Remember when scientist 'broke the genetic code"?I thought life was supposed to change!What's up?
821379
Mapping the genetic code was the easy part. Genes are responsible for the development of proteins that are used to build our bodies. Understanding THAT process and learning how to control is is significantly more challenging.
591012
well...\nu could talk about how little we know about whether organisms like bacteria and viruses have consicousness and a probable effect that might happen if we change their genomes . we dont really know whether those kind of organisms have an "individuality" or anything, so thats where i would start off from.\nhope this helped
60923
Sorry about the tension. That's a pain. I too have a relative that is very different than the rest of us but I have concluded that there was some sort of genetic mutation and leave it at that.
1124535
this is exactly why i am a creationist. i've studied microbiology and i cannot see how RNA or DNA could have invented itself.
789937
There is a great deal missing from this article. Whether or not it is life is questionable. That the material is called "cells" indicates that the material is self-reproducing 'autonomously', and I don't know that's been proved yet.\n\nAlso, yet to be proved, is the idea that the material is of extraterrestrial origin. There are many new types of life being found on earth almost daily. True most of these are just variations of species, but we are finding life in places never before thought possible.\n\nWithout DNA, some other sort of self-replication mechanism needs to be present, and the article made no claims to what form this mechanism takes. I would need to see a great deal more to be convinced of any of the claims made in the article.\n\nThat's not to say I couldn't believe, but I just need more information.
49353
imbaord: the only thing sadder than thinking that the notion of the human race being a virus is deep is to steal that notion from the Matrix and pass it off as your own.  Get an original and meaningful thought, please.  Humans are not destroying the world, they're changing it.  Did you know that before the evolution of oxygen-producing cyanobacteria, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere?  Oxygen was destructive.  Reactive metals like iron used to exist everywhere in their reduced forms, but the new surge of oxygen destroyed those metals are turned them all to rust.  Metals precipitated out of the water, turning into a non-biodegradable form of crud that layered all the ocean floors.  The oxygen was destructive to virtually every form of life that existed before that time, and an enormous percentage of all organisms were made extinct.  BUT! Evolution moved on from there, and new organisms that can use oxygen for energy flourished.  The oxygen became such an abundant part of the atmosphere that it rose upwards, was changed by the incident UV light, and became a screen that sheilded the surface from these UV rays.  These two effects made life on land as we know it suddenly possible when before it was not.  Change, even destructive change, isn't necessarily a terrible thing--it's all a matter of perspective.  Evolution is a powerful thing.\n\nViruses are like living things in many ways, but they are not living things, and I don't care about 10 points, but the simple fact is that the virus is non-living.
758535
My opinion is that it is messing with things that we don't understand.\nNobody really knows how life works, or how procreation really takes place.\nBy messing around we are destroying natural evolution, and creating potential situations for the spread of incurable disease.\nAny of the pros can be examined, and the question 'Why?' asked.\nThere is almost always a logical answer.\nWhy do we need more food? Because the nutrition of present food has been destroyed by the fore-runner of genetic engineering - unnatural farming in order to make more profit.\nAlmost always there is an answer which ends up with - to make more profit.\nOur current society is run on the idea that profit is essential. If we examined all these things down to the root we would see that society is definitely headed in the wrong direction, and genetic engineering is a part of that.\nIt's of no long term benefit to the human race.
1070874
ima try to keep it simple.. more of a opinion than answer because of the topic which we won't really know.  \n\nIf you study science hard as hell, you will see how a single cell organism lived in the water, long ago.  When they adapted... to survive for food they grew to 'cilia' (hair) on sides to move thu water after only having on hair(flagella).  To get to the point... cells evolved into tadpoles. then to fish and snakes. then to amphibians like frogs or platypus which is land and water.  Then reptiles and mammals that live on land.  Most say the monkey group grew to human when more complex learning/thinking came...but this could be the beginning of man.  Then religion to explain it all.  THe big bang theory states dinosaurs could of died when a meteor hit earth and clogged the atmosphere with dust so bad that no light was here for years.  No grass, no oxygen.  If the bible says... let there be light... could that of been when it cleared up.  The whole point is there is no way to prove anything that will satisfy us wholely.  If i do not have the cross of jesus... they do not believe... if you tell them anything out of the norm... they doubt it. It will all be confusion until enough knowledge satisfies their interest whether they choose science or religion.  THis is all because we are becoming in need of security thru reality and facts relating to our own patterns.  Most people believe the bible for only its relating content to everyday life rather than the miracles, holy spirit, and other great feats not known or seen to man today.  A scientist will help fulfill these questions as well as an interpretor of faith.  It depends if your a theorist. So its a bad thing for a scientist to fail in his field. The unexplained is sorta why we even have religion.  You must stop collecting facts and give faith to the supreme being....because even the single cell organism came from somewhere and the power to adapt/evolve is unexplained. unexplained gives a sense of unsecurity where we "fear what we cant control" (heights, ghost, and other scary sh/it.  we feel we cant control our lives without that being explained, so we fear and act off of that. Hope i covered alot in a lil.  Good luck on the answer! peace out!
277848
No clue yet on this one. But leading research is showing that this may be a random event because of chromosome breakage. I would look into telomerase extension if I were you. Most of the time this is bad (Double stranded DNA breaks), but it happens all of the time (but luckily we have a good DNA repair system, I believe there are well over 1000 breaks a day and all we need is 1 for some bad genetic disease)
937500
Many times what happens is a specific gene or stretch of DNA is duplicated in an organism.  If this doesn't cause any harm, one copy of the gene can mutate, leaving the other one intact to carry out its original function.  The extra gene can then become something entirely different over time, occasionally mutating into something useful.  \nA word of warning- don't start with a belief and look for the evidence.  You will find evidence (not good or true evidence, but you will find something) for whatever you go out looking for, especially on the internet.  Find the evidence first and see where it leads you, or you will end up very, very wrong about some important things.
724158
Er... the theory of evoltion?  It's just a theory though.  Lots of loop holes.  :)
319525
The Creator was not such a great genetic engineer, this is clear. He apparently had extreme difficulty making people that are good, and have free will (at the same time). I'm sure this can be done, and in the future even people will make such people. You only need to modify a bit of this...\n\nGATCAATGAGGTGGACACCAGAGGCGGGGACTTGTAAATAACACTGGGCTGTAGGAGTGA\nTGGGGTTCACCTCTAATTCTAAGATGGCTAGATAATGCATCTTTCAGGGTTGTGCTTCTA\nTCTAGAAGGTAGAGCTGTGGTCGTTCAATAAAAGTCCTCAAGAGGTTGGTTAATACGCAT\nGTTTAATAGTACAGTATGGTGACTATAGTCAACAATAATTTATTGTACATTTTTAAATAG\nHuman Genome: First 4 lines of Chromosome 1 \n\n...(actually not those lines but a bit later in the code), and bingo, you got it! The person has free will, and has no interest in being bad (can, but won't). It's sort of like how you can put mustard on your pancakes if you wish, but somehow you are just not compelled to do it.
922140
It’s hard for human beings to grasp every phase of evolution, but that really isn’t evolution’s problem, especially when we are talking about the small scale things.  It’s hard to actually picture the change, but just because someone (like me) doesn’t have the imagination to picture it, it doesn’t matter.  Evolution doesn’t need me to understand or even believe in it.  Aleins did not create eukaryotic cells, don’t be silly.  Then again, we can't disprove it so it must be true (that's the logic christian like to throw out there as far as god goes so it can work with alein's too, right?) lol :)
509868
I never heard that story, it strikes me as contrived bollox anyway, but no, it makes no difference.   Anyone that thinks it matters is searching desperately for something to substantiate that anti-intellectual horror: creationism.  Science works because it outlasts every individual scientist, to be tested and refined again by the next generation of open minded clever people.  Evolution has, er, evolved quite a lot since Darwin's time, and many of the puzzles left by him have been solved.   If Newton had recanted, apples would still fall to the ground.
869471
Is that a Q, or a sedantary Comment...?\nThe basics of life is Creation - such as the 'UNMOVED MOVER'\n\nScience cannot support that, so people can take it and shove it up!!  ooop!! they will have to 'move' for that...\n\nAs was a lot of 'that' when our (pre-birth) sperm was swimming...\n\nIf ur comment is on the side of creation - u in the right direction, but still the Creator is not dividing itself,, it is creating indepedent lifes'...
478754
You can say that but simply change in environment isn't responsible. Evolution is combined result of various processes such as struggle for existence, hereditary variations, and most importantly gene mutations which are sudden changes in Base sequence in DNA
941577
Hi Naveen,\nThat question is interesting, and requires some basic knowledge of evolutionary genetics to answer.\nI shall try  to make this simple:\n\nThe basic unit of life according to the latest views, is the gene. This is bcoz Gene or the genetic material, whether it be RNA or DNA or any other non carbon material for that matter,is the one that posess the most funbamental quality of life- that is to "make a replica of itself and thereby immortalise its own kind" . \nEarlier, the ability to respire, the ability to grow in size, the ability to store and handle or transform energy and the ability to interact with the environment were all considered as basic and essential qualities of life. Now the view has changed and what i mentioned earlier holds true.\n        The genetic material as i told you has only one "aim"and that is procreation! All the interactions we see among living organisms around us is a result of the Genetic Material(gene) trying to create a copy of it successfully and make it survive.  "The cell is a way of the gene to make another gene" as Richard Dawkins told once. And when the cell becomes useless on its own to help genes procreate, the gene finds ways to make cells co-operate. Thats how multicellular organisms evolved. \n\nThis evolution was very very gradual, i need not stress upon that part. In this view of the living world, Animals, or for that matter Humans are the pinnacle of the gene's experiment for cooperation! Not only does each cell in an animal body work in close harmony with its neighbours, the organism(animal or human) as a whole works and lives in total harmony with others of the same group.\n         The mechanism of this cooperation is seen in pack-hunting strategies of many social animals like jackal, hyenas, wolves, lions, or the colony of ants , termites ,bees or wasps, or the farmlands of humans or in a modern factory..! This genetic cooperation has evolved innumerable mechanisms to identify common goals, common genetic makeup, and common ideology. This is why in a country, people of the same religion/ political ideology unite for common purposes.This is why,people of the same state unite in the name of language; people of same district unite in the name of region; people of same family unite in the name of blood relation ;brothers or sisters unite in the name of common genes, and finally an individual himself or herself becomes selfish when it comes to his/ her bodily demands...! \n         How does the one gene identify the presence of another of its own kind in another individual? This is called  "green beard effect"..! The concept is simple: A gene has two functions in the body: the first is its true function- to synthesize some protein that the body needs. The second function is that the gene produces some visible character in the body of the individual so that another individual can identify this character and extend its cooperation. A gene can thus make a person's mind more inclined to accept religion as a way of brotherhood/cooperation \n (like we see in some terrorist and racist groups) or it can simply tell the individual to cooperate for food. \n       The lowest level of this sort of cooperation is seen in symbiotic and parasitic relationships in animal or plant or even microscopic world of unicellular organisms. Bacteria live in our gut and help us digest cellulose from veg-food, we provide them a congenial environment to survive and reproduce. This is symbiosis. Parasites usually harm the host and eventually destroy them.Eg: fungi. \nTherefore all life forms on earth have likings for some or the other kind of organism. In social animals, the liking is towards individuals of the same species. In other groups, it may be towards a parasite or a symbiont. Some plants in the amazon provide "food" for ants that colonize among their roots, and in turn the ants provide protection to these plants from external animals. Som