Glider

Yes it is, and the following surprises me... ...or more specifically, the fact that it died as an idea surprises me. Social psychology is not really my area, but I'm sure I read that there are certain principles (genetic and evolutionary) that can be applied to human social interaction. For example, the fact that we are more likley to evaluate more positively (and thus attribute more positive characteristics to) those who more closely resemble ourselves, compared to those who look very different to us. Along with evaluation, we are (apparently) more likely to lend assistance to, be more attracted to, and form relationships with, those who more closely resemble ourselves. As I say, I'm a bit hazy on the details, but I believe this has been attributed to a behavioural manifestation of the drive to promote our own (and more closely related) genes. As a psychological theory, there will abviously be room for debate, and there are probably theories in oposition. However, as a theory, it probably goes some way to explaining the underlying principles of in-group / out-group dynamics, and the bases of racism and other forms of bias.

Dang! I had to read it a couple of times, but I think I got it. It all seems very incestuous, in a Richard Dawkins kind of way. I suppose the 'hive drive' would provide a particular advantage in propagating a particular set of genes though. The measure of its success I guess, would be the millions of years such colonies have existed.

Oh yes...I understand now. I've heard such things discussed in the context of cognitive neuroscience, particularly synergy. There is one theory which argues that conscious awareness itself is a synergistic epiphenomenon arising from the complex arrangement of neurones in the cortex. Where each neuron is a relatively simple thing, many together produce effects much greater than the sum of the parts. I can certainly see how that could be applied to social insects, particularly ants and termites. I seem to remember reading somewhere that ant and termite colonies are considered single organisms (or at least an argument that they could be). As a kid, my scientific investigations of these were limited to poking sticks into ant hills and termite mounds. Oooh yeah!...I'd love to one day own a medical maggot ranch....y'know, just a li'l spread all my own. Out on the range all day, a wranglin' and a brandin'..."head 'em up!...Cut 'em out!" Yeehar!. I think that's an excellent idea. In the UK they're aiming for 'centres of excellence' which simply means huge 'super hospitals'. They're starting to look like factories. One of the major benefits of a smaller system is that there's no better way to spread 'super bugs' than to hold hundreds of sick people in an enclosed building with enclosed air conditioning. Smaller places, or at least large places spread out in many smaller buildings would provide natural barriers (e.g. MRSA blows off clothes in the outside environment). They'd also be much less imposing to the patient. Bloody right too! In order to combat the chronic shortage of nurses here, they started employing hundred of nurses from abroad (particularly the Phillipines). I'm not for one minute suggesting that these are lesser nurses, but for pete's sake! It shouldn't be necessary to do that. All they have to do is to treat our own nurses properly. It says a lot about a government when, rather than aknowledging the work of our own nurses, they resort to 'importing' nurses who will do the same work for a lot less. Here's a couple of interesting statistics. In the last ten years 20% of all hospital beds have been closed due to dangerously low numbers of nurses. In the same period, 30% more managers were hired. There are now 1.7 managers to every open bed in the NHS. These managers have been employed to 'help' hospitals achieve the 'targets' laid down by the government so they can be seen to be keeping their campaign promises. Managers can't treat patients, they can only shuffle numbers and paper. It seems to me just a cynical political ploy in which it's more important to get the numbers right than to treat the sick. It's the same with teachers and the school league tables they have over here. It's more important to cram students through exams to achieve the 'right' pass numbers than it is to ensure the students understand anything. It really pisses me off sometimes. At University, there is a scheme of 'widening access'. The government wants a lot more people to go into higher education. To facilitate this, the traditional entry requirements are being dropped and a number of alternatives employed. In principle, this is a good thing. I think everybody has a right to education. The point that's being missed however, is that whilst everybody has the right to education, not everybody has the ability to achieve a degree (what would the value of a degree be if it was no harder than a certificate of secondary education? Not every school kid manages to get those either). However, the government (who's idea this is), will not fund Universities for the numbers of students who enrol, only for the numbers who pass. Can you see the clear conflict of interest there? As a consequence, lecturers are now teaching undergraduates who are barely literate! How can you teach somebody to degree level when they can't even string a sentence together or have trouble reading the recommended texts, much less understanding them? There simply isn't the time in 3 years to teach people a basic command of their own language (which they should have learned in school) and get them to degree standards of critical analysis and argument! What's worse is that many of these students seem to think they have an automatic right to a degree, simply by virtue of enrolling at Uni! Dagnabbit all! Hmm...seemed to be getting a bit carried away there. Sorry about that, it's just I feel quite strongly about it....perhaps you could tell.:rant:

I agree. The squaddie is being given the flower by the kid. You can see in the next picture down, the same squaddie giving the same flower to the baby. That's about as political as I want to get.

If they have any sense, yes...but then, they are students . I see no reason to expect them to be any different from the rest of us, just 'cause they're smarter....er...:uhh:. Hmmm...I only took one module in biochemistry (it was a prerequisite for neurosciences modules)...tricky subject! I can't remember there being much by the way of surveying equipment involved though. I might have been asleep of course. Neuroscience is a fascinating area though...I enjoyed that. What are these complex systems? They sound...er..complex. Is it anything like group dynamics?...not that I know much about that either mind you. Yeah...I can see a PR problem there too...though they did manage to sell the idea of maggots and leeches....weird. There are definitely psychological factors involved, both behavioural and psychophysiological. One of the principle factors is our ability to see into the future (i.e. predict the probable outcomes of our behaviours). For example, one of the quickest ways to alleviate the pain of a hip replacement is to mobilise...just get up and walk around. The swelling goes down and the pain goes away really quickly. But many people won't. This is mainly through fear of pain...their hip hurts, and they think walking will hurt more, so they avoid it. Animals don't look ahead. My cat (for example) doesn't attempt to predict which behaviours will lead to pain. He gets up and walks. If it hurts him, he slows down or adopts an antalgic gait to compensate. But in getting up and walking, he's actually dealing with the cause of the pain...he's regaining the tone in his muscles, which will help support his pelvis, he's working the tendons which will ease the stiffness in his tendon sheaths and also reduce the inflammation. Animals allow actual pain to dictate the degree to which they behave. Humans allow the fear of pain to prevent them from behaving. As a result, things take longer to heal, e.g. bones mend faster if there is a little movement at the break, and grow stronger if they are made to bear a little weight whilst healing. Muscle and other soft tissue also heals faster if it is worked (within reasonable bounds). People who completely immobilise after an injury take significantly longer to heal than those who get up and about...and their prognoses are also less favourable, i.e. they are significantly less likely to regain full function of whatever was injured. I think we could begin by reinstating a sense of personal control in the patient. The first thing that happens to people when they are admitted to hospital, is that all control is removed from them. People who, up until admission, were independant individuals are now told when to eat, bathe, go to bed, wake up and what is going to happen to them (which is also outside of their control). Even the language used by clinical staff facilitates this. An adult who might be something like an airline pilot, responsible for hundred of lives is told to "...just pop into bed and lift your shirt so we can look at your tummy". Once people lose their sense of personal control, they adopt a sumissive, passive role, sometimes know as 'the patient role'. They adopt attitudes and behaviours consonant with their perception of 'a patient'. Concommitant to the role of a patient is pain and suffering, and so the patient often begins to adopt 'illness behaviours', or 'pain behaviours'. These are reinforced in so many ways, by the patient, the staff and the relatives that I won't bore you with them here. Suffice to say, much of what a patient goes through is simply down to this loss of control and the resultant helplessness/anxiety associated with the 'patient role'. However, this is not to say that any pain or suffering involved is not real. It is. To be admitted in the first place, they must be ill/injured, but like when you cut your foot, you were'nt thinking about it and it didn't really hurt you that much (or at least, that's the impression I got), as you were in control, and there were other things going on (e.g. a really nice campsite under a waterfall...although in front or behind it would have seemed a wiser choice). But if you were in a position where you felt no personal control, you were forced into a patient role and its associated state of helplessness and anxiety, and people were paying attention to you and/or doing things to you because of the cut on your foot and so-on and so-on, then that injury would have taken a predominant role in your life. In effect, it would have become one of the most significant things in your life at that time, and so would any pain or suffering resulting from it. The shortness of the nurses dresses do have an effect, but only in slightly under 50% of the patient population...and not usually the effect wished for...and certainly not by the nurses. I just spent the last 5 years working alongside nurses (until 2001)...mad as badgers, the lot of them. But I have to say, in my opinion, of all the sterotypically 'heroic' professionals, soldiers, firefighters, surgeons etc., nurses are true heroes.:worship: :worship: :worship:

Well...it goes to show the power of human vanity I guess. On the other hand, with hair covered skin, I suppose the vet is less pressured to avoid scarring. Nonetheless, they do some amazing procedures. I knew one who performed a rhinoplasty on a bulldog with breathing problems (stupid to breed a dog that can't breathe in the first place). I do know that student vets have to have a greater level of qualification to enter vet school than medical students do to enter med. school. Not surprising really. They deal with so many different species, most of which have different physiologies and none of which can tell you where it hurts. I guess it could get a bit repetitive in a small animal practice though (same as anything really), although I bet there must be hugequeues for positions as zoo vets. I know what you mean there. I wandered around through a number of different jobs (the number was 6 if I remember rightly) and came to higher education later (some would say 'slow starter'...I prefer 'late bloomer'). Biology has always been one of my interests though. What particular area are you doing your BSc in? Not really. For minor cuts, if anything, stitches just increase the risk of infection. Stitches are only really used where the wound won't heal properly without them, i.e. if the edges are layed open and need tension to hold them together. If cuts like that are allowed to heal by secondary intention, they can leave large scars which most people don't like, especially in visible places (i.e. face, arms, legs etc.) and these can be avoided or at least reduced by suturing. Often you can get away using steristrips (thin strips of very sticky, tough material that can be laid over the cut holding the edges together). If there is a lot of tension (e.g. like a nephrectomy site on a 'big boned' person) they'll often use steel staples to hold it together. You're right about the stitches hurting more. This is true, but strange. If you think about it, the wound being stitched comprises a greater degree of trauma than the stitches do. Moreover, they'll usually administer lignocaine into the edges of the wound before stitching. Nonetheless, it still hurts. I think it's due to the expectancies of the patient. e.g. when you cut your heel, you didn't expect it...it just happened, so you had shock and surprise, and obviously some pain, but you didn't know it was going to happen. On the other hand, sitting in an A&E cubicle watching someone come at you with a needle, knowing they're about to stick it into you several times... That, I suspect, is what makes the difference. Licking our own wounds might not be a bad idea. You really wouldn't want to have anyone else do it for you though...human mouths are really disgusting. Ask any A&E medic which is the worst to treat; an animal bite or a human bite. Human are almost guaranteed to fester...they are really horrible to treat. So you wouldn't want anyone else's saliva in your wound (dang!...and I was just gonna have breakfast too...) Animals heal really well. My cat got hit by a car 9 weeks ago (multiple pelvic fractures) probably due to his apparent inability to tell the difference between a mouse and a mondeo. At the site of impact and the side where he hit the ground, there was bad bruising which you couldn't see. After a week however, all the hair fell out of those areas reavealing discoloured regions of skin. These then broke down into large open ulcers (really large relative to a cat). Nonetheless, with his constant licking, they always stayed pink and healthy (they're a lot smaller now, and should heal completely in about another 2 weeks I'd say). Humans, on the other hand, heal less well from injuries of the same severity (we are such a bunch of wimps in comparison).

Yes, that makes sense...it would take an awful lot for a 6 ton bipedal animal to get both feet off the deck. Shame really...I'll have to replace my image of sleek, powerful predators, charging their prey with swift, lethal grace, to one of lumbering clods who keep falling down...*sigh*. Ah well...disillusionment is to be expected as we get older I guess. Still, walking at 20kph is still pretty cool. It does make you wonder, as they had no way of supporting themselves in a fall (tiny li'l arms), what the overall advantage of their 'design' was in evolutionary terms. The most efficient modern land predators are quadrupeds. Had T-Rex and Allosaur been on 4 legs, they would probably have been faster, and a lot more stable. I wonder what kind of advantage these rudimatary arms (or lack therof) gave?

Yes, but elephants have four 'knees' (i.e. all their legs bend in the middle, and to the rear) unlike other animals which have 'knees' in their front legs (wrists actualy) and hocks in their back legs (actually the heel; calcanium and achilles tendon), allowing their back legs to bend forwards. This is what allows them to jump, and gallop. Due to their leg conformation, elephants can neither jump nor gallop. T-Rex on the other hand has its toes on the ground, its heel (calcanium and achilles tendon) mid way up, providing leverage and power, and its knee joint close to its body with a short thigh. I suppose the best modern analogy for legs like that would be something like a bird (e.g. the road runner); toes on the ground and spread, a hock high up and a short thigh. All the muscle mass high up and below the knee nothing but tendons and ligaments, acting as springs to amplify the muscle power.

Hehehe...as long as they're the right kind of maggot. The good kind will only touch sloughy or necrotic material. Others will eat you alive, like the kind that infest fly-struck sheep. Yes. Stitching a deep wound can lead to an abscess. Any time the skin is allowed to heal over a cavity (and skin heals faster than underlying tissue), there will be a risk. It is done, but it is a judgement call depending on the depth and state of the wound. Where it is done, the cavity will have been well irrigated and cleaned out and topical intibiotics applied. The patient will also be on a short-course (5-7 days) of broad spectrum antibiotics, but there's always a risk. Minor infection can drain through sutures though, at least until the skin heals, but it can't where the skin is glued. I have seen cases where sutures had to be removed and the wound re-opened to remove necrotic material (a process called debriding) and then re-stitched. Where the risk of abscessing is considered too great (e.g. the wound forms a deep cavity or a sinus under the tissue) or (more often) where there is nothing to stitch due to tissue loss, it won't be stitched, it will be packed to keep it open and a dressing applied on top. There are a variety of things which are made for this purpose, some of which (for really deep cavities) are liquids that are mixed with catalyst and poured into the cavity. The liquid then expands and sets to form a kind of foam-rubber plug. At weekly intervals the packing is removed, the wound is checked for infection, and re-packed. This allows the wound to granulate up from the bottom. When the wound is shallow enough, the packing is removed and the wound is dressed with a surface dressing only and allowed to heal over. I think vets are underrated personally. What did you think of the vetinary work experience? Is vetinary work something you'd like to do?

You probably won't see them sold over the counter is Boots, but their use is not uncommon now. Plastics use leeches, as it's the best way to reduce bad swelling on skin grafts without scarring. Leeches release anticoagulants too, which helps to keep the blood flowing through new grafts. Granulation is the process by which deep wounds (i.e. deeper than skin) heal. In deep, open wounds, connective tissue stroma (from which connective and scar tissue is generated by the rapid division of fibroblasts) and perenchymal cells (which form the differentiated cells of an organ, again by division) are involved in repair. Fibroblasts divide rapidly and the manufacture of collagen helps provide strength and support to the area. At the same time, small blood vessels increase in number through increased cell division, and together, these processes create an actively growing, connective tissue mass which is called granulation tissue. This forms a framework across the wound, or in very deep wounds, begins at the bottom and works its way up (known as healing by secondary intention), across which epithelial cells migrate to form new skin, closing the surface wound (known as healing by primary intention). If you look into a deep lesion or a healing ulcer, you'll see that the bottom of it looks like bright pink, homogeneous, wet, healthy looking skin. That's granulation tissue (any other colour e.g. livid red, green, yellow or black is less good, and you should probably tell somebody). A smart thing about granulation tissue, is that it secretes its own antibiotic fluid too.

Any tissue damage will result in a degree of inflammation. Damaged cells release prostoglandins and cause the release of histamine, which results in inflammation. As you quite rightly surmise, the capillary leakiness caused by the inflammation does provide better access for antibodies and so-on. The thing to remember is that living tissue can repair itself. Bone however, is not living tissue and cannot heal itself. It must be healed, and this is more dependent on the inflammatory process than the healing of a sprained ankle. A subtle difference I grant you, but a difference nonetheless. Inflammation serves several purposes; it hurts, telling you to keep off it, and to look after it whilst it heals. It provides infection control, and it provides the materials needed for the tissue or bone to heal. The swelling caused by a knock is more likely to be a bruise (haematoma). Whilst this does involve a degree of inflammation, the pain of a bruise is more due to the pressure the interstitial bleed exerts on surrounding tissues. Nonetheless, inflammation will occur here too, as interstitial pools of 'dead' blood are prime sites for infection (really nasty deep abscesses), so the pooled blood needs to be broken down and removed asap. On the "Eeeeww" side things, bad haematoma often exert a lot of pressure on the surrounding tissue, and this can lead to localised necrosis. In these cases, leeches are often used to alleviate the swelling. Another yukky is that they are now using fly larvae (maggots) to clear up sloughy or necrotic open wounds too. These are extremely effective. They begin by applying very tiny, young maggots to the site, cover with a dressing and leave it alone. After a while (10 to 14 days), they uncover the site revealing a bunch of very large, well fed larvae (some of which will have already pupated) and a nice, clean healthily granulating wound. It's bloody marvellous to see! Significantly reduces scarring too, and the maggots keep the site aseptic as they excrete amonia. Brilliant! De nada

The anti inflammatory drugs are prescribed generally for pain control; they help control the aspects of inflammation that results in pain such as the effects of histamine and prostoglandin release, both of which cause pain (particularly prostoglandins and substance P). However, these drugs don't have a significant impact on the inflammation itself. Whilst they might reduce it a little, and make it more bearable, they won't stop it. The inflammatory process is absolutely necessary in bone healing. Unlike muscle and skin tissue, bone cannot repair itself. It is entirely dependent on other cells transported to the area and delivered in high concentrations through the inflammatory process. Localised histamine release causes the capillaries in that area to dilate so they become 'leaky' and blood, white cells and other useful things can get to the area. The side effect of this is pain and this is mostly what anti inflammatory drugs help control. If you were to eliminate the inflammation caused by a broken bone, you would stop the healing process. It's true about the use of glue though. The plastics will often use cyanoacrylate (superglue) to hold together lesions where suturing is a real problem or would result in scarring (so it's used often on children, and usually for facial injuries, particularly in fine skin like eyelids). The use of this stuff is excellent for reducing scarring, but they only use it where the wound would heal through primary intent (two edges healing together). Where the would needs to heal through secondary intent (a deep wound has to granulate up from the bottom), sealing the edges together risks forming an abscess which could not drain, which would be worse.

As far as I know, the only difference is in the terminology. It is easily available though. Demineralised/distilled water is available in all chemists, and even car-parts shops (for battery top ups). If you want controlled purity (e.g. for medical use), go to a high street chemists. They all sell it; small bottles to 5L containers, and will be able to give you specs on it.

Good for you! Nasty things they are....with pointy eyes and beady teeth....and they smell funny. You ain't, which demonstrates nicely the importance of a doctorate when it comes to being right.

The cells you're thinking of are Osteoclasts and Osteoblasts. When a bone is broken, the first thing that happens is the periosteum (the skin covering bone) and surrounding tissue bleeds. There is also a large, localized inflammatory response where histamine and other substances cause the capilaries to dilate, allowing more blood to the region (bone healing is an inflammatory process). Osteoclasts begin to clean up the broken edges and disolve any small fragments. White cells pervade the area dealing with any potential infection. When the blood clots around the break, osteoblasts begin to lay down a calcium matrix within the clot, forming a callus (on an x-ray, it looks like a swollen lump of bone). Other cells begin to lay down collagen within the matrix to form proper bone. When the break has healed, leaving a swollen lump of bone where the break used to be, the osteoclasts come along and disolve the excess, 'shaving' the bone back to shape. In young people, after a year or so you can't tell where the break used to be. On older people, there's just a slight swelling where it used to be.

I don't know the answer (there is some research I wonder about myself). But I do have an example of the value of research your friend might consider pointless. A case in point is the recent story (last couple of years) of the guy researching ants in Africa. Well, he was wandering around in the bush, doing his 'thang' and trying to avoid getting eaten alive when it suddenly occurred to him that although ants live in colonies of millions, and in close quarters, no-one had ever seen or heard of a colony being wiped out through infection. As any fule kno, all orgnisms are prone to infection, and those organisms that live in close quarters to each other are therefore prone to epedemics, so the question occured to him: Why not (apparently) ants? This started him on an interesting offshoot of his research. He called in some buddies (chemical pathologists, microbiologists and so-on) and started trying to answer this question. As it turns out, the answer is quite simple, ants have evolved an endogenous antibiotic defence mechanism to fend off infection. They excrete a substance which coats their bodies. This substance is a kind of organic antibiotic something like 50 times more potent than penicillin. As you're probably aware, our previous abuses of antibiotics have led to the development of many antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria such as resistant forms of tuberculosis and Methycillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aurius (MRSA), which kills hundred of hospital patients a year all over the world. Other lines of defense such as flucloxacillin, erythromycin and the cephalosporins, are not effective and MRSA has developed a strain which is now resistant to vancomycin and some showing resistance to teicoplanin. This spells big trouble. S. Aurius is a part of our natural bodily fauna. If you swab under your watch strap and culture the swab, you will find S. Aurius. It is harmless to healthy people, but if your immunocompetence is compromised (e.g. you are very ill), or you innoculate a wound with it (e.g. through surgery), it's bad. If the infection is due to one of the resistant strains, it's a lot worse. So, it doesn't take a scientist to put together, on the one hand, our failing defences against bugs like MRSA et al. and on the other hand, the dicovery of an organic, broad spectrum antibiotic 50 times more effective than anything we currently have. Needless to say, work is currently underway to see if this stuff can be synthesised in large quantities and in forms that can be safely used to treat human infections. All from some dude studying ants. Research is like a box of chocolates...ya never know what yor gonna git.

You're right there, though thinking about it, I can't even begin to devise an experiment that would test a chimp's understanding of death. And again you're right, in that it would be a sad thing to do to a chimp. I'm sure there must be a better way to test for self-awareness. I think what's needed is to devise a test for an explicit awareness of affective state. Most animals, when (for example) angry, or frightened are simply behaving in a manner concordant with their affective and autonomic state. If we could get an animal (it'd have to be higher primate, a Chimp or Orang Utan) that could express in some way an explicit knowledge of its emotional state, that would probably indicate self-awareness. It would be compelling evidence at least.

Yep, partly through lack of practice, but that's understandable. The babies 'walk' reflex is apparent at an age when they can't physically support their own weight with their legs, so practice is a bit out of the question. With the swimming thing though, if (as some people do) you take the baby swimming weekly, then the reflex is never lost and the behaviour (and required patterns of motor function) is reinforced and incorporated into the developing higher centres that deal with that activity. So, in effect, the baby never has to learn how to swim, it's simply not allowed to forget in the first place. The same thing goes with walking, but it's a bit more risky as babies leg bones and pelvis are not sufficiently developed (you must have seen the angle at which babies' legs stick out laterally, like chimps), so walking a baby up and down would risk impeding or harming normal leg and pelvis development, and, as they would have to be supported, wouldn't necessarily allow them to learn balance anyway.

Nah..that's fair enough. It's a common belief that babies can swallow and breathe, and you can see where it comes from given that once 'attached' they don't tend to let go till they're full. Heehee...ain't it though? This is quite right. The thing with the early reflexes (like the Babinski sign you mention above) is that they never really go...they're just supplanted by later (cortical) developments. One of the signs of damage to higher centres (e.g. a sub-dural bleed or something) is the return of these early reflexes. Because of this, you'll often see medics checking for these reflexes when people are admitted with head trauma. Enough alcohol will supress the higher centres so that these reflexes return. Sounds like a Friday night experiment to me (just to make sure it's still the case, you understand )....yay!

If it was true that babies have their trachea leading to their nose rather than their mouth, then the first scream they produce on birth would be through their nose, not their mouth, nor would they cough through their mouths when they choke on milk, or choke on milk in the first place. Horses have separate trachea/oesophegus and can swallow and breathe at the same time (as can many similar animals). This is helped by the fact that the trachea in horses and many other animals lies behind the oesophegus, rather than in front of it (as it is in humans). Humans have the epiglotis which closes (reflexively) over the trachea when we swallow. However, all animals will stop breathing on immersion. This is reflexive. In human infants, the epiglotis closes by reflex and the ability to swim (orient and propel themselves to the surface) is instinctive (and is lost after about 6 months and has to be re-learned). Reflexes are simple afferent/efferent loops (e.g. the spinal reflex arc mediating limb withdrawal on exposure to noxious stimuli) and are usually self contained functional units. Instincts are similar, in that they are hard-wired, but are much more complex. The things that define instinctive behaviours is that they are behaviours which do not require any learning, and are universal within the particular species. For example, the ability of a newborn animal to locate its mother's teat. Humans have this instinctive behaviour, but its based on a reflex (the rooting reflex). If you stroke the cheek of a newborn infant with your finger, it will open its mouth and orient its head towards the stimulus. This serves a useful purpose to the infant as the usual position the mother holds it in is across her front, therefore the most probable thing to stimulate the cheek of the infant will be her teat (food!). Reflexes and insticts are closeley related (the latter often based on the former), and differ mainly in deree of complexity. Both evolved as advantagious patterns of behaviour; certain actions or 'routines' that provide the organism with a survival advantage (i.e. finding food quickly after birth, not drowning, etc.).

Exactly right. Of course the scorpion doesn't sting itself in any "Goodbye, cruel world" kind of way, but I think it does show how difficult it can be to avoid making assumptions based on behaviour. We can observe behaviours, that's simple enough, but we have a problem when it comes to working out the intent behind them. We can't help but draw conclusions based on second level reasoning, where 1st level reasoning is "I think" and second level reasoning is "I think he/she thinks", based on watching what they do (this is one of the things people with autism lack). So when we observe a behaviour, we can't help infering an intent from it. This is very useful within our own species, but less helpful when we're trying to work out how other species 'think'. Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But that has problems too, in that all animals work to avoid death. Even the humble amoeba when detecting changes in temperature or pH that are noxious or threaten it, will alter direction and speed to avoid it. Clams will close up if they detect something near them, sea slugs will squirt noxious or sticky substances to deter predators, flys avoid being swatted, worms will retreat down their hole if disturbed, cockroaches will run on exposure to light or vibration and so-on and so-on. Therefore, avoiding predation in and of itself can't imply an understanding of death per se. The simplest explanation is that most animals, rather than avoiding death, are avoiding the predator. Given that generally speaking, you only get caught once by a predator, this can't be the result of learning or experience, so it must be an instinctive response to try to avoid anything that's running after you.

That's true. But then a scorpion attaked by fire-ants will sting itself to death. There was similar thing kids used to do in Africa, they would scrape a circle in the dirt, pour something like lighter fuel into the ring, put a scorpion into the middle and light the fuel. The scorpion would circle around looking for a way to escape, and finding none would sting itself to death.

Dolphins and some other toothed whales have been observed supporting sick/injured members of their pod (particularly mothers towards offspring). They swim close by, maintaining body contact and supporting the sick/injured individual at the surface (presumably so it can breathe). Elephants have been observed helping infants to their feet if they show reluctance or that they are having problems, and are reluctant to leave any individual that cannot move. Dolphins (and other whales), elephants and primates all show reluctance to leave their dead (particularly offspring). What can actually be inferred from these observed behaviours though is a question for debate.

And whales. But are they aware of their own mortality?

That's the 'degree of abstraction' I mentioned. To be able to abstract newly acquired information and to mentally make the link between it and a novel situation. This is what makes the significant difference between 'tool users' and 'tool makers'. Tool users learn to use tools by watching others. Tool makers can't learn by watching others (the tool doesn't exist), so, when faced with a novel problem, they have to abstract the problem and apply learned (abstract) principles to it in the 'virtual reality' world of their mental workspace. Hard question to answer, mainly because of the difficulties we have in agreeing a precise definition of self awareness. There was a case a little while ago, where researchers stuck a little self-adhesive red dot onto the forehead of a chimp, and then showed it a mirror. Most animals will either ignore a mirror, or treat their reflection as another animal and attack it, or run away from it or whatever. This chimp however, looked into the mirror, and reaching to its own forehead, removed the red dot. The researchers argued that this was 'proof' of self-awareness. However, others argue that recognition of of one's image as a reflection in a mirror does not necessarily indicate self awareness on the philosophical "cogito ergo sum" kind of level, i.e. as the implicit understanding of one's-'self' as an independent entity. Some people argue that the ability to recognise yourself in a mirror equates to self-awareness, and others argue that true self-awareness must include an understanding of the (somewhat abstract) concept of death. For in order to be aware of self - that one exists - one must also be aware that there was a time prior to one's existence, and therefore that there will be a time after one's existence. Thus, implicit in awareness of self, must be awareness of mortality. How you'd demonstrate that in a chimp though...beats the hell out of me. A lot of this problem stems from debate surrounding the nature of consciousness. We consider ourselves self-aware, but that (say some) is only by tacit agreement. Given (they say) that we can only know consciousness in ourselves, nobody else has any real proof that we are conscious, and visa versa. You know you are conscious, but what do you know about those around you? They react to stimuli (so do venus fly traps), they will, if asked, concur with you when you ask them what colour a particular flower is (the parrot can do that). The truth is, there is no way we can know what is happening in the minds of others, we can only make inferences based upon observed behaviours. Consciousness is really only a mutually agreed state, known in ourselves and assumed in others. By the way, has anybody ever heard of 'the Nashville Leather Company'? I'm trying to replace a leather waistcoat ('vest' in the USA). I had a really good one, brown nubuck with satin lining, made by the N.L.C., but paramedics cut it off me while I was unconscious after smashing my Harley just before Christmas. I can't find one to match it ANYWHERE! Dagnabbit! They cut it to PIECES! It wasn't even necessary...Bastards!