which emerges out when there are pores on the surface of living organisms. They need this pores for the exchange of gases which is important for metabolic activities. The number of pores depend on the concentration of gas in the atmophere that has to be fixed. Animals have just two nostrils or pores because the concentration of oxygen was quite high when they appeared on land. So when plants appeared on land around 400-500 million years ago the concentration of c02 in the paleozoic era was high and having pores between the epidermal cell of the body was sufficient to fix co2 and transpiration was not a problem as these plants were living in moist conditions. But at the end of the paleozoic era the conc of co2 decreased and this paved the way for evolution of stomata and leaves become broader as a result of increase in stomatal apparatus to fix co2 and this resulted in excess loss of water and this led to the evolution of passive absorption of water through the conduting system in order to compensate the loss of water and to maintain turgidity of cells. Right from the 19th century many have looked at the process of transpiration and each one came up with a different conclusion. One of the advantages of transpiration is that it reduces the temperature of the leaf (I don't know how far this is true) and if it does reduces the temperature then it must be advantageous to plants because we are begining to understand the importance of temperature in a cell and how it affects enzymes which maintain quantum coherence to carry out quick reactions. Some claim that transpiration helps in translocation of mineral salts to the upper parts of the body. But studies show that only 1-2% of transpiration is sufficient to translocate the mineral salts. If transpiration is both advantgeous as well as disavantageous to plants then natural selection may keep the advantageous effects and try to suppress the odd effects. But the problem is we don't know exactly what are the advantages of transpiration.

Well I am not so educated in quantum mechanics but this is what I know and I think Conservation of energy does not hold good for QM for short intervals of time. There are particles called 'virtual photons' and its quite hard to determine their mass. For an electron the mass of the electron along with the mass of virtual photons determine their complete mass and sometimes the virtual photons reduce the mass of the electron as if they did not existed and this leads to absorption of photons and the electron jumps up to next higher orbit. As far has your question is concerned it would'nt be an advantage to know whether something has life or non life. Just gaining information from the surroundings is enough to adapt. Whether a Virus has life or not it is going to cause diseases and designing mechanisms to prevent this disease is sufficient to adapt. We don't know how life arosed on our planet because life is very complex and we does'nt have enough information to describe an event which occured 3.5 billion years ago. Its not about the time actually its about how complex the event is. Information theory and molecular biology along with some complicated chemistry and physical forces should be able to replicate that event. Infact there are certain points in the universe where things start to happen. All stars can not have planets because it has to have the right metallic character to produce planets. Stars which have a high amount of ferrous magnesuim silicates have a greater chance to produce planets and they emit them in the form of chondrules and these chondrules combine to form planets. It also depends on the nieghbouring stars because these stars evaporate the clouds around a young star preventing the star to produce planets as though there is competion among them. So when there is a hostile environment you can see life originating out. As this is a cyclic process entropy of the system will be zero and we will again end up as clouds of dust and gas.

Nano technology is certainly the next future technology and it would take sometime to create a nano robot which has better communications with other robots so that they can do complex things by working in groups. Every technology has a risk factor involved in it. In fact the game of evolution is full of risks and those organisms which create better strategies or create better designs(i.e better technology) go on to win the game. Minute particles will often enter lungs but we have macrophages to tackle them and just because these particles enter lungs it does'nt mean they will cause diseases. However nano technology could be used to create nano weapons which can destroy your enemy.

Both information and entropy are nothing but the same thing. Your opinion that information reduces informational entropy is invalid. In statistical mechanics the definition of entropy is " It is the uncertainty in which microstate will be observed during the next measurement". To measure entropy the process has to be randomised if the same microstate appears again and again it does'nt make any sense to measure the entropy of the system using the Boltzman's entropy equation S = K log W. In a cell the DNA will be in the same microstate what ever the time you measure. So you can't measure entropy based on uncertainty which has a system with a specific mechanism. It is very important to note what Clausius states about entropy " when a system is in equilibruim its entropy increases and decreases when it is out of equilibruim". For the definition of equilibruim http://www.answers.com/topic/equilibrium-4?cat=technology Life is in well accordance with this law when an organism is in equilibruim with its surroundings (when it is best adapted) it leads to increase in information i.e the organism replicates or multiplies. This does'nt mean that the purpose of life is to increase information because life can decrease information when it is out of equilibruim and it will be in a state of thermal equilibruim and the overall entropy increases. Gene duplicates so that it helps the organism to attain equilibruim and leads to replication of the organism and the gene is preserved in the gene pool. Also having copies of the same gene reduces error in the transmitted message. Information exists to an observer only in a specific mechanism. Life has information because it has a specific mechanism and this mechanism is the decoding of DNA and the decoder is the tRNA. Information theory is applicable to molecular biology and it answers many questions such as the repetitive segments of DNA. According to information theory more is the randomness in the message which is encoded more is the information stored in it. We know that these segments do not code for any proteins as there is less information stored in it. DNA is a code but the problem is we do not know how this code originated. Gene duplication, replication, recombintion etc leads to increase in Information. Information has a tendency to increase in a specific mechanism. So we all are the result of Second law of Thermodynamics.

Paralith I really don't agree with your hypothesis when the telomere length gets shorter cells usually die if they don't die then the chromosomes are ripped off in an ugly assortment leading to genomic instability, gene loss and cancer. This is in according to the Fusion model and an enzyme called exonuclease corresponds to gene loss. So there is a greater chance for a cell to go from normal to cancerous even though there is shortening of telomere. I think it is the checkpoints in a cell division which is important and ofcourse this is controlled dy cyclin dependant kinases and it is this mechanism which prevents cancer.

Sorry I have lost the link and I read about it in the distant past. May be that 7% refers to those people who have sexual activity less than once in a week compared to those people who don't have any sexual activity. One explanation for this would be since sexually active people are exposed to different antigens more often than sexually inactive people they are bound to have high levels of immunoglobins. I suppose you will be exposed to more antigens if you have sex in your bathroom.

Well there is certainly a benefit if you mastrubate twice in a week, because any sexual activity twice in a week will increase your level of immunoglobins by 35%. So you will be immune to micro organisms and be more healthier compared to persons who does'nt have any sexual activity with an increase of immunoglobins by just 7%.

Well I know only one way to calculate the number of ATP's produced in oxidative phosphorylation i.e. EMP pathway- 6 ATP's 1. In Glycolysis 2 ATP molecules are used up and 4 ATP molecules are produced through substrate-level phophorylation. Total - 4-2 = 2. 2. Two NADH2 are produced and it go through electron transport chain producing 6 ATP'S. One molecule of NADH2 produces 3 atp molecules. But remember glycolysis takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell. So the two NADH2 produced have to pass through the mitochondrial membrane and this utilizes 2 atp's. One atp for one NADH2. Total = 8-2 =6. Two pyruvic acid molecules are produced. Krebs cycle- 30 ATP's 1.Pyruvic acid molecules undergo oxidative decarboxylation and produce two acetyl COA molecules, two NADH2 molecules. So 6 ATP'S 2. IN TCA cycle 6 NADH2 molecules are produced. So 6*3 = 18 atp's. 3. 2 FADH2 molecules are produced. So 2*2 = 4 atp's. One FADH2 molecule produces 2 atp's. 4. 2 atp's are produced by substrate level phosphorylation. So the total number of atp's produced is 36. This has to be there in your text book and I don't think that there is an alternate way to calculate ATP produced in oxidative phosphorylation.

Ah! here is the point, an organism is like an ecosystem for a microbe as our surroundings is to us. As lucaspa stated when an organism dies the cancer cells also die but all the microbes living in the body don't die they have a greater chance of finding a different ecosystem. If cancer cells would have got the ability to live in a different ecosystem then yes you can call this as a life form. Of course they replicate in petri dishes because they have an enzyme called telomerase which provides the immortal property for cancer cells but remember this is artificial. Well if you rewind the tape of evolution and run it again it is very unlikely that you will get the same thing again. Because the mutations that happen to an organism are random you can't expect a DNA molecule to change its configurations at the right time and in the right organism so that you get the same design solutions. Even in your words evolution can take different pathways to create designs which have high efficiency in lowering free energy. So different pathways means different design solutions and hence they will look different. But yes there is a greater chance for similar stuffs evolving but not same stuffs. Just because cancer cells create more cells that does'nt mean a derease in entropy. Because all the molecules in cells have similar configurations and they have similar entropy values. So if a single cell becomes two, the two cells which are formed will have similar entropy values of the original because both the cells are made of same molecules with same configurations. Order and entropy are not same but related and the equation which relates entropy and disorder is Boltzman's entropy equation S = K ln D, where D is the measure of disorder. In statistical mechanics you need to specify the microstates (i.e. collection of states of all the molecules in any moment) and these collection of microstates leads to a macrostate. Entropy is a measure of finding a specified microstate in the next measurement. So more is the number of microstates (i.e DISORDER) more is the uncertainty in finding that microstate in that moment so more is the entropy. In case of cells the molecules in a cell will remain in that microstate if you look at it in any moment so there is no uncertainty in finding that microstate and it makes no sense to measure the entropy of the cell. Even in a mutation just the configuration of the DNA molecule will change but the entropy of the DNA will remain similar as it is made up of same set of combination of atoms.

Amino acids are zwitterions i.e. they will have both positive charge as well as negative charge. For example ,Alanine In the case of peptides, I don't see anywhere the molecule losing or gaining an electron, However the electrons of bonded nitrogen are shared between two C-atoms and one H-atoms and has two lone pair of electrons. The amine group is protonated and the carboxyl group is deprotonated. Cytochromes have Fe+++ and Fe++ ions which alternately get reduced and oxidised and there by transfering electrons. It is one of the member of electron transport chain. Amino acids are zwitterions i.e. they will have both positive charge as well as negative charge. For example ,Alanine In the case of peptides, I don't see anywhere the molecule losing or gaining an electron, However the electrons of bonded nitrogen are shared between two C-atoms and one H-atoms and has two lone pair of electrons. The amine group is protonated and the carboxyl group is deprotonated.

Junk DNA's codes for microRna's which is very important in cell differentiation.

Yes if proteins had formed in the primitive stages of the Earth then it can easily lead to formation of microspheres-->organelles-->cells-->tissues-->organs-->organ systems-->organisms-->populations-->ecosystems-->biodiversity. There are several studies which suggests that the proteins replicate,compete for same resources and also show symbiosis (i.e. symbiotic hypercycle). But it raises a question in my mind whether we are for the survival of the 'GENES' or for the 'PROTEINS' or may be for both. If life is the emergent property of the proteins then we are surely for the PROTEINS because a gene as such can not survive without the help of proteins. Life is due to the symbiosis of proteins and DNA. Not only the genes are passed from generation to generation even the proteins present in the sperm and ovum is passed on. If a gene gets altered even the resultant protein gets altered and also it is the proteins which are visible to natural selection and not the genes (genes which do not express). Therefore natural selection select proteins and there by select genes. It is not right to limit evolution only for genes even we have to consider the proteins. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Evolution works by cumulative selection, it preserves good changes and eliminates the rest. Yes without selection organisms would just mutate or change and it would take zillions of years to evolve into humans but if you add selection you can easily evovle into humans within 3.5 billion years. It does'nt mean that it was designed to create us it is just an emergent property of the systems no one is intending to create us not even god. For example:- Tell a monkey to write the eleven letters in the word 'shakespeare' on a typewriter it would take millions of years for a monkey to write the word with one go. Now you add selection keep the letters which are on the right place (for example if a monkey types the letter 'a' on the third box ) and jumble the rest and you would see that it does'nt take millions of years to type the word. This is how evolution works. And also you will see that at the begining there will be a sudden burst of mutations and selection pressures acting which accerelates evolution.

We find conservation of genes instead of variation because the genes which are conserved helps in providing variation during several life stages of an organism. One such conservation is of microRNA which are conserved in both humans and mice. MicroRNA inhibit the mRNA and there by regulating the genes but having said that both humans and mice have similar regulating mechanisms but still we find a huge morphological difference may be factors like when and where the mRNA was inhibited may come into account and also not to forget about the Jumping genes (the transposons) which alter the genome. So its very easy to digest evolution if you look at it in an broad way and see junk things has precious. Its very hard to imagine life without these junk genes (someone has to change this name).

No, they do because everyone are programmed to have sexual desire. When I mean sexual desire it is for reproductive success. Even If I would'nt have known about evolution I would have shown sexual desire. But evolution certainly changed the way I think about this world and the problem is most people in my part of the world don't like my thinking because most of them don't know about evolution and based on my experimentation if you talk about reproductive success and stuffs like that you will be in an ugly place. Your behavior will be based on what you believe in and how you think. As I said earlier co-operation is important for evolutionary success but how can co-operation and competition both exist? Do animals compete just to pass on successful genes and eliminate the unfit? If these two exists together then when do organisms co-operate and when do they compete?

Communication involves talking as well as listen to what's being said. So along with good vocal chords we must have a good hearing ability and we have that in the form of a gene called aminopterin. Other primates don't have this gene that's why it is difficult to teach them. If you want to create or invent a new technology you need language. So language came first then braininess. Humans pass on their memes to their offsprings (they teach) thats how it is being passed from generation to generation. Now coming to the aspect of human evolution if conditions favour, organisms always increase their reprodutive rate. So having space colonisation in mind is it good to increase reproductive rate of humans or to have birth control? Some of the species may get extinct but today we have the technology to create better micro organisms than which have evolved naturally. One more important thing for the success of humans is co-operation it is this ability of ours to punish those who don't co-operate and reward those who does has helped us to come up where we are. Only thing is no one is intending to be co-operative it just happens through evolution (its in our genes) forming complex societies. I don't completely agree that behavior such has sexual orientation is purely genetic. Based on my experiences I had sexual desire only after when I learned about evolution and stuffs like that. So either my morality got twisted or it is because of mutation. Is it good to express sexual desires? whether it has an advantage over attracting mates for reproductive succcess or not?

Well you are on the right track this effect is more concerned to biophysics and electromagnetic radiations. I think this effect is based on the notion that all the organisms (especially the plants) intercommunicate with in themselves (i.e. within cells) and with the surrounding living things by emitting biophotons (UV photons) which are stored in the DNA. In 1978 Kaznacheev, Shurin and colleagues demonstrated an experiment, they took healthy tissues and placed into two test tubes and added viruses and other toxins to one of the test tubes so that the cells die with in two days and the other was kept unaffected. These two test tubes were seperated by a thin glass or a quartz sheet. But in 76% of the experiments the cells which were unaffected also began to die when they were seperated by quartz sheet. This is called cytopathic effect. So there must be a communiction between the cells in the form of radiation. The cells when they die they emit or give a signal to other cells and there by the other cells start mitosis to maintain the number of cells. This effect can be seen even at distant places from one plant to another plant so the name distant inter cellular electromagnetic interactions. If this is true then this should give a strong evidence for the Gaia theory proposed by James lovelock who says all the organisms act as one single system (for mutual benefit) to maintain the conditions necessary to live on earth. Not only the environment affect the way organisms evolve even the organisms affect the environment in which they live. For example, plants take in carbon di oxide and emit oxygen and animals use oxygen and emit CO2 . So the biophotons maintain the number of plants and amimals (i.e. cells) and there by maintaining the level of CO2 and oxygen in the atmosphere.

Yes it is worth terraforming mars it has become more of a necessity than worth. Sooner or later we have to leave earth because the resources are decreasing and the population is increasing. According to James Lovelock the entropy (amount of disorder) of a system reduces if there is life prevailing in the system. The whole earth acts as one system to maintain the temperature just right for life to go on. You don't have to manipulate the system instead just add life then natural selection will do its job. No one manipulated the life on earth. Yes the only way it will work is by sending tiny micro organisms and wait for a million years so that the planet becomes habitable and we already have one the bacterium Deinococcus Radiodurans has the ability to withstand extreme radiations which is common on mars and we can use this bacteria to produce useful drugs, pure water etc.. I don't think thats a good idea even rocks give off radiation and over time they give off enough radiation to kill normal cells.

I was arguing that it is very difficult to change the successful reproductive strategy which has been adopted by most people in the society. If I want to change this strategy I can't do it on my own I need a group of people who adopt my strategy. As you said natural selection acts on populations so if our strategy is better then we will eventually win. I did not compared it instead I applied evolutionary thinking to social issues and I know that If I take a biological view of the society I will be in an ugly place.

Well I don't like history too much. AFAIK this kind of sex worship were written in scripts in which a god named Krishna had 16000 wives and there are similar stories like that and when people read about this they started making female sculptures in temples and followed the same principle. I think everything started when people where divided according to their castes. It was started by the Aryans at a time before christ and a higher caste called the Brahmins(very supertitious) had a negative impression on women and they considered any women without a husband should commit suicide so that she will live happily in afterlife and these principles were forced on common people by the foreign invaders. I don't think both the british as well as the muslims imposed this kind of moral system because both had a good impression about sex however they imposed those moral systems of the Brahmins. This shows that it is more a cultural one than biological. I really don't know why this kind of unhibited sex strategy has been adopted by individuals. If you develop a better strategy than that then your strategy will be selected.

Well that kind of thinking has changed now if you show any sexual behaviour in public you will be taken to the jail and the media will make a huge story out of it. I really can't figure out why humans are so inhibited about sex. I think sperm competition has decreased in humans. Any sexual activity twice in a week is good because it increases your level of immunoglobulins by 31% and you will be more healthier. So in this society if you show any abnormal sexual behavior you will be really in an ugly place. I think we should blame the politcians for implementing such stupid rules.