LucidDreamer

Very nice post Erich.

I think you are taking this all way too seriously. Who cares what a few random people on the internet think?

It can't be that common or we wouldn't have so many heart attacks.

That's very interesting. But if he grew a new blood vessel to replace the blood flow of an artery, wouldn't he have a new artery instead of a vein? Did the blood vessel somehow have the characteristics of a vein instead of an artery?

There are several reasons why the Africans are being hit so hard: 1) Cultural Reasons The Africans are very sexual promiscuous and its not uncommon for husbands to cheat on their wives dozens of times. It's considered very manly to sleep with as many woman as possible. The women comply because they depend on the men for survival and they are often threatened with violence. It is also considered insulting to ask a man to wear a condom. 2) Medical care and poverty: The Africans are quite poor and often don't have access to a steady supply of condoms or other forms of birth control that might help prevent the spread of HIV. Women who have HIV in the western countries are given anti-HIV medication before they give birth, which significantly increases the chance that the babies will be born without HIV. Until very recently, very few women in the poor parts of Africa were given these drugs and many children were born with HIV. In the mid 90's the AIDS cocktail was created. This cocktail contains 3 different forms of HIV medication that reduces the viral load in infected individuals to almost nothing if it is started early. While the normal course of the HIV/AIDS infection is to develop AIDS in a timeframe of about 10 years, very few of the individuals that started taking these medications early in the development have any AIDS symptoms and their viral loads are still small. The Africans don't have access to these medications so almost all of the HIV infected individuals are developing AIDS and dying. 3) Education: It may sound strange to us in the western countries, but most Sub-Saharan Africans only have a vague notion of what AIDS/HIV is. A lot of them know that there is a disease that you can contract and one of the methods is through sexual contact, but they often don't know that it’s a virus or what a virus is. They often don't know of all the ways that it can be contracted and the ways that it cannot be contracted. They have many superstitions about how to get HIV. Many are not aware that a condom is an effective means to prevent it or that you can pass the disease to your child. Many Africans deny that AIDS is any concern of theirs. They do not accept that their sexual promiscuity has any bearing on getting the disease. Testing is often not as readily available either. People that have the disease will spread the disease to countless others before they ever find out. A lot will not be aware that they even have HIV until they start developing symptoms of AIDS. 4) Africa is the Epicenter for the disease. The disease started in Africa and spread throughout before the western world was even aware of it. It had already made a strong foothold in Africa before western medicine figured out what was going on. While countries like the United States only have one form of the virus the is common the Africans have like 6 different versions that are common. In fact, they have another form of AIDS that develops from an HIV2 virus that was introduced into the human population from the sooty mangabee monkey. Is it really so surprising that a virus-born disease is devastating third world countries while the western world has got it more under control with modern medicine, education, and technology? How many people in poorer countries died until the western world got around to giving them the polio and small pox vaccinations? How many people died of infection until they received antibiotics?

Where do all these crackpot theories such as Creationism, Holocaust Revisionism, and "AIDS was invented in a lab to kill gay people" come from? Why do people believe them when obviously the evidence does not support them?

Redundant Thread.

Ok, so how do you prove that a microorganism causes a disease? The scientific community often uses Koch's Postulates: 1) The microorganism must be found in all cases of the disease. "Recent improvements in laboratory testing, particularly polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, allow detection of HIV genetic material in people with AIDS or a positive HIV antibody test result. Interestingly, a 1995 study of 230,000 people with AIDS found that 168 were HIV-seronegative. Today it is known that the immune system depletion characteristic of advanced HIV disease can suppress the production of antibodies to HIV, which may explain this earlier finding." Those 168 people were probably false negatives because of the limitations from antibody tests or they had another immune system failure. But 229832/230,000 positives for HIV is strong evidence. You would not find that kind of correlation for another factor. Recent studies using pcr and viral load studies have found an almost 100% correlation. 2) It must be possible to isolate the microorganism from the host and grow it in pure culture (in the laboratory). "Regarding postulate two, improvements in laboratory culture techniques have allowed the growth of HIV in vitro (in laboratory models) from blood samples obtained from persons with AIDS who have undergone such testing and from almost all persons with a positive antibody test without AIDS who have undergone such testing." 3) The microorganism must reproduce the original disease when introduced into an experimental animal. “The evidence satisfying these postulates was established in 1997, when Francis J. November, PhD, and colleagues from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, published in the Journal of Virology that a chimpanzee inoculated with HIV ten years earlier had developed an AIDS-defining OI. Prior to the OI, the HIV RNA viral load had increased (partially documenting recovery of the organism from the animal model) and the CD4 cell count had decreased in the chimpanzee." 4) The microorganism must be recoverable from that animal "Cultures of blood from the animal also were positive for HIV, establishing recoverability of the organism. Subsequently, blood from that chimp was transfused into a second, healthy chimpanzee. This second chimpanzee later had an increase in the HIV viral load and a decrease in the CD4 cell count." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9094687&dopt=Abstract http://www.aegis.com/pubs/beta/1997/BE970909.htm http://www.sfaf.org/treatment/beta/b43/b43hiv_causes.html Additional evidence: 1) Known cases of non-sexual exposure that resulted in the development of AIDS, such as in hemophiliacs that received blood from an infected blood sample. Genetic studies are then done on the virus strands that find them to be the same. Some of these cases include: pediatric and adult blood transfusion cases hemophiliacs who received infected blood clotting factor protein infusions monogamous sexual partners of those transfusion recipients health-care workers with accidental needlestick or other occupational exposure, similar to the lab technicians described above mother-to-child transmission male-to-male and male-to-female sexual transmission injection drug users with secondary sexual transmission extremely rare outbreaks including transmission to dental patients from an infected dentist (e.g., the Kimberly Bergalis case in Florida) 2) SIV, a virus similar to HIV, causes AIDS in Asian monkeys. Almost all African monkeys and apes have a form of SIV, but they don't become sick. They have been exposed to SIV for thousands and sometimes millions of years and have adapted. Asian monkeys, however, do not have SIV and when they are exposed to SIV they developed AIDS (at least a similar version). In fact, Asian monkeys have been exposed to SIV and developed AIDS hundreds (possible thousands) of times during HIV studies on these monkeys. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15975024&query_hl=2 3) AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa. It also has the more people infected with the HIV virus than anywhere else. In sub-Saharan Africa some counties have populations where almost half of the country is infected. No other country has had so many AIDS deaths and no other country has so many cases of HIV infection. http://www.time.com/time/2001/aidsinafrica/map_flash.html Handy website: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/evidhiv.htm

This is not true. AIDS is most certainly caused by the HIV virus. Patients were developing AIDS before any of the modern drugs were used to combat the HIV virus. The drugs used to fight the HIV virus, such as protease inhibitors, are toxic, but so are a great deal of medications. However, the side effects of these drugs can be very unpleasant but they usually keep the patient alive. I don't know where you are getting your information, but it is wrong.

Isn't the overall reaction just: 2ZnS (s) + 3O2 (g) + C (s)--> ZnO (s) + 2SO2 (g) +Zn (l) + CO (g) It's been awhile since I heard the term overall equation, but don't you just cross out all the terms in common with the products from the first reaction and the reactants from the second reaction. In this case you can remove one ZnO (s) from both equations.

They aren't. That is merely propaganda spread by creationists. The amount of scientists that believe in evolution is as strong as ever. You are delving into the topic by reading creationist's literature. I know this because you use the term Darwinism, which scientists never use. If you are really interested in finding the truth then spend some time delving into this site: http://www.talkorigins.org/

You said in a few billion years. Language changes over time. Just look at the difference between English today and language during Chaucher's(sp?) time. It wouldn't even be remotely similar 2 billion years from now unless they went to great lengths to keep the same language as today. I kind of doubt they would even talk as we do today anyways after 2 billion years. If you ran across our descendants of 2 billion years from now you might not even suspect they were once human.

Genetic engineering: The evolution of the future. I doubt they will call themselves human because they probably won't speak English.

From what I understand testosterone only helps you gain height if you have delayed onset puberty. It doesn't increase your predetermined height; it only kicks in a growth spurt if you are overly due for one. Taking testosterone for long periods in high doses as a child might actually stunt your growth if it causes your bones to mature prematurely. There are a number of side effects that can occur by taking steroids.

Yeah, I knew about the gene duplication. I was wondering about the dual-function enzymes, the allosteric mutation, and multi-gene part. I was wondering how influential that model has been in evolution.

The whole left brain, right brain thing where the left side of your brain is analytical and the right side is creative is an extreme exaggeration. The functions of the hemispheres of your brain are not that distinct. But, to answer your question, yes. You can of course think and "daydream" at the same time and access multiple sections of your brain to solve problems and think about things. I'm assuming you mean incorporating problem solving into a sort of daydream, yet the term daydream usually refers to a mental process where you are not thinking about anything productive. You can also, to some degree, consciously think about one problem or daydream while your mind works on another in the background.

I believe that a major method of evolution occurs on allosteric regions of enzymes (which are the regions of the enzyme that are not involved in the chemical reaction). Cells have extremely complex methods of regulation that provide a buffer zone in the amount of an enzyme that can exist within the cell. When mutations that create additional copies of a gene that codes for an enzyme occur, the organism can often function just fine with some extra enzyme present because of its regulation system. The enzyme is then given breathing room to mutate until it creates an additional active region that performs a different but useful function for the cell. In this case, if the additional amount enzyme is not needed the active region of the enzyme is free to mutate as well. I suspect that many multiple copy genes provide the breeding grounds for the evolution of new enzymes that perform different catalytic functions on the allosteric sites. In the case of multiple copy genes where each copy of the gene is useful, yet the full efficiency of the resulting enzyme is not necessary for survival, I believe that some copies of the gene mutate until they are performing dual roles with two separate enzymatic functions with various degrees of efficiency in each role. If my hypothesis is correct then you should be able to find several instances with multiple copy genes where one or more of the copies still perform the original function yet they also perform a separate and useful catalytic function. These dual-role enzymes should have much of their DNA involved in the structure of the original active site in common with the other copies yet have differences in the allosteric regions of the gene. You should also find many instances of genes in the organism's genome with various degrees of change towards a separate enzyme. I wouldn't be surprised if this has already been thoroughly studied and I am merely presenting a hypothesis with a process that as already been well-documented. Does anyone have any thoughts or relevant information about my hypothesis?

It could work. Monkey's tails are a sort of pseudo-appendage.

There are several genes that control height and there are hormones that affect the regulation and activation of those genes. People inherit different combinations of height genes and hormone genes (alleles). This results in non-uniform growth spurts. Some people will grow a lot when they are young and then stop completely. Others will have regular periodic growth spurts. Some will remain short until they are in their late teens and then suddenly grow a lot. This friend of yours could be in for another growth spurt or he could be almost completely done growing.

You are using different parts of your brain, using different combinations of neurotransmitters, your thalamus is allowing in less stimulus why you are daydreaming, and you are analyzing outside stimuli versus accessing memories. The brain waves are more effects than the actual mechanism.

That's not very much to live on.

I wasn't really placing them in a particular order of importance, just numbering them to make it easy to read. . Some people do get lucky; I certainly don't think that the lottery winners have greater ability than the average person. Also, imagine two people of equal ability where one grows up in a very privileged household while the other grows up in the slums. You could consider your ancestry a matter of luck. You seem to be thinking that there are two classes of people in this world; the go-getters who become rich and the lazy people who are poor. There are many kinds of people in this world and some of them are quite motivated yet they are not rich. Imagine a very talented and hard-working person who decides to devote himself to what he loves, a poker career. He is semi-pro and sells poker supplies on the internet. He works extremely hard and earns a middle class income. The current poker craze comes along and the guy becomes rich. Because there was a poker craze there wasn't another kind of fad. There are millions of people out there who are in position to become rich if what they have devoted themselves to becomes popular or the new fad. That's a matter of luck as well. But I'm not really commenting on which one is more important. I think your belief that the only way to become rich is to earn it by working hard and is a good attitude. But you must realize that most of the world is poor not because of ability but because of chance. People in India and China are educated and work like maniacs, yet they are poor by our standards (not as much anymore in China). Those people are not where they are because they are stupid or lazy and neither are the starving people in Africa. If you can understand why their environment can have an impact on their finances then you can understand why people's environment has an impact on their wealth in wealthier nations.