Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / May 2004

If yes, could humans become amoebas again in a few million years?

Has anyone got a copy of Dobzansky's review of Grasse's 'The Evolution
of Life' which appeared in volume 29 of 'Evolution' (June 1975) pp.
376-378?
Dobzansky's review was titled "Darwinism or 'Oriented' Evolution?"

As I understand it, DNA is used for development/replication in all life
forms. Natural selection would imply that it is the 'best' way to do
this (not stating all this as fact, just my perception so correct me if
I'm wrong). Some questions that I can't seem to find the answer to:

Rethinking Genetic Determinism
With only 30,000 genes, what is it that makes humans human?
By Paul H. Silverman
For more than 50 years scientists have operated under a set of seemingly

RNAs Running the Show
Riboswitches raise some interesting questions about genetic regulation
By Aileen Constans
Coming from various directions, a number of research groups stumbled upon a

While reading an interview with Steve Squyres
who oversees the science operations of
both rovers and a team of
170 researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion lab,

Being a physics maths IT type I don't have the background to even know
the right questions to ask, so was wondering if someone can help.
If you make the assumption that each "branching" of the phylogenetic
tree corresponds to a variation of some base type, then you could

Let's say we have two ribozymes:
1. This one is selected to survive in the environmental
heat cycle caused by the sun.
2. This one has escaped the UV, hidden from the sun

I'm trying to make sense of some fundamental genetics and I struggle
with this
question;
If the only information in the dna that is relevant are genes (correct

hello everyone!!! i hope anybody can help me look for the answer
(directly or indirectly) to this question that our professor has given
us as our internet research assignment: "When did different lineages
of true crabs arise in the evolution (in a geological time scale)?". I

What did the 1st species of pre-historic humans eat?

Species- One kind of organism. Of sexually reproducing organisms, one or
more natural populations in which individuals are interbreeding and are
reproductively isolated from other groups.
Is this a sufficient definition of species? I've been reading some of

I happened to run across the following interesting
article.  It is the first example I have seen of an
evolutionary law which is a good analog of the second
law of thermodynamics.  Unfortunately, it is not very

This is hard to frame because I'm not a scientist but I'm going to take
a shot at it. I have a theory Homo Sapiens are the most genocicidal
species on earth. I recently got done taking a biology class and it
stated of all the placental mammals the rodents were the most successful

'Junk' DNA reveals vital role
Inscrutable genetic sequences seem indispensable.
7 May 2004
HELEN PEARSON