Mokele

And it wouldn't be more reasonable to assume that, say, oxygen was entering because the cell was using it up at a continuous rate, thereby creating a continual loss on one side of the membrane that would result in continual diffusion inwards? Is there any empirical evidence for this claim? Mokele

I've found in quite amusing. I actually just read a court transcript from the witness testimony of Michael "Irreducible Complexity" Behe in which he explicitly admits that any definition of "science" which includes ID also includes *Astrology*. I guess if the loonies win, "what's your sign?" will be a future SAT question. Mokele

No, they can't. This site is not a manual version of google. Learn to do research yourself.

Because I'm just being cynical. In reality, I think the difference between what Cosby is doing and saying who's geneticly better is that Cosby is ranting about social issues and things that are the product of poor choices and bad cultural influences, which people can change. However, you can't change your genes (not yet, anyway), and such genetic information tends, in the public eye, to set a "biology-is-destiny" tone and crush the American dream/illusion that anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it. It's clearly false if you really look at it, but the emotional reaction predominates in the public. I think it's the difference between "You *shouldn't* do this, and *should* do this" and "You *cannot* do this and there's nothing you can do, no amount of trying, that will change that". I also think that there's a big difference between "morally OK" and "politically/socially OK". The facts are always morally ok, but a lot of the time, people just don't want to hear them. Also, frankly, because shoddy arguements (lacking proper evidence) about genetic inferiority of various groups have been pandered for centuries, and still are, as an excuse for discrimination and bigotry, any minority takes a very dim view and steep skepticism towards any such new claims, because past history indicates such claims are likely bullshit spread for hateful reasons. Even if new, valid info is *not* so tainted, it must overcome the sordid past history. Frankly, were it my project, I wouldn't even *think* of publishing with a p of more than 0.001 (a value of statistical certainty which in this case means a 99.9% chance the data really is right; standard scientific p for publishable significant results is only 0.05, or 95% certainty). That entirely depends on how you define your terms. In terms of intellectual potential, possible; most were slaves, and the smartest may have avoided capture or killed themselves, thus resulting in a biased sample. In terms of actual mental capacity at the time, again, probably, but also due to lack of education. Neither actually speaks to *genetic* or otherwise inherent capability of an unbiased sampling. I can easily state that you're flat-out wrong there. Why? Because athleticism isn't a simple, one-locus trait. Any genetic basis is going to be highly complex and interactive, which will reduce heritability by increasing opportunity for environmental influence. To give you an example of what we'd be looking for in the genetics-dominant hypothesis: in Darwin's finches, whose differing beaks are the one of the great icons of evolution, narrow-sense heritability of bill size is a modest 30% or so. Broad-sense is more, but still not over 50%, iirc. So expecting a heritability of 95% for athleticism is really, *really* over-reaching the bounds of genetics. Mokele

Clear, but so broad as to be unanswerable. It's like asking the effects of sharp objects. There's so much that it's not possible to give a concise or meaningfully comprehensive and in-depth answer.

Simply put, why bother? It's easier and less complicated to just keep the genes around, and express different ones at different times and places. Besides, any molecular mechanism to alter DNA will not be able to assure or predict in any way whether the alteration is beneficial or not. Given that it seems most alterations of DNA are harmful (mutations), there's really no plausible difference from somatic mutations nor any benefit over them. Mokele

There's what appears to be a convergence, too: Gastornis (formerly "Diatryma"), from the Americas about 50 million years ago. They've been grouped with ducks before and were possibly herbivorous too (they're also been grouped with rails and others, and are mostly likely simply in an ill-defined "basal" position). Of course, these shouldn't be confused with the definitely-not-herbivorous Phorusrhacoids (aka "Terror Birds") which dominated the South American food chain for most of the Cenozoic. Mokele

Leopards are good (small, cricket-eaters, tame, harmless) Bearded dragons are also good (a bit bigger, crickets and veggies, tame). Crested geckos perhaps, though they might be a bit advanced (small, arboreal, a bit flighty but not bitey, insects and babyfood) Cornsnakes and kingsnakes are good snakes (mouse eaters, very tame, modest size, calm) Ball pythons also might be good (only get to 3 feet long, calm, chunky, mouse eaters, though they may fast for months at a time) Things to avoid: Monitors and tegus: Most species are vicious, large and carnivorous. Even the tame ones require *lots* of room (3 foot by 5 foot cage, minimum) Most tortoises: Veggie eaters with complex dietary requirements, and often reach large sizes (50 lbs +) Most turtles: Require complex filtered aquaria, get to big enough to need 100-gallon plus aquaria, and can have a nasty bite. Most don't tame well and are more 'display animals'. Snappers and softshells are sometimes sold, and these get inordinately large, quite mean, and can inflict severe bites. Iguanas: Big, sometimes mean, complex diet, large cage. Water dragons: Think smaller (but still over 4 foot) iguana that eats insects. Crocodilians: Some pet shops actually sell these. I'm not ready for one and I've been keeping reptiles over a decade. Invariably vicious, large, and capable of inflicting horrific injury with great ease. True crocodiles will regularly try to kill you as soon as they think they can (usually at about 3 feet, and don't underestimate them). Boas and Pythons: Aside from balls, no affordable species remains small. They get huge fast; my boa went from 19 inches to 6 foot 5 inches in only two years, burmese and retics grow even faster. Massively powerful, require huge cages and often may need more than 1 person to safely handle them. As far as bites, I've never had a bite that required medical attention from any lizard or snake, including bites from a 12 foot burm and a 4 foot monitor. Snake bites are mostly just punctures, and lizards can slash, but there's rarely more than surface damage. Turtles and crocs, on the other hand, can generate massive bite pressures. For most of the "good" species I listed, the bites are trivial and you'll probably feelt little if any pain. Mokele

Well, I do try to segregate creationist garbage to psuedoscience, and split it out of useful threads when I can. Sometimes it's not always possible to make a clean split, though, and splitting would seriously mess up a thread. Mokele

The problem is that the *only* availible method to determine for sure what's genetic and what's not is selective breeding. Obviously, this is a big no-no for humans. The *usual* for complex multicellular organisms is both: genetics mixed with environment. That is actually genetic, specifically fron Kenyan ancestry. Those of Kenyan ancestry are literally 10% more efficient when running, and, while we haven't pinned down the gene or genes, such a massive increase is unlikely to be caused by anything short of a direct genetic alteration of physiology. However, that doesn't mean this can be extrapolated to other athletic talents. But remember that for someone in indiana, other sports are availible, while in an inner-city area, there just isn't room for baseball or football fields all over the place. As such, *all* (or nearly so) of the talented (or not) black athletes would go into basketball, while white athletes would be spread over numerous fields. Also, the intensity and number of competitors is higher in the inner city. A kid from Indiana might only face 4 or five lefties occaisionally, which in the inner city, with so many people, a player will face more people and thus more diversity of playing styles (more lefties, for instance). (I don't actually know if being a lefty matters in basketball, I just picked it for an example). Because it's OK to tell a minority group they're better, but not that they're worse. Personally, I'm always skeptical of genetic claims when it comes to human races. A few such differences exist, but by and large human populations have so much gene flow that most differences in gene frequency aren't confined to racial boundaries. Mokele

Can your question *get* any more vague and poorly-defined?

It's offtopic, but it's really quite simple; they're native to South Carolina and have been effectively introduced in New Jersey. I grow mine outside (I'm in Cincinnati). All you need is a spot with full sun outside (they'll feed themselves), peat and sand (acidic, nutrient-less soil), and a bowl of distilled water to put the pot in (they need *only* distilled water, and need their soil to be very wet). Aside from that, just don't fertilize them (that kills carnivorous plants) and keep them in standing distilled water and they'll be fine. The same holds true for almost all other species, including American Pitcher plants and most sundews. Only a few species, like asian pitchers and sun pitchers require specialized care, the rest can grow outside just fine in most of the US. Mokele

I already addressed this: randomness is sufficient. Those 6 codons have a total of over 68 billion possible combinations via randomness. Given that your sample size is in the mere millions, you would not expect to see replicates very often. In fact, specifically, if you have 10 million genes, there only a 1 in 6800 chance that you'll find two identical genes. Seriously, you need to back off from this little idea of yours and look at the evidence. Moved to Psuedoscience, where it belongs. Mokele

"HOX" and "PAX" in google should pull up some good stuff too.

Well, most reptiles are pretty low maintenance, and the worst are herbivores, but they have the smelliest crap, so that rules them out. Which would you find more suitable/appealing: crickets, which means daily or every-two-days feedings, or dead mice (live is a big no-no) which might mean weekly feedings? The former is the case for all lizards I'd recommend (ones big enough to eat mice are *not* beginner animals), the latter in the case of all snakes (again, big ones aren't beginner pets). Mokele

Technically it was an ape. Apes (excluding humans) are a paraphyletic group. The ancestor that gave rise to humans was located within the ape lineage (which had already diverged from monkeys), ergo was an ape, in the same way that birds are a type of dinosaur. Mokele

For the love of all that is holy, not everything involves hydrogen bonding. The dispersal and reformation of the nuclear envelope is due to phosphorylation of the nuclear lamina, as web of intermediate fillaments holding it together. There is *nothing* to suggest that chromosomes are any significantly more polar of prone to hydrogen bonding than anything else. If you can't be bothered to open a book and read, don't just concoct wild theories instead. Mokele

Flat out wrong. There is no evidence that the charge across the membrane alters during division, and furthermore, during cell division, most active metabolic processes are stopped. Even if there *was* the influx you claim, it would be tiny compared to the normal cellular oxygen consumption during interphase.

I fail to see why a difference in athletic ability would rasie hackles, as a pretty high chunk of it is environmentally determined anyway (practice makes perfect). I'm usually big on reducing humans to their simplest biological mechanisms, but in this case even I think cultural differences are the best explanation.

Quite good, though a few inaccuracies. Under Paleozoic, it states that mammal-like reptiles went extinct in the Permian Extinction; in actuality they didn't vanish completely, but did undergo a major loss of species. At the end of the Mesozoic, it seems to imply that both dinosaurs and *all* other reptiles died in the KT event (simply adding 'many' in front of reptiles would make it more accurate). Otherwise, very good as far as simplified versions go. Mokele

Conceptual's explanation was very flawed and bears little resemblance to reality.

The short, short answer: The DNA is always the same, but only a subset it expressed, different in each cell type.

Basically, I get them from specialist breeders and rarely from specialist importers (for species not bred in captivity). The general rule is that you get what you pay for. If you buy a lizard for $3 at a flea market, don't be suprised when it drops dead the next day due to horrible prior care. If you buy from somewhere like Petsmart and Petco, well, they're better, but the animals are generally kept in sub-optimal conditions, and are often imported. If you buy from a breeder or specialist in reptiles, while it will cost more, you'll be more likely to get a healthy, well-cared-for animal. Generally, you have two options: wild-caught (imports) or captive bred. Captive bred animals are just that, the product of the mating of a two animals in captivity, raised under captive conditions. They're superior for many reasons, including known genetic lines, lack of parasites (which can kill herps quite easily), less stress (not plucked out of the wild and into a cage), better health, and usually more tame. Wild-caughts are usually stressed, mean, dehydrated, and parasite-ridden. You might hear of "captive hatched", which means the eggs or gravid females were taken from the wild, and hatched in captivity. They're superior to wild-caught, but inferior to captive-bred, and usually not worth the trouble. As far as expense goes, just save up. The vast majority of costs in reptile keeping are initial setup, buying the animal, and changing the cage (if you get a growing juvenile). If you save up, you can buy a superior animal that'll make keeping much more fun. For instance, I paid over $150 for my first snake in 1993, from a breeder, and he's wonderful. But the lab just recently bought a cheapo import for $25 of the same species and subspecies, and it's a vile little bastard of a snake. Think of it like a car; a yugo costs less, but a caddy won't explode without warning. What animal were you thinking of getting? Mokele

Precisely. It's amazing how much of natural selection can be comedicly explained by "You don't have to run faster than the bear; you just have to run faster than your friend." Mokele

Exactly. I heard it put generally that "Mammals pay their heat bills with water" in a seminar recently. A few have oddball strategies, like camels who tolerate increased body temperatures during the day so they can dump heat at night, thereby minimizing water loss. But most rely on evaporative cooling for the most part. Mokele