dmaiski

jp if you want to do an experiment to see how quickly a bacteria optimizes its genome its quite simple 1 take a wild type bacteria 2 mutate it 3 grow it in some form of medium even if the mutation is as small as some extra genes for making it green, without a selection marker, these genes will be dumped by the bacteria in a mater of 3-5 generations, and it will return to the wild type its not really a mechanisim of the reproductive process but rather verry straight forward natural selection of more benificial traits to the natural selection argument, i am looking at natural selection from a hypothetical point of view as to which traits are most beneficial to an organism in terms of ability to acquire food, evade predators, and simply survive. many sexually attractive traits provided none of these benefits, and often are detrimental, thus i label them bad traits, since they make the individual less fit to survive they are maintained in the population because even though they are less fit to survive they are more reproductively active thus the "bad" trait is passed on instead of the "good" trait lowering the overall survivability of the species (this again can be demonstrated by putting these individuals with "bad" traits in direct competition with individuals with "good" traits in an environment with high evolutionary pressures, in this case the individuals with "bad" traits die out in 1-2 generations) sexual reproduction, by its nature, encourages production of these "bad" traits whenever the evolutionary pressures are low, and because sexual reproduction transfers genes to other individuals, this trait is spread through out the population rapidly thats the only real disadvantage to sexual reproduction to put it in verry simple terms: asexual reproduction has 2 choises 1 keep the trait (if its good) 2 eliminate it (if its bad) great for refining your genetic code sexual reproduction(of any type) has 3 choises 1 keep the trait (it its good) 2 keep the trait but put it in storage (if its bad) (this is, in part, the source of all the junk in our genome) 3 eliminate the trait (only if the trait is fatal) great for making new variations on the same and improving on the old but for evry new "good" mutation you will get 1000 "bad" or "neutral" mutations and option 2 will keep all that junk in a semi active form somewhere in the genome

how exactly are you quantifying better? from a size and complexity point of view, sexual is better (it did make dinosaurs and elephants) from an efficiency point of view, the bacteria in your intestinal tract is a fair amount more efficient and refined then you are examples: human DNA is 99% junk, bacterial DNA is usually less then 10% junk a bacterial colony (as an structure) is immortal, humans aren’t there is such a wide diversity of bacterial life, that we don’t even know most of it, almost all mammalian life comes with 2 forelegs 2 hind legs 1 head and 1 tail with very little deviation (i limited this point to mammals TLDW) "but it has a nasty habit of picking up the really bad mutations (which have a benefit when only 1 allele exists, or some other qualifier) and spreading them absolutely everywhere" by "picking up" i was referring to the habit of sexual reproduction to positively select bad or inefficient traits when given the chance, especially in more "advanced" species where "physical attraction" can ignore the reasonable and well tested system of natural selection (why else do peacocks have such huge and unwieldy tails... they definitely aren’t aerodynamically viable)

im not an ethical person (some people have called me extremely pragmatic) so ill state the practical point of view inbreeding increases the similarity between individuals in a localized population should an event arise that threatens the populations survival (a disease is a great example) a population with a high level of inbreeding will lack the variability throughout the population and will have a very high chance of dying out (this is the main argument against inbreeding (lowering the gene pool) and its an argument from the point of population genetics, not focused on individuals or specific traits) the argument that inbreeding causes birth defects is as far (as i know) a lot of hot air there is plenty of evidence against it(just look at plants(self fertilization), plenty of examples of inbreeding in lab mice, animal breeders) yes there are genetic defects tied to receive genes, also there are defects tied to dominant genes, co dominant genes, various allele combinations, lethal gene combinations and anything else you can think of in a random mating you are less likely to get a rare trait expressed then you are with siblings, but at the end of the day its all luck of the draw (and depending on your genetics you may be better off screwing your siblings) all the negative effects of incest have seen in a quick search resulted psychobabel, or geneologys of long dead kings/queens(which in my opinion is, for the most part, worthless as evidence of anything)

(MZc-DZc)*(DZg/MZg)=genetic component of the trait 1-genetic component=environmental component (its just subtracting the genetic from the whole, along the assumption that there are only the genetic and environmental factors) but yea you got the right idea now the 53% was just from me not paying attention to what i was doing and forgetting to 1-X the numbers

it would mean that the genetic effect would be underestimated MZ twins in theory share 100% of their genes, this means if its 100% genetic when 1 twin gets the trait so dose the othere (100% concordance) DZ twins in theory share 50% of their genes, this means if its 100% genetic should result in 50% concordance (assuming both parents werent carriers/disease positive yada yada yada) so the maths for enviormental contribution is 1-((MZc-DZc)*(MZg/DZg))=enviormental contribution XXc=concordence XXg=genetic similarity so in the study if MZg/DZg was assumed to be 1/.5=2 but was actualy 1/.75=1.33 the resultant enviormental value for assumed would be 20% when they were actually 53%

use gloves made of a fine and thin absorbent material, wear them all the time and put moisturiser on your hands before you put them on. also wear mittens outside.(the gloves will keep the moisturiser from drying out too quickly) its all i can really think of that’s practical.

from what i can guess, you cut the bush with a hedge cutter the hedge cutter cut off the tips of all the stems (this part is responsible for growth) for most of the stems you removed this part so the plant is rebuilding it and the stems do not grow for that one stem the tip was still there (you missed it with hedge cutter because it was short) so its now growing quickly since there are no other stems to interfere with it its just a rough guess at the most likely reason for it

now this is a biology forum, so the next step is what cn be done to fix this grave error of evolution! now the question is is genetic/biochemical or biomechanical? in both cases you would need an umbilical from the brain to the womb/ovaries so you would need to expand the spinal cord (for large bandwidth connection) and add in some way to effect the egg or growing child now for the genetic approach: an interface to convert nerve impulses into what ever molecule you will store the data in a high compression data storage system (personally i would go with an organelle roughly half the size of a lyzosome composed of a dense RNA code nucleus encased in a protective protein sheath and intermittently stabilized with other proteins to prevent breakdown all encased in a lipid membrane with the sheath proteins being transmembrane molecules and allowing the contained data to be released when in memory neurons) a method to transfer this to an activated egg and a time release and guidance mechanism to ensure the organelles arrive in memory neurons, migrate through the colony in a homogeneous pattern and activate when the cells are ready for it, so as not to fry the memory cells and proteins to read the storage molecule for the biomechanical approach same as before for the nerve link up but in this case a neural umbilical would need to be engineered this umbilical would go from the child brain (late stage pregnancy) to the mothers brain and any data that the mother thinks is appropriate would be transferred to the child this umbilical could even exist in later stages in life allowing quick mind to mind communication, and memory sharing (think avatar but less blue and more practical) thought experiments are good for your mental health and “with great science comes great potential to make people say “O Gawds, what has science done, run for your lives”” you only need the desire and the insanity to pull it off. (yay spider man quote sufficiently bastardized) (what you expected me to say responsibility?)

you have a good point, and im horrible for not actually mentioning it (i forgot), but just cause i can... there is a major disadvantage to sexual reproduction; lets say in theory there is individual A individual A carries a very successful mutation (3 of them, got lucky on the SNP raffle) this mutation is multi-factorial utilising genes I on chromosome 2 J on chromosome 4 and K on chromosome 18, and only functions when one allele of each is expressed (sickle cell anaemia, or cystic fibrosis anyone(not entirely accurate, since these only have a single gene)) A has 48 offspring (very successful indeed) but only 12.5% (6 individuals) of them have mutation I J and K (viva mendels ghost) resulting in 75% of individuals becoming ill, since this is not a fatal mutation, these individual survive but never become reproductively active eventually all wild type individuals die off due to this effect (the extremely successful individual manage to out compete the wild type even with high offspring loss to disease because of the high drain on the resources, the extremely successful mutants cannot reproduce as efficiently, and the successful mutants do mate with the reproductively inactive sick individuals lowering this number even more at this point the chance that a successful individual will be born is (from a mating of 2 mutants) 6.75% with another 6.75% for a wild type this will cause said extremely successful mutation to die out, most likely taking the whole species with it ofcource this is a nightmare scenario, but it has happened before even in humans (though not to such an extent) also recombination could happen in this case to put all 3 or even only 2 genes on one chromosome making this mutation successful simply put sexual reproduction is great, it averages the population to the point where no individual is better or worse then the next, but it has a nasty habit of picking up the really bad mutations (which have a benefit when only 1 allele exists, or some other qualifier) and spreading them absolutely everywhere (im just standing here whistling, polishing mah cannon balls, don' mind the cannon. move along, move along...) believe it or not im actually a fan of sexual reproduction but knowing its weakness when compared to asexual is nice each system has its own advantages, and neither system is truly superior in all situations a species with an extremely fast reproductive rate will benefit from asexual reproduction, since it allows for natural selection on a mass scale and a good trait will replace a bad one in a few generations (for E.coli this could be as short as 1-2 hours) and allows fast adaptation, and simultaneous selection of several different mutations (which in tern compete with each other to find the best, and then repeat the cycle) but this system is simply not conducive to producing multicellular organisms, they simply take too long to grow for such a carelessly efficient method of evolution(E.coli is technically so biologically superior to say H.sapien that if we were in direct competition we would die out in a single generation, simply because by the time we got to minimum reproductive age(11years, or 6 million minutes) there would be, at least, 200 thousand E.coli for each start individual, lucky were not in direct competition and, way to big to bother E.coli) for species with very slow reproduction, sexual reproduction is necessary, it allows the dissemination of a good mutation over the whole species in a short(er) amount of time, 5-6 generations if its really good and there’s high selection pressure, really long-never if there is a low selection pressure (humans are a great example of this) its major problem is that it prevents high speed evolution when the selection pressure is low and instead starts picking up whatever mutations happen to be lying around and incorporates them all into the genome.

only for large bacterial colonies and the such in more complex organisims newly learned behaviours arent transferable at birth, only basic instincts and through learnig process as far as i know

1 why would i be afraid of your genome? (unless you are a Lovecraftian horror and my brain will simultaneously try to run out my ear, explode, implode and teleport to Mars because of the knowledge) 2 to analyse a genome you need a big computer that can do multiple sequence alignments quickly, not some dinky ipad 3 i have a lecturer at my uni that will be doing whole genome sequencing at 5000GBP next year 4 exome sequencing... make sure they sequence regulatory regions as well, and your possibly looking for a methylation pattern not a SNP

i know really bad habit of mine, but its relevant somewhat, after all if there is a god he/she/it/[yet to be invented pronoun/all of the above] is a damn good biologist back to being really on topic, or trying to be at least (should i delet it?)

its the ipad 3 with inbuilt high resolution DNA sequencer!! weight 270kg dimensions 0.5m x 1.2m x 1.0m screen size 12" requires external power source and chemical package sold separately power source 3x 12V standard car battery no really that app isn’t very useful its just a way to access they’re website and a marketing ploy personal favorite app comercial iPhone Murder Apps from Emma Stone

i would say public opinion is to blame you have to understand people are stupid on a very fundamental level 1 people see patterns (basics of learning) 2 people conform (the reasons there are not 6billion different names for the colour blue) so thus 1 a paten is spotted (2 people are gay, and look like that) 2 it is noted and openly accepted 3 gay people conform to the patter by choise (its how they want to be defined) 4 unrelated people that conform to the pattern are believed to be gay 5 produces a complex in unrelated people 6 they conform to being gay unintentionally learning and brain architecture is messy so this can happen, and dose happen a lot in fact (and its not really something that can be fixed, unless you "hack" your own mind (even then results can be varied)) (the best way to explain this is "if enough people tell you its true, it must be true, if it must be true it becomes truth, but truth dose not represent reality"

it prevents thinning of the gene pool by allowing the mixing of various strains, and species of organism to produce new ones more, or less, adapted to the environment. it also allows a dieting species to occasionally cross-breed with a more successful species and live on in some form increasing the diversity of a genome and how successful the organisms will be. another thing is it allows a single successful individual that is long lived to transfer its genes onto less successful individual thus expanding the number of successful individual that basically the gist of why sexual reproduction is so successful (in genderless sexual species (bacteria, fungus, plants, archea) a few of those points get really screwed up once you get a set sex (prokaryotes, well most of them) since you lose alot of the benefits while getting many disadvantages the reason it has survived is that it allows multicellular organisms (prokaryotes, well most of them) to be produced for a reason i do not know we are simply too large to compete with bacteria, fungus, and archea. and plants are our food source, while to plants we are nothing more then the occasional parasite and a method to spread their seeds over a larger area. plants were at .8 on the kardashev scale and the dominant genus on the planet (by biomass) before we were even crawling out of the oceans so they have my respect (plant have it all worked out; they are large multicellular complex organisms, produce they're own food, are naturally bi sexual hermaphrodites, and don't need to even move since they have swarms of symbiotic organisms that will do everything they ever need for them so they can focus all they're energy on growing bigger) honestly the reason i post in forums is that i cant be perfectly critical of my own ideas, ill never get anything done, so i need other people to criticize them. If they cant stand up to it they're obviously not good ideas. edit: i got sidetracked talking about plants as you can see im a fan of theirs from a genetics, and evolutionary point of view

please list them, i really don’t see any (well there are some but those have examples of similar systems in asexual species that are more efficient) reproductive control: asexual species show the same ability but at a biochemical level portion of the workforce not burdened with carrying children: valid but rendered meninges by reproductive control specialisation: a side effect of the system that will occur anyway even in asexual species (and the whole species will benefit from it) so really there are no real advantages to having a male the advantages of being a male are numerous tho (its the reason they are so popular) no need to worry about offspring (rape, run off, rinse, repeat) specialisation (the most advanced fire and forget missiles in existence: sperm!) portion of the workforce not burdened with carrying children (its one of those ONLY IN HUMANS THINGS...) less need for food, lighter, smaller (well your not going to be making anything are you) ive listed the advantages

im not saying sexual reproduction is bad in fact im sure i said it was good... im saying having a male in the species is bad since it 1. draws resources that could otherwise be used 2. accumulates bad mutations (the Y chromosome is small for a reason and is bordering on becoming too small to function) 3. just isn’t an efficient method of reproduction not that im suggesting we get rid of men... i do like being alive after all

in the beginning there was RNA that self replicated it made bacteria bacteria was asexual AND IT WAS GOOD then came about a mutation!! it made sexual bacteria which raped everything AND IT WAS GOOD the there was a mutation!! and the precursor for the SRY region was made and it raped everything and it was not so good because as it raped everything it passed on the SRY precursor making MALE's which could not reproduce and only dragged down resources you would think they would die out wouldn’t you but no the persistent bastards raped everything even more and became the dominant form of reproduction and that is the history of mankind (well it is sort of) and yes it is written in the bible... the first human was a woman, she stole the clay of creation, made man to be her buddy, then god told her to obey man... (reminiscent of Frankenstein) she told him no (in not so many words i think) and went off to screw an angel (of course this is dumbed down a lot and simplified, and i did take some poetic licence on it)

simple maths, in a species that is asexual the fecundity is 100% for the species (this is beneficial, more reproduction->faster pop growth->high chance of survival) for a species with 1 male to 10 females its 90% for a species with 1 male for 1 female (humans are like this ya know...) its 50% these are ofcource optimal conditions, for humans its more like 3% fecundity in real life (which is from an evolutionary perspective "crap" pardon my French) edit: im going to post a thread on a theory of how men came about the 95% sexual reproduction value is a result of this edit: there it is http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/68825-in-the-begining-there-was-man/ let the flame wars begin, and make sure to invite some theistic nuts to it (that was sarcasm, please rational discussion only)

SRY is not responsible for hormone production, testosterone is made in women and men SRY is the gene that makes men, men. if you don't have it you will develop feminine characteristics and appear prototypically female even if you have XY karyotype SRY is a transcription factor and a regulator gene, its products activate other genes that make men manly, and it is very potent there are even XX karyotype males because of it. please read up on stuff before you post i do i was just stating the possibilities and they wont all be imprinted, as that will probably cause adverse effects all on their own (were all based on women just ask any developmental biologist, men are really these weird mutated things that came about by accident) (i am a man so yes i am allowed to say this, and its true, having half your species reproductively inactive is not beneficial) if men keep some female traits its not really surprising, and they are probably very necessary(otherwise they would be knocked out by the SRY)

admittedly studies into Xq28 showed that females with the "gay gene" had higher fecundity so "gay genes" may all be just that, female reproductive genes. males are, genetically, physically, however you really want based on females in most ways. this means female genes to promote reproduction could be active in most males. but there are most likely hundreds of such genes, since they are beneficial for females, and they are probably still active in males (there’s no point in switching them off from an evolutionary perspective if they don’t make people exclusively gay unless they are all on (rare) and they are more beneficial in females then they are detrimental in males) simply put you only need 1 really busy male and a lot of females in a species for reproduction (so other males not being reproductively active could in some ways be a benefit) (i am just guessing though) also these "gay genes" may be responsible for normal behaviour (like not becoming an omnicidal maniac) and emotional stability (hair trigger ranger) so could be needed in males as much as they are in females also what about methylation of genes? even if you have it, if its been methylated its not active, and SRY dose do a lot of fiddling with what is on and what is off in a lot of places so, yes there could be "gay genes", yes they could control personality, and yes switching them off could make you spiral into depression, go insane, or start trying to kill people (you know the fun stuff or behavioural genetics?)

ick homophobic nazi's with actual proof (i know its redundant nazis were homophobic) i really can't see anything beneficial that will result in proof of a gay gene (especially with new rapid sequencing techniques) (The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.) ant the likelihood they will be wrong (behavioural genetics is easy to screw up) but still publish their results before anyone has confirmed they are actually valid... i foresee a very big mess arising from all this, with a lot of finger pointing afterwards

I would ask what's wrong with being BI... but never mind from what i see you are simply uncomfortable with what you are, and need to have an excuse or reason for it its a fairly normal response to any kind of affliction or event, http://www.bipolarwo...ticles/art2.htm see someone even wrote about it(though its for bipolar disorder in this incarnation it still works) i would really suggest getting a good psychologist and telling them you have trouble dealing with it (not saying homosexuality is a disease, but being in denial is) edit: inow has beaten me to the punch due to my being overly verbose (ill go cry in a corner now)

Ahh but you see Mr. Bond, I have won. My squid-men have surrounded all your positions and you have no chance of escape. Surrender is your only option. --->back to rational discussion<---- I've always wanted to say that, I'm sorry what i wanted to show you: http://www.narth.com...stheregene.html read it before you continue its the second result in google for "gay gene"

even an immortal species will have a death rate, its called suicide. also if you live forever there will be people that become recluses and leave the working population for a couple of years(skipping forward:cryogenics, other stasis techniques, VR sims) the longer the lifespan of a species the lower its reproduction rate, will you really rush something you can get done 500 years from now? physical immortality is also a perquisite to large scale space colonisation, so we wont really ever run out of "space" for people, we may need to search for more resources and start dismantling other planets.