vampares

That could be an adaptation mechanism that they had neglected. I wonder if I still have any tail DNA I might be able to use on my offspring. I was thinking something squirrely.

...just waiting for someone to be like "I was there man, I totally freaked." I think we can term it a "genetic defect" if it is a result of faulty genetics. It could be a benign defect or it could be the fourth stage of a brain tumor. It could also be a minor mutation that is coded seamlessly into the genome. It is very uncommon that the human body has asymmetric "quirks" such as this. Besides the structural unilateralism, the only asymmetry I can think of is in the ears and eyebrows. I have an eyebrow (left) that ruffs up on it's inside end. I have seen other people with this identical trait, one was a Mormon. I also have a nicked ear that shorts the rounding and makes my ear look pointy. This is more common, sometimes both ears (which I think looks better). It's funny, when someone does have one of the more frequent "genetic defects" and, say, a nicked ear, it is the ear that stands out like a sore thumb. How do I know it's a genetic defect? Because there's three inches between your eyebrows. If eyebrows being locked together like fingers wasn't a birth defect, you wouldn't pluck them out. Now these days a ruffed eyebrow will get second looks but it's there for a reason. I mean nobody past age 12 leaves a unibrow where it is. It's obscene. I would think two different colored eyes (past aqua-marine and blue) would give the appearance of a concussion (or a brain tumor). It's a tough sell, although I have to admit I've thought about it before. As far as eyes go, I'm partial to nut brown, particularly blue, maybe sheer hazel (very uncommon). Blue-green, gray or anything two tone kind of makes me twitch. That's just my natural reaction. I could have a psychological block from things past. It's hard to talk to some people even.

Yes. It is usually the same gene that is affected but thalassemia eliminates or breaks or messes up one copy (many redundant mutation across this and possibly other proteins). The other copy could have the sickle cell mutation, which is only one nucleotide altering one amino acid. The rest of the beta hemoglobin is the same. This would be hetrozygous sickle cell condition which isn't as bad. It is unlikely a copy of a gene would be effected with both of these conditions and I have no idea what effect it would have.

kennedy letter I was able to find this at http://www.loc.gov/.

No, there an extra chromatin making 21 a triplet. There's already two copies of every gene (hopefully). The mechanism that makes this happen is inherent to the chromosome itself. For some reason it's sticks and doesn't come apart properly. So when the eggs of the ovary are made, some are made correctly, others missing a 21 (not viable), others extra 21 (carrier) and others will be carriers but not have Down's. The $64k is why on earth doesn't this disease phase itself out? You do the math. You do the worrying. You pay the bills. You take the stigma. You get the picture. Corky gets his own heroic TV show and a vacation in the Caribean Isles. I think that this is like most other genetic conditions that produce a generalized dymorphia. Fetal development depends on rapid growth. The slow production of a critical protein leads to disproportionate cell division. The resulting frame upon which a person then starts their life may well be their undoing. I don't know if there are any other issues arising from Down's. If there were I would expect more drugs. Tom Ridge might have Down's.

I am fairly certain "stem cell research" is intended as a runner up to this concept. I have no doubt in my mind that an inferior or diseased outlook creates preservation pressure. Given what I know about the present state of the genome I think many people would be eyeballing certain chromosomes for their own use. I know that certain group do obtain samples of DNA from the global population. This displays the naivety someone who is f'd up has. I had grade school teachers who were this way. What you get is normalcy. Normalcy, 1) isn't all it's cracked up to be, 2) doesn't like illnormacy far more than illnormacy doesn't like it. Hate is dirty word. It is a disease that lives outside the body. I think you are being more cautious than you need to be. This very concept presupposes terminations of test fetuses, especially if there is going to additions to the genome. With that in mind, what is wrong with an adjusted breeding selection? One that doesn't sterilize the population. Are there good ways to do this? You betcha! First employ RED tests at the intermediate school level. That would help genetic normalcy. It doesn't discriminate. It just tell a person who they should be looking for in a mate. Ace preservationist tactic. Normalcy is not something that you get real hyped up about like the varsity QB or Aryan race. It's not a contest or a judgment call or something that can be cheated. Normalcy solves real everyday problems. If I had were to shoot an apple off your head, and I didn't want to do that, and I was scared, I might close my eyes. At which point you may or may not (depending if youre blindfolded) realize that problems have not been solved, they have only been compounded dramatically. There is a guy who works nights at the grocery store. He is in a wheelchair. A few days ago he said "he didn't like it". He is a young person and looking at him, I can't help but see myself in that position. I am the type of person who doesn't just wipe his brow and say "Thank God." If there is any possible way this could have been prevented -- artificially selected -- by law I think there ought to be a requirement. For all of the resistance to this, there is a substantial public antibreeding pressure. It is rare that I ever hear an encouraging word to healthy individuals. Representations of "artificially selectable" couples in the media as happy traditional families would be a start. The Elimination Factor (could make it a gameshow) is just as bad as attempting to alter genetics under the wrong auspices. Doing so is sure to lead to negative consequences. Some people live on these things. Do we not remove criminals from society? Prevent mad men from sabotaging our nations? Are people allowed to rape with impunity? -- why would anyone object to this? While the rapist may go to jail, it is he or she who owns the misdeed. But where I think the resistance is, is in those who aren't bastards but know where they come from. This is an irresponsible motive that confuses financial/material normalcy with something more important. After all, what is there to be afraid of? I know the retards and p'a of this world aren't reading something like this on "scienceforums.net". No way in a million years. It will be a few of those who stand to benefit and need this sort of protection and order in their lives. --- To elevate the genome I think both good and healthy breeding is in order. Other than that: I think micro-studding males is an option. It reduces defects and ethnic tension. Especially on the small community level. It work with animals. I think de-multi-culturalizing and ethic/common bond communities is an appropriate way to go. Not that out-breeding is bad. I think it is good. It takes in-mixing populations though. In America, we have lost the identities we inherited. What else is there? If there is a repair that could be made to the human genome, I would be interested to hear about it. I don't think you'd have many takers. To improve humans, tweak them, it would require experimentation. This means some sort of anti-tissue methods would be used. Debraining of embryos, etc. But isn't that an anti-affirmative artificial selection? I'd like to see science and policy that embraces the existing (and historic/ancestral) population rather than strays from it.

I heard David Bowie blew a line, went into a mellow trance, someblood came out of his nose and his one eye was a different color (or something like that).

Gene map of the Y chromosome There isn't a whole lot to the Y-chromosome. And since it doesn't go through recombination, I think the mapping may be more generalized. It can be long and it can be short. Looks like 53M making it the fifth shortest chromotin between the two from 20 and 21 respectively. X is 155M, so Y is missing 2/3rds of it's info. On the bright side of things: if it is lopped off like that, there is only one copy of the gene. Provided that copy is good, there should be no problem just using that. In fact it may be much easier with out all the winding and unwinding and the ungainly arm getting in the way. Which is why I reckon males are superior to females in most regards (or cretinous imbeciles).

OK I found an instance of genome hopping. bird>human (via virus?) If I'm reading this correctly it causes cancer. No wings, yet. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=164757 Selection, natural or otherwise (I think personal selection i.e. males ramming heads, or plumage and song, plays an integral role in higher organisms) does define a species. Whether this leads to evolving, I am not sure. "Mutation", however, is a statistically poor way to achieve this although not impossible. First, a mutation might not do anything, it which case it goes unrecognized. When it does do something it tends to be bad. Second that bad mutation may go unchecked. Until it is coupled with a good one, which is selected for, and inbreeding takes down the whole ship. This puts a painstaking emphasis on probability, the size and scope of the gene pool, etc. And I wonder how many parts of the human genome are rendered vestigial, ie, a protein is produced but is broken and has been that way since monkeys and so this protein just wastes space and resources in cells. If mutation is a frequent determinant, there may be a number of these "broken" proteins, and common to monkey too.

Nothing worse than wallowing in mediocrity and pestilence. I think resource scarcity will have an impact on the biomass-rich under-culling of the population. I don't know what effects this will have on the population post-industrial revolution however. Seems as though much of the damage has been or will be done at that point. The Asians are an untapped hotbed. I think they will play a large roll in the future of mankind.

I once considered to E.O. Wilson's, and others such as C.S. Lewis theories of altruism and sociobiology to be the mundane ramblings of (bad) philosophy. It seems a premature attempt to strip the world of logic, or humans of logic, or the world from humans, or monkeys of logic and bananas. Justice, value of beauty and the free market economy may not explain the welfare state. But they play integral part. Still I find the subject to be trite. Never-the-less. The cat understands neither the value of money, nor the value of food to the other cat (or it does not care for it). It knows how to ask for food and it knows how to avoid being kicked across the room. Biology has explanations for this. A human may understand the value of money, and it may understand the value of food to another. It understands how to avoid getting kicked across the room and it understands the value of this. So might animals. Animals often feed their mates. Biology has explanations for this. To say one is bound to success or failure is not a so much a question of gentic tendency but that of capability. Perhaps a human is more able to comprehend and analyze. Lizards may be far less able. Perhaps Evil. The conceptualization of mankind is mammalian. It can not be both good and evil.

I suppose anything is possible. If mutations are to frequent, there won't be a window of opportunity for the changes to be scrutinized and then incorporated into the population. It can be argued that in a spider ball of eggs there are, say, 1000 offspring. Of those 1000 there needs to be only 1 breeding pair to maintain the population. If there are 2 than the population experiences a vertical pattern. As the world is not full of spiders, we can assume there is an equilibrium being maintained. We further make the assumption that this equilibrium maintenance is filling the role of "natural selector". Anyways, there can be a greater genetic drift in a species that has 1000 offspring. If 500 are a little f'd up and 100 are really f'd up that is O.K. It is sloppy and it turns out that's not what happens -- although mass producing animals do tend to experience more genetic "instability". "Instability" does rise in domesticated environments. This is more due to the laxing of the ordinary breeding pressure allowing the population to settle in at the lower standard. A human has 46 chromosomes. Other primates have other numbers. The addition/subtraction of chromosomes and cross-species-breeding does yield viable offspring in primates and other mammalian species. In humans however any substantial chromosome remove is deleterious. The condition of have an additional redundant chromosome is also harmful, and often not viable much less capable of reproduction. Exactly what biological mechanism redundant-but-not-identical-chromosomes ? It seems as though this would be easier if coding DNA and structural DNA were somehow separated. And they are, and this separation is on the chromosome itself. I don't know that the structure portions don't refer to coding on other chromosomes. The X chromosome seems to be a very important, highly utilized chromosome. Many structural traits have been identified as residing on this chromosome, partly because of the unique way in which it is inherited. This unique inheritance also has the potential to stave off the polarity of sexual reproduction. So this unique virtual-mono-chromatin has a purpose and still undergoes genetic recombination. Defects on this chromatin are exaggerated in males. When there are two copy of a gene, one is defective, a defective protein will be made half the time. This allows for survival in sort of a "safe mode". Any sibling who has no defect is more likely to thrive -- evolution depends on this. It is highly unlikely the Y-chromosome does much of anything but sit next to X. I don't think another vestigial chromatin will find it's way into the genome. But still the question may not be "where is my John Wayne?" but "where is Dr. Cornelius and the Ferengi?" as cross-"species" breeding may be the only way to add material to the human genome. At it is, we may have diverged to far from other species and lost our *real* genetic variation when we quit f'n goats. These labels cut to the bone. There are theories of viruses adding DNA to the host cell genome. Species to species viral transmition could carry over genetic material that might find its way into gametes. The food we eat, as well, is (almost) always of biological origins and contains DNA/RNA. This too could make it's way into the genome. I think it would manifest itself as a tumor rather than offspring with additional features. I don't know of any proved cases of this having naturally occurred, and I have seen no evidence that humans or any plants/animals share a common unique genome fraction. It is shown however that genomes are highly preserved, considering, and often these lowlevel genomea occupy the majority of all genomes. "Random" mutation (bit-flip, garbbly-goop, missense, tautology, repeat expansion, deletions) are contradictory to this fact. A theory I am interested in is the potential for pseudo-intelligent-design. Whereby an organism actively scrambles DNA or proteins and somehow selects individual elements of its own (or something else's) genome. Like a super smybiotic anti-semetic amoeba. Intergalactic.

I think Darwin is bifurcating with this term fitness. He started with the niche theory. That is lots of fur on a rabbit makes it fit for cold environments (you know because what does a rabbit care, so something must have killed the bald ones). I don't think selective upward pressure was necessary for this. Try two environments in one enclosure and two or more organisms maybe.

The animals and plants mankind has breed have classically been finicky mutations for specialized purposes. I think it is important to realize that mankind itself is not the "agouti gerbil" or hearty wild animal but a domesticated and specialized strain that is very fragile and not the "resilient" wonderkind we would like to be.

I would agree with this but also I think this is a complicated subject. Throughout the course of ones life cells divide and die and DNA is passed along. That DNA should remain the same throughout ones life. Any number of small changes can occur. Some defective DNA will degrade and produce a spiraling myriad of disease. Generation to generation you only pass half your DNA on to your offspring. What this means is that "mutation" is a collective occurrence. Seems like it take a lifetime. But the "natural selection process" starts at home. SNP or single nucleotide mutations are rather benign. The most important DNA tends to be stored more safely than the extraneous DNA. A lot of DNA, especially that which deals with its own maintenance was (theoretically) evolved way back in single celled organisms whose lives really were especially suited for this type of evolution. We would not expect humankind to evolve one of these highly specialize and ever critical functions any further. Ever since the Repeat Expansion epidemic came out (the Evil Seed or Jew's blood) there has been a struggle to get a clamp down on normalcy. This is one mutation creating every know mutation simply by virtue of poor DNA maintenance. These mutation are NOT benign. They may expand and result in a complete chromosome breakage generations down the line. They destabilize the chromosome by setting it out of alignment. This leads to premature aging. Very bad. Very widespread. And there is no cure other than sterilization at this point. This is critical because multiple mutations can be distributed out to many different individuals. This is what is being done in Africa right now. See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. This is the database of every mutation that ever arose out of the North African mutator. It is something like AIDS.