Skye

That's a good point Glider, the next thing is to figure out an experiment to get around it You could teach a chimp a hand signal or picture that means death and see if it can apply it to itself. Chimps have a bit of a problem with syntax though, and of course it would be sad teaching a chimp about it's own death.

I might be wrong here because this is all off the top of my head and I'm in a hurry.... but it would seem rather favourable to hold your breath whilst being born. Either way voluntary control of breathing isn't the norm in the animal world nor is a trachea leading up to your mouth (rather than nose.) Babies have their trachea leading to their nose though so it might be a carry over. Realistically I think it should be a wading ape theory, I don't think it's proposed we were ever sea monkeys.

That's definately true. I would bet what little money I have on there not being an absolute genetic cause of homosexuality. It isn't impossible though.

It's related because it shows that physical sterility can have a genetic basis from which you could infer that psychological sterility (homosexuality) could also have a have genetic basis, i.e. it's not impossible to be have a genetic basis simply because of natural selection.

Looks alot like a guy in a monkey suit to me. If it is an ape it's the only one that really shares our form of locomotion. And there doesn't appear to be any fossil ancestors of it around.

They function fine in the short term, the shell has little to do with locomotion or anything like that. They would suffer from dessication (drying out) though, and would probably die during a hot day. Another thing is that their bodies are coiled like their shells. I raised the point that they should be considered bilaterally symmetrical along a helix at a recent zoology prac. Anyone know whether this is agreed or dissagreed with?

Some couples might be badly matched, both having several recessive genes that cause could combine to cause sever problems. I've read that people have on average one or two recessive genes that would be lethal if combined homogenously. That's not to say the parents necessarily have bad genes, it's quite likely that you or I or anyone have some debilitating recessive genes. They are simply unfortunate to love someone who shares the same ones.

Bill, that study doesn't imply we only need REM sleep just that we do need REM sleep. If you deprived them of any form of sleep aside from REM sleep and they functioned normally than you could say we only need REM sleep.

As a sly justification for my sadistic behaviour towards bugs: "I'm just trying to see if snails can live without their shells."

You can argue men shouldn't have nipples because I suppose they cost more to run, i.e. heat loss, more skin cells sloughed off, more nerves. I thought Kleinfelter's syndrome resulted in sterility, though he does certainly fit the syndrome. I was reading about sexually ambiguous disorders in a book called Biological Psychology, they are surprisingly common. Due to a low level hormone insensitivity around one in a hundred births have some level of genital ambiguity. Around one in a thousand are pseudohermaphroditic (the PC term is an intersex) where the sex is impossible to define. This presumably doesn't include chromosomal disorders like Kleinfelter's, which alone has a frequency of around 1 in 1000 male births. The standard procedure in the past 50 years in the event of a hermaphroditic birth was to surgically alter the child to be female. Many people who have had this procedure have spoken out against it, saying they would rather have been left as they were. How should physically sexually ambiguous children be raised then? (Sorry for the thread drift)

I was reading that our current fairly normal sleep pattern (6-8 hrs at night, as opposed to naps throughout the day and night) possibly developed culturally. Partly as we became less vulnerable to predators, and could sleep for long periods of time. But also because cognitive abilities seem to reach a peak some time after sleep, so as we became more dependent on our brains it became valuable to stay awake for a long period.

Because women have tongues. Or as a modification of Gliders point because the embryonic precursors of nipples have never evolved a particular sensitivity to androgens that prevents their development into nipples. By the same token, if you are (and I don't know why chemically) insensitive to androgens, than you can be genetically male (i.e. XY) but develop physically into a female.

Homo sapiens have seemingly often supported the weak, those with permenent dibilitating injuries, at least back till the Neanderthals (from New Scientist 8th March). Of course defining fitness in evolutionary terms is tricky, you can really only do it retrospectively. But it does appear to be part of our nature to care for the weak.

Of course the despot in a group of animals usually has a big reproductive advantage, which is probably why they do it. Bill: did the ants just start gathering food to eat, or did they start doing all the ant stuff, like building a nest? There's a group studying the genetics of ant social structure at my uni, I should giv them an email. From what I know only older ants forage, probably because it's a high risk activity and it's better to keep the young healthy ants safe in the nest. Maybe you just had young ants to start with.

'The Lost Generation' isn't memorable enough to me. If it's controvertial than you want people to remember the name so you can get some *free* word of mouth publicity. The second title is cheesy but it's for a book, not a research paper. If you put 'Liberalism' into the subtitle you have to be prepared to lose readers who call themselves liberal, which is a fair proportion of the people who actually buy books. Political correctness really isn't part of the ideology of any political groups (you don't get political correctness marches) so it would be easier to blame.

It's a rat that you can remotely make turn left or right. "The researchers first threaded three wires as narrow as human hairs into each rats brain and attached them to a microprocessor slung on the rats back like a backpack. Two wires served to deliver electrical cues—one each to the brain cells associated with the rats left and right whiskers, respectively. A third wire doled out rewards to a separate area of the brain. Then a member of the scientific team, using a laptop computer, remotely stimulated the microprocessor to send an electrical signal through one cue wire or the other. The rat "felt" a touch to the corresponding set of whiskers, as though it had come in contact with an obstacle. If the rat responded by turning in the desired direction, the controller encouraged the animal with a brief electrical pulse to its brain's reward center. The rat would feel a sensation of pleasure."

You read Romeo and Juliet? (or perhaps seens Romeo + Juliet)

Oh dang and I found all this cool stuff.

Hormone treatments seem reasonably safe for women. "No serious morbidity was observed which could be related to androgen treatment in the F-->M transsexuals." Van Kesteren PJ, Asscheman H, Megens JA, Gooren LJ. (1997)Mortality and morbidity in transsexual subjects treated with cross-sex hormones. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf) Sep;47(3):337-342 From this site There's lots of interesting abstracts there (they start about half way down the page).

What about integrating neural tissue into circuits? It seems a little impractical to me as technology in itself but could be a good way to learn more about the functioning of the brain. A lamprey brain has already been hooked up to a robot, which it allows it to control the robot. http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1043001.stm From the site above: "Scientists have also wired a mechanical water feeder into the brain of a rat. At first, the animal would move the device towards its mouth by pushing a lever. But eventually, the rodent learnt how to bring the feeder closer by merely willing it to happen." Substitue 'rodent' with 'man', and 'feeder' with 'beer', and they have a marketable product.

Grammar ain't what it used to be.

I agree with aman here, or at least I think that if we can't communicate with relatively similar organisms here on Earth than communicating with vastly different ones over light years of space is hopeful at best. It's interesting to think about though. What about life that has a high IQ, at least problem solving ability, but no notion of self?

From the site above.. 20002? Man, this is going to drag on.

Well I'm not up on neurology so I can't help you on the actual physical means of memory, I think it's still an area that needs (and is getting) alot of research. My point is that when you transfer memes, you aren't transfering that physical means of storage. You don't give someone a replication of your neurons. When you transfer genes, you do, the recipient gets a copy of your DNA. In this way memes aren't replicators in the same manner as genes, there's no analogy to the genotype.

Now how can beige be the new black? It doesn't go with yellow:-p