dmaiski

i guess this is the point where an intelligent, reasonable, and logical, person (in. me) will point out: the authors probably meant human SPECIATION not EVOLUTION has ceased and will never happen (until we move to space/other planets)

depends on your iq usually it goes like this iq : my analysis 50 : moron 70 : moron 90 : idiot 110 : idiot 130 : i need to dumb things down for them a bit 140+ : i can actually talk to this person its not an issue of looking at a person and seeing their iq, its an issue of talking to the person and instantly realizing they can not understand a word you just said btw mine is ~150 depending on what I ate for lunch iq tests cap out at ~170

if you want wings that flap, and are attached to your back, you should probably look into the insect wing design, rather then the bird wing design the simple fact that you can stack 6 sets of insect wings in the relative space taken up by a single bird wing should be what you need to get yourself off the ground easily

hmm i allways thought cats had pretty bad vision(20/100-20/200), it seems thats only true in bright light, in the dark cats have fairly good vision.

true, but: specific species of bats, cave dwelling fish and snakes, various lineages of rat... dosent have quite the same poetic ring to it

if you want to see the limits of vision see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp infrared, uv, 12 types of receptors, image processing handled by the eye itself, each eye is segmented for depth perception on the other end of the scale: rats, cats, and bats all of them would be considered legally blind by human standards

I'll put this simply, even though this has already been said. We don't have wings because we evolved from monkeys not crows, now if we evolved from crows it would have been a different story... On the other hand if you want wings, that can be aranged. it would probably take years of reaserch, lots of painfull operations, and alot of unpleasent stuff (like learning not to fall hard). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus 200-250kg estimated weight so yes very large organisms can fly, the question is: 1. do you really want to 2. do you have the money to run a multi billion dollar research program over the span of decades, beat the anti- human GM lobby in at least 1 country(or just buy a country), and finish this project?

the probability of life evolving is infidesmily small, but to quote The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space." to put in terms of mathematics: the P of life evolving may be 10^-10000 per reaction per hour but there are 10^10000 planets viable for life to evolve, and each planet dose 10^100 reactions on it per hour, and there are 13billion years for these reactions to have worked, ading up to life having evolved at least (10^110)*1.3 times in the universe (all figures and numbers are made up) so the probability of life evolving is pretty much guaranteed

Intelligence isn’t really a beneficial trait. Evolutionarily speaking, its better to be stronger, faster, or better adapted, then it is to be "smart" because unless you pass a minimum threshold for intelligence, you will not achieve much. simply put, the whole human species is a fluke of nature that happened by accident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_potency wikipedia and google simply put it goes toti- pluri- multi- oligo- uni- this is the one you are looking for, it only produces more of itself -potent cell another option is that what you are looking for are cells that are in the terminal differentiation (ie they are the last in the line and can not reproduce any more also you can call cells that are not stem cells "cells" or "normal cells"

if the blood type was changed the resultant blood clotting would kill the patient, unless you disable clotting with heparin or some other anticoagulant drug due to the imune complexes to the foreign blood type still being produced. that is unless you changed the blood type to O. also the changes would take 3-4 monthe to take effect due to blood being cycled.

In the next 250-350 years, definitely possible to do. Assuming we don't have another dark age, we will probably have the capacity to achieve what you are describing in less then 40 years.

shaving hair doesn't actually damage the sections of the hair important for hair growth, and whatever was shaved will grow back in a few weeks.

if the inner ear is still functional there are implants that can be put into the bone of the skull that will function like an ear/headphone directly wiring an implant into the nervous system will probably have to wait for advances in nano surgery before you can get the resolution needed to mimic or enhance human senses with a cybernetic implant. another option is to clone a biological ear, its somewhat difficult to do (ethics, legality, ect) but if its immune compatible you can get the body to link up the nerves on its own...

i would hazard a guess that having no antigen is cheaper (in resources) then having an antigen also mothers occasionally produce IgG antibodies against foetal blood, which cross the placenta (may cause miscarriage), and since O type has no antigens it is the "safe" blood type don’t quote me on this though its just a guess...

yes although technicaly it would not be pureley genetic... genetic impringting, the inherited methylation paterns on DNA, can cause genes to behave diferently. if these methylation patterns are present on specific alleles it may cause ADHD and many other traits, but this is dependent on the parent the particulare allele originates from and not the actual DNA code.

http://en.wikipedia....social_behavior "Sexual intercourse plays a major role in bonobo society observed in captivity, being used as what some scientists perceive as a greeting, a means of forming social bonds, a means of conflict resolution, and postconflict reconciliation." humans aren't the only species that has discovered sex can be fun... I turn your questions around: why dose being "gay" necessitate a strict genetic cause, it can also be indicative of intelligence (in other words not being driven by basic biological programs), and freedom of choice or it can be indicative of a deep rooted neuroses, or even some form of imprinting mechanism at work

best way to look for life would be to search for highly chemically active sources, in other words probe for metabolism, how you would do this? I don’t know for macroscopic intelligent life, the easiest way to probe for it is to look for the roads, "god doesn’t build in straight lines" for macroscopic life in general, optical analysis of the planets surface, look for anything that moves for microscopic life look for traces of carbon chemistry NMR should work well for this, and in 2212 we will have enough processor power to NMR a whole cell for exotic life(ie. non carbon based) use full EM spectrum sweeps of the area and search for anomalous areas, then investigate, take samples, and analyse them through every technique you can cram into the probe

this made me smile, and is a good summary of why you would chose to be bi... "a hole is a hole" im not sure about people who are "forced" to become gay due to the mythical "gay gene", but personaly I chose who i like based on what I think would be enjoyable

Sex, with respect to human society, has taken on a role of a social mechanism, rather then a purely procreative one. In many ways it is closer to talking then the way other animals do it (go into heat, secrete pheromones, have sex, run off) Having sex for pleasure, or for social interaction, or for purely recreational purposes, is something that humans have partaken in for a long time. Admittedly this system came about due to the possibility of conceiving children as a side effect, but it has taken on a secondary role in human society over time. This makes gay and lesbian sex a fairly logical by product of such a social mechanism, that is why it can be considered that the “gay gene/trait/complex/multigenic disorder” dose not actually exist, and is a by-product of regular function.

all these replies assume that these are humans, and not a species that evolved in that environment any species that evolved in what environment would have better oxygen affinity in hemoglobin, different lung structure, and circulatory system. the oxygen in this case is really not an issue(being that this is the species HOMEWORLD)

You do know that your explanation for why the appendix is here can apply to homosexuality? meaning there is no good way that it could be removed from the population, probably because the traits that cause it (and they are probably multigenic) cant be removed or edited out without sever reproductions on: personality reproductive behaviour mental function *just approximations, I have no proof since I haven’t had the chance to play around with human genetics to that extent, and simulations of that complexity will need more processing power that is currently easily available. Also it could have evolved as a side effect of other traits. Being multigenic, in all likelihood, it wasn’t even selected for, but rather was the result of a specific mix of alleles being present in an individual resulting in the trait. *i use likely and probably because no one has tried to prove it

the fun of physics.... basic concept: electrons(e- from now on) can behave as both particles and waves a e- shell in an atom is actually a field where the e- are contained when an e- moves from a shell it behaves more like a wave then a particle and dose not physically move through the empty space(its just in one place then it is in another) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Electron_orbitals.svg an image of what the shells look like(roughly), each blob represents a sub shell. I would suggest wikipedia for more basic info on this, my knowledge isn’t much deeper hen this

co selection of alleles, also specific combinations of alleles or minor mutations can give rise to unusual mental traits(schizophrenia). There's no requirement for an advantage to a trait for it to be selected, the appendix is a great example of this, the trait just needs to be reletevly harmless, in a place that it cant easily be removed from(near centromere usualy), and resistant to mutation.

you know, you could get all that nutritional value from eating a nice steak as well. its your choice really but I don’t see any distinct benefits it could give, unless semen contains some specific receptor binding proteins or something that will give a benefit when ingested(I don’t know if this is true, ball is in your court to show evidence).