The Darwin Spin Off

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

I think the above chart is outdated.

That chart, except for ending in Bugs Bunny, is actually fairly accurate. What it does not show is the branch points at which chimps and apes diverged from our ancient common ancestors. You could make a tee-shirt graphic for chimps that would probably look something like this...

Modern chimps don't look very different from our common ancestor with them. Modern rabbits don't look much different than our common ancestor with them. In both cases, though the same amount of time has elapsed in our mutual evolutions, chimps and rabbits have undergone significantly less change.

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

The first figure in the chart above is still alive if that is Gorilla.

Not necessarily, the first figure in the chart could be our common ancestor with the gorilla. It's probable (dunno how) that modern gorillas would not be able to mate with that ancient common ancestor, making them different species (by the most popular definition of the word). The ancient species, though it might look very much like a modern gorilla, would be extinct.

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

They should begin to use charts more like the LUCA maybe? 

If you put the LUCA tree on a tee-shirt, the portion of human evolution shown in the Bugs Bunny diagram wouldn't even cover a nipple. Look at the LUCA tree and note that "Animals", which would be everything from microscopic worms and bugs to us, is just one tiny branch, and we're at the very tip.

The Bugs Bunny timeline is popular because it encompasses the grand debate (Scopes Monkey Trial, which I mention in my SL profile!) over Evolution and our kinship with other primates.

Regarding Darwin, as your quotes show, he wasn't super certain about the singularity of life's beginnings.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one."

We still don't know how life started. As Nalates and Arielle point out, the probabilities seem remote. Yet here we are, so the probability was actually 100%. I hope we'll eventually figure out how.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters
Spelling, clarification, expansion... the usual.

[FairreLilette]

11 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

If you put the LUCA tree on a tee-shirt, the portion of human evolution shown in the Bugs Bunny diagram wouldn't even cover a nipple. Look at the LUCA tree and note that "Animals", which would be everything from microscopic worms and bugs to us, is just one tiny branch, and we're at the very tip.

I showed the LUCA chart to present a possible "style" for a new chart or a more correct chart.  If we take just hominins and apes/monkeys, then that particular branch or two branches would not be so large.   The apes/monkeys would be one branch, and the hominins another branch.  The ape/monkey branch was obviously quite strong.

What I was also thinking about species that can be quite variable and those that just sort of make a mini-me clone of themselves is which one came first?  It seems the ones that just sort of clone themselves came first then if one takes into account the ape to early man-branch theory.  Or, what I am saying is useless because of random mutations not fully known.  

Another interesting thing, aside from dinosaurs, but since dinosaurs have disappeared, man whether through natural selection or artificial selection is the highest on the food chain or is the dominant species.  Species that just sort of clone seem lower on the food chain and/or not the dominant ones.  

[Madelaine McMasters]

14 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I showed the LUCA chart to present a possible "style" for a new chart or a more correct chart.  If we take just hominins and apes/monkeys, then that particular branch or two branches would not be so large.   The apes/monkeys would be one branch, and the hominins another branch.  The ape/monkey branch was obviously quite strong.

What I was also thinking about species that can be quite variable and those that just sort of make a mini-me clone of themselves is which one came first?  It seems the ones that just sort of clone themselves came first then if one takes into account the ape to early man-branch theory.  Or, what I am saying is useless because of random mutations not fully known.  

Another interesting thing, aside from dinosaurs, but since dinosaurs have disappeared, man whether through natural selection or artificial selection is the highest on the food chain or is the dominant species.  Species that just sort of clone seem lower on the food chain and/or not the dominant ones.  

The LUCA chart is the commonly accepted evolutionary tree diagram. The Bugs Bunny diagram is for entertainment. My favorite version is this...

 

Since the discovery of DNA, the evolutionary tree diagram has undergone a lot of change. Fossils we thought were closely related, based on physical characteristics, have turned out to be genetically very different. We can't go back and breed those fossils to expose some of their genetics, but DNA gives us a pretty good picture into what came first, and what descended from what. It's not flawless, but it's pretty darn good.

I don't think the "visual variability" you describe is a useful metric, as that is based on your idea of what constitutes variability, and is the sort of classification error that DNA analysis is still unwinding in the evolutionary tree diagram.

It's easy to understand your thinking, though. Our eyes are the best tool most of us have for classifying things.

Regarding our place at the top of the food chain, I like to look at our place here in other ways, too.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/11/03/141946751/along-with-humans-who-else-is-in-the-7-billion-club

Notice that, by total weight, bacteria, ants, fish, cattle, and termites outweigh us.

Puny hoomans.

[FairreLilette]

7 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

ants

Thanks for sharing Madelaine.  The article was interesting - 18.6 billion chickens.  We eat a lot and yet that's not going to last very long.  

But, I had thought about ants - talk about a clone.  They pretty much all look alike to me.

What I had been wondering really underneath all my questions and without going into another topic...is I sure hope we can beat COVID.  It could take years and years though.  The virus and this thread got me to thinking about things re:COVID.   After thinking about it, it seems the cloning type species are not as susceptible to viruses as those species which are quite varied.  I'd gather it could be because the varied types species - humans, horses, dogs, cats for some examples - have more genes and thus more susceptibilities perhaps. 

The Wiki on the LUCA (last universal common ancestor) does discuss viruses but it is beyond my understanding as I am a lay-person when it comes to science.  I believe I am right-brained perhaps, I love art and music and do not really like science nor math much.   If there is really such a thing as right and left brained.   

[Love Zhaoying]

Evolutionary (Mutation): natural process, or also influenced greatly by damage to DNA by random radiation, etc.?

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

But, I had thought about ants - talk about a clone.  They pretty much all look alike to me.

Spend a little time with ants and you'll start to see differences. When I was little, I noticed ants swarming around a Dorito chip I'd dropped on the patio. They were chewing off chunks bigger than their bodies and hauling them away. By the end of the day, the chip was gone.

I showed Dad and we were soon experimenting with various foods. It didn't take long to discover we had at least two kinds of ants, those that liked Doritos and potato chips (grease ants) and those that liked melted popsicles and maple syrup (sugar ants). Both liked mom's chocolate chip cookies.

Color differences are easy for us to see, but often completely inconsequential. Ants recognize food, and each other by... smell. 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Ceka Cianci]

[Madelaine McMasters]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Evolutionary (Mutation): natural process, or also influenced greatly by damage to DNA by random radiation, etc.?

Some years ago, I watched a video of a computer simulation of our cellular machinery. It's (to me) absolutely fantastic!

It also got me thinking about the frequency of DNA breaks. I was surprised to learn this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_damage_(naturally_occurring)

ETA: To put some additional perspective on this, the human body contains approximately 15 trillion cells (your gut contains 10x as many bacterial cells). If each cell is experiencing an oxidative DNA break 10,000 times/day  (once every 9 seconds), your body is experiencing 1.7 trillion oxidative DNA breaks per second.

Although our DNA repair mechanism isn't perfect, it's amazingly good.

ETA2: Remember, if the DNA repair guys were perfect, we'd not be here.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Love Zhaoying]

21 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It also got me thinking about the frequency of DNA breaks. I was surprised to learn this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_damage_(naturally_occurring)

None of this is related to extra chromosomes, right? Thinking about my exes with vestigial tails.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Love Zhaoying
Not tales

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

None of this is related to extra chromosomes, right? Thinking about my exes with vestigial tails.

Right, vestigiality is the retention of structures or characteristics that have little to none of their ancestral function. Think of it as a sort of erosion. Structures that are useful get reinforced by natural selection. It can take time to erase unneeded stuff from the genome.

Extra chromosomes are significant errors. They can occur at any time (egg/sperm/fetus/adult). The earlier they happen, the more of the body they'll affect. Someone born of an egg or sperm with an extra chromosome might develop Down's Syndrome. An adult woman who produces an extra chromosome in a breast tissue cell might go on to develop cancer.

You can also be short a chromosome.

Errors can also produce complete extra sets. I don't think those cells are viable.

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Spend a little time with ants and you'll start to see differences. When I was little, I noticed ants swarming around a Dorito chip I'd dropped on the patio

Oh my gosh, I have an ant story too.  But, first I meant one type of ant all look the same, like exact replicas almost, not taking into account black or red ants plus other kinds of ants.

In California, we have black and red ants mostly.  I have forgotten now why some areas have the red ant more than others. 

But, perhaps my earliest childhood experience involves ants.  My sister and I were playing in the back yard and ants began to cover my sister.  She must have been around 3 to 4 years old and I would have been around 2 years old, maybe a little more.  I went to go get my Mom and Dad to see my sister with the ants all over her.  I also spoke my first sentence according to my Mom and Dad which was "look at the po-poes".  That's what it sounded like I said according to my parents.  They didn't move to go look at my sister however so I put out my hand and lead them to my sister.  My Dad lifted my sister into the air and both my Mom and Dad began to brush the ants off her.  Then, she was taken to the bath.  Not until recently did I realize I might have been trying to say to my Mom and Dad "look at those", but it came out po-poes.   But, my parents and my oldest sister always reminded of when I spoke my first sentence and it was out of sheer fear I can tell you that much.  Red ants bite.  My sister had poured a bowl of some kind of food over her head I was later explained by my Mom and Dad and that's why the ants were all over her and quite quickly too; very fast.  I hate red ants to this day.  Even though my sister was a bit older, she was in shock from the red ants.

Edited March 19, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Madelaine McMasters]

34 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

But, first I meant one type of ant all look the same, like exact replicas almost, not taking into account black or red ants plus other kinds of ants.

Go back to my golden retriever example. You can't spot differences well enough to know which puppies belong to which moms, but the dogs sure can. Ants recognize their own colonies, and the castes within, entirely by smell. If you could smell like they do, you'd say "Oh golly, I have so many different kinds of ants in my yard!".

Again, there are variations in nature you can't see, so not seeing variation doesn't mean it's not there.

ETA: It is sorta true that the simpler the organism (genetically), the less room there is for inconsequential variation. Covid-19 is now vexing us with... consequential variations!

Edited March 19, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Madelaine McMasters]

9 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Living in Florida, some places with Flamingos tell us the color is from the shrimp they eat. Disney flamingos are no longer pink (was explained as shrimp there).

* I reserve the right to be wrong, the fact someone pointed at flamingoes and stated a theory means nada. And perhaps they said "the algae" from the shrimp and I forgot.

I don't think Flamingos eat algae, so I presume the color is passed up the food chain. Your shrimp, and my crayfish get their color from their food, not their genes.

 

[Orwar]

19 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

I don't think Flamingos eat algae, so I presume the color is passed up the food chain. Your shrimp, and my crayfish get their color from their food, not their genes.

   There is however an animal whose . . . Colours . . . Are indeed from algae which they do not eat.

   I bet they smell like cybergoths after a bad rave night, too.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   There is however an animal whose . . . Colours . . . Are indeed from algae which they do not eat.

   I bet they smell like cybergoths after a bad rave night, too.

Thought you were showing us the "Florida Skunk Ape" for a minute.

[Ceka Cianci]

 evolutionary change avoided..

[Luna Bliss]

Pffft....I come back to this thread and nobody has discovered how life began!

Disappoint   😉

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pffft....I come back to this thread and nobody has discovered how life began!

Disappoint   😉

Oh  that's easy.

Mah Hint! \o/

hehehe

 

[Ceka Cianci]

This is gonna be really awesome..

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

On 3/19/2021 at 2:55 PM, Orwar said:

   There is however an animal whose . . . Colours . . . Are indeed from algae which they do not eat.

   I bet they smell like cybergoths after a bad rave night, too.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Gilly!

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

On 3/20/2021 at 5:18 PM, Luna Bliss said:

I come back to this thread and nobody has discovered how life began!

Primordial soup likely smelled exactly like Jack Daniels.

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

31 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Primordial soup likely smelled exactly like Jack Daniels.

 

I've watched Jack Daniels elicit primordial behavior from those who've imbibed it.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

36 minutes ago, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

Primordial soup likely smelled exactly like Jack Daniels.

 

Expand  

I've watched Jack Daniels elicit primordial behavior from those who've imbibed it.

I suppose the Primordial Soup Nazi's shtick would be, "No Primordial Soup for you!"

Question: if "primordial" soup came first, and "prime" means (my layman's term) "next iteration" in math, was primordial soup actually leftovers?

[Orwar]

51 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

and "prime" means (my layman's term) "next iteration" in math

   Prime is Latin for 'first' or 'foremost'. 

   . . . So in my layman Latin, it's 'prime et prime'. I don't actually know as I haven't studied Latin nor any maths that got so complicated it required Latin (or Greek, thank goodness!), but I would guy-gander that 'prime number' means that it is a 'foremost' number, because unlike the plebeian non-foremost numbers that can be divided any old way, they're extra spechul.