[Seany (OP)]

The DNA picking us as a host.. I think that's quite understandable. Just like viruses pick on humans to live on, DNA's do the same?

To imply that DNA picked us is to imply that we can exist without the DNA.

At a genetic level, I would question whether we are any different from just a collection of viruses.  We certainly contain old historic viruses within our genome, and all a virus is is a handful of genes wrapped up in a very simple carrier that inserts those genes into another cell.  We too are genes with all sorts of cellular machinery around it, so if one removes that machinery, a gene is just a gene, whether it was inherited from your parents or from a viral infection, or from a viral infection that infected your ancestor.

Ofcourse, the cellular machinery is an important part of the cell - the gene is merely the software of the cell, it still requires the hardware with which to function (software in the absence of the right hardware is meaningless).

Yeah, that's true that to imply that DNA picked us is to imply that we can exist without DNA.

How about, we could once live without genes/DNA but when DNA entered our body (like a virus), our bodies became immuned to them, and kept them. This triggered the evolving of humans, which is what is left of us now?

[paul.fr]

Yeah, that's true that to imply that DNA picked us is to imply that we can exist without DNA.

How about, we could once live without genes/DNA but when DNA entered our body (like a virus), our bodies became immuned to them, and kept them. This triggered the evolving of humans, which is what is left of us now?

good thinking for a non-chelsea fan, i will have to sort this out...

may be, DNA started out as a little piece of code alone in the sea or where ever. like a parasite it eventually needed a host for it's own evolution. first i entered single cell organisms and as it evolved it progressed to infect everything.

one and all are just hosts to DNA

[Seany (OP)]

Yeah, that's true that to imply that DNA picked us is to imply that we can exist without DNA.

How about, we could once live without genes/DNA but when DNA entered our body (like a virus), our bodies became immuned to them, and kept them. This triggered the evolving of humans, which is what is left of us now?

good thinking for a non-chelsea fan, i will have to sort this out...

may be, DNA started out as a little piece of code alone in the sea or where ever. like a parasite it eventually needed a host for it's own evolution. first i entered single cell organisms and as it evolved it progressed to infect everything.

one and all are just hosts to DNA

Haha? You've already read that I hate Chelsea? Lol, things spread fast in these forums. [] Im a liverpool fan. Muahaha []

Yup, and I also think you're theory is understandable once again. The DNA used to be a little loner in the sea, and needed a revolution. Best choice, us humans.

[Seany (OP)]

And heh, I'm a Junior Member now. 40 posts in one day, good effort? []

[another_someone]

may be, DNA started out as a little piece of code alone in the sea or where ever. like a parasite it eventually needed a host for it's own evolution. first i entered single cell organisms and as it evolved it progressed to infect everything.

one and all are just hosts to DNA

So where was the DNA created?

The only place where we know DNA is created is within a living cell (not even viruses are capable of manufacturing DNA - they have to use another living organism to manufacture DNA - this is one reason why most biologists would not regard viruses as a living entity).

The trouble is that cells require DNA to instruct them how to build the machinery to create DNA, and DNA requires the cell to get created - very much a chicken and egg situation.

The following is pure speculation:

One would guess that early proto life contained all sorts of mixes of chemical processes, and some of them started to create some sort of cellular structure, and within that cell they started to find ways of storing bits of information they could use to improve the efficiency of their interaction with their environment (possibly even before they had learned to reproduce - these would have maybe been lone immortal cells).  The information would probably not have been stored using DNA, but some simpler process that was sufficient for their purposes.  The trouble is that an immortal cell would only have a limited capacity to grow, and if some of these cells started to grow too much, they would burst.  Some cells would then develop means that, once they grew beyond a certain size, they would develop a partition that would allow each side of the partition to continue processing optimally, but they also then needed to copy the memory storage into both halves of the partition, and so you have memory duplication.  Once the two halves of the cell were partitioned and duplicated, they could then in theory just separate away from each other, and so you now have reproduction.

Only later, as the information needs of the cell increased, I would imagine that they would start using more sophisticated means of storing that information, and then they developed RNA, and later DNA, as an efficient means of storing information.

[Seany (OP)]

Ugh. My sister was doing a project on RNAi and all that rubbish. I almost fainted listening to it! Some of it was quite fascinating though.

And yes, I really do wonder where this "DNA" started. Maybe humans just had it within them since the beginning. But how?

[paul.fr]

george, give me time to make it all up []

So where was the DNA created?

at the beginning of time, they were among the early and most primative of...whats the word...things!, during their evolution they had the need to infect others for protection from the elements and predators.

at some point they lost the ability to reproduce naturally and had to have their host do it for them.

The only place where we know DNA is created is within a living cell (not even viruses are capable of manufacturing DNA - they have to use another living organism to manufacture DNA - this is one reason why most biologists would not regard viruses as a living entity).

The trouble is that cells require DNA to instruct them how to build the machinery to create DNA, and DNA requires the cell to get created - very much a chicken and egg situation.

that is true for "the now" but way back in the "long ago" it was not true. the DNA had already affected evolution and as a survival technique had evolved to such an extent that all living cells needed the DNA.

[Seany (OP)]

Errr..Paul. Could you make that any easier for a 13 year old to understand please []

[another_someone]

And yes, I really do wonder where this "DNA" started. Maybe humans just had it within them since the beginning. But how?

The issue of humans is fairly straight forward - humans are very modern, and have inherited DNA from their ape ancestors, who inherited their DNA from whatever mammal preceded the first ape, and back to the first mammal, and then back to the first animal, and then back to the first bacteria.

The real question has to be how the first bacteria came about.

Modern humans are only somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 years old.  The first bacteria go back around 4.5 billion years ago.

[Seany (OP)]

And yes, I really do wonder where this "DNA" started. Maybe humans just had it within them since the beginning. But how?

The issue of humans is fairly straight forward - humans are very modern, and have inherited DNA from their ape ancestors, who inherited their DNA from whatever mammal preceded the first ape, and back to the first mammal, and then back to the first animal, and then back to the first bacteria.

The real question has to be how the first bacteria came about.

Modern humans are only somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 years old.  The first bacteria go back around 4.5 billion years ago.

We have evolved from apes. Why are there still apes and monkeys and chimpanzees and orang-utans still our there today?

[another_someone]

So where was the DNA created?

at the beginning of time, they were among the early and most primitive of...whats the word...things!, during their evolution they had the need to infect others for protection from the elements and predators.

at some point they lost the ability to reproduce naturally and had to have their host do it for them.

I am not talking about reproduction - reproduction assumes there is something there to be reproduced - where was it produced first of all.

If the first DNA was naturally produced in the environment, it should still be possible to produce it.

In any case, the problem with reproduction is that the reason why DNA has to exist within a cell in order to reproduce is that it needs to contain all of its building blocks within a confined space in order to put them all together.  If the various building blocks are left just to float free in the sea (or wherever), they will not be able to be constrained close by to build the DNA - so one must have a cell wall in order to contain the processes within the cell (this is apart from protecting those processes from environmental hazards).

The only place where we know DNA is created is within a living cell (not even viruses are capable of manufacturing DNA - they have to use another living organism to manufacture DNA - this is one reason why most biologists would not regard viruses as a living entity).

The trouble is that cells require DNA to instruct them how to build the machinery to create DNA, and DNA requires the cell to get created - very much a chicken and egg situation.

that is true for "the now" but way back in the "long ago" it was not true. the DNA had already affected evolution and as a survival technique had evolved to such an extent that all living cells needed the DNA.

But DNA is not a living entity - DNA does nothing - it is proteins that do most of the work.

As I said, DNA is the the memory that containers the software - you still need the processing units to interpret that software - that is true for computers, and it is true for everything else.

DNA is not an enzyme, and cannot act as an enzyme, and without enzymes (in living organisms) you have no work done.

If you are going to speculate that there might have been some genetic storage mechanism that predates DNA that could simultaneously perform the role of memory storage and enzymatic action (maybe some sophisticated form of prion), that might be possible, but that substance is not, and cannot be, DNA.

[another_someone]

We have evolved from apes. Why are there still apes and monkeys and chimpanzees and orang-utans still our there today?

Apes covers a wide family of animals, and there is no reason why there should not be a number of members of the same family living at the same time (after all, there are lots of different types of rodents alive today - nobody questions why more than one type of rodents is alive at once, so why should there be any reason to question why there is more than one type of ape or monkey alive).

A species survives if it can find a niche in the environment where it can live.  One would not normally expect two closely related animals sharing the same niche (and even chimpanzees and gorillas are generally not found in the same regions, and where they do exist together with humans, they do tend to become under threat from human incursion, and risk extinction - but where they and humans live in separate environments, there is no competition between them, and they can both survive).

Incidentally, the type of ape that humans originally descended from is no longer alive today - all the apes we see in the world today are modern types.

[Seany (OP)]

We have evolved from apes. Why are there still apes and monkeys and chimpanzees and orang-utans still our there today?

Apes covers a wide family of animals, and there is no reason why there should not be a number of members of the same family living at the same time (after all, there are lots of different types of rodents alive today - nobody questions why more than one type of rodents is alive at once, so why should there be any reason to question why there is more than one type of ape or monkey alive).

A species survives if it can find a niche in the environment where it can live.  One would not normally expect two closely related animals sharing the same niche (and even chimpanzees and gorillas are generally not found in the same regions, and where they do exist together with humans, they do tend to become under threat from human incursion, and risk extinction - but where they and humans live in separate environments, there is no competition between them, and they can both survive).

Incidentally, the type of ape that humans originally descended from is no longer alive today - all the apes we see in the world today are modern types.

Yes, but why is the modern type of apes, not as developed as us? Why are they slower in development and evolution than us? What makes them different? And thanks btw, for your information above []

[another_someone]

Yes, but why is the modern type of apes, not as developed as us? Why are they slower in development and evolution than us? What makes them different? And thanks btw, for your information above []

What do you mean by 'slower in development'?

Biologically, they develop as fast as we do, but they developed to fit into their niche, not into our niche.

We are increasing finding that other apes (and even other animals) are capable of using tools, and doing many of the things that we thought were uniquely human.

Apes are certainly better at climbing trees, and have more acute senses that humans - so why should they be considered inferior.

What has made humans special is not the human animal, but human society, and the way humans have been able to cooperate in their thousands and even millions.  We have combined the intellect of an ape with the social complexity of an insect.

Until very recently, this allowed humans some advantage, but as human society has become ever more competent, the advantage it has given humans has been enormous, and this is why so many other species of animals are now being threatened with extinction under competition from human society.

In past millennia, humans were simply not capable of either competing with chimpanzees effectively within their forest niche, nor were we yet able to change the forest into an environment in which we could compete better.  Over recent time, we have started cutting back the forests and turning them into the kind of grassland that humans were originally designed to inhabit, and so are indeed threatening to be the only great ape left on the planet.

[Seany (OP)]

Yes, but why is the modern type of apes, not as developed as us? Why are they slower in development and evolution than us? What makes them different? And thanks btw, for your information above []

What do you mean by 'slower in development'?

Biologically, they develop as fast as we do, but they developed to fit into their niche, not into our niche.

We are increasing finding that other apes (and even other animals) are capable of using tools, and doing many of the things that we thought were uniquely human.

Apes are certainly better at climbing trees, and have more acute senses that humans - so why should they be considered inferior.

What has made humans special is not the human animal, but human society, and the way humans have been able to cooperate in their thousands and even millions.  We have combined the intellect of an ape with the social complexity of an insect.

Until very recently, this allowed humans some advantage, but as human society has become ever more competent, the advantage it has given humans has been enormous, and this is why so many other species of animals are now being threatened with extinction under competition from human society.

In past millennia, humans were simply not capable of either competing with chimpanzees effectively within their forest niche, nor were we yet able to change the forest into an environment in which we could compete better.  Over recent time, we have started cutting back the forests and turning them into the kind of grassland that humans were originally designed to inhabit, and so are indeed threatening to be the only great ape left on the planet.

Hi George again, and thanks again. Apparently 97% of an ape's genes is the same as humans. Does that 3% make such a difference to the way humans have been able to cooperate?

[paul.fr]

Hi George again, and thanks again. Apparently 97% of an ape's genes is the same as humans. Does that 3% make such a difference to the way humans have been able to cooperate?

but that 3 percent, if thats what it is, is so huge. people often cite small percentages..we are only so many percent away from a banana etc but forget that the gulf is massive.

[Seany (OP)]

Hi George again, and thanks again. Apparently 97% of an ape's genes is the same as humans. Does that 3% make such a difference to the way humans have been able to cooperate?

but that 3 percent, if thats what it is, is so huge. people often cite small percentages..we are only so many percent away from a banana etc but forget that the gulf is massive.

True.. I wonder what that 3% of genes contain though?... Also, apparently we're about 50% the same genes as flies.

BTW, I'm a full member with 104 posts in one day! []

[Hadrian]

Another way to look at it is you are a part of the memory of the one single event the birth of our universe

[another_someone]

Hi George again, and thanks again. Apparently 97% of an ape's genes is the same as humans. Does that 3% make such a difference to the way humans have been able to cooperate?

97% of an ape is the same as a human (technically, many biologists would say humans are a species of ape).

It has been said that we share 50% of our genes with a banana.

But, looking at an ape, it has two arms, two legs, a heart, and basically all of the same organs as a human (as do almost all mammals).  There are differences in the size of different organs, and differences in their exact shapes, but essentially the underlying design is much the same.

When you get down to a cellular level, again, the underlying cell activity is substantially the same, although the slight differences that do exist can have dramatic differences in outcome.

Although we may have a similar number of genes, they are actually arranged slightly differently, in that humans have one less pair of chromosomes than the other great apes (two of the original chromosomes pairs became fused into one larger chromosome pair, so the same genes might exist, but they are located differently, and so may behave differently).

Even if we look at the functioning of the human brain - most of it is still doing fairly fairly mundane stuff, like learning to walk upright, interpret vision, and smells.  Other apes might have a bit more of their brain dedicated to smell, while humans have a little bit more dedicated to producing complex sounds and processing language (even chimps can process language, and have been taught to communicate using complex grammar by use of a keyboard - although this is not to say that they can use language to the same degree as humans - I don't think we yet have the answer to that).

The differences are very small, but those small differences can sometimes have dramatic differences in outcome.

[Seany (OP)]

Hi George again, and thanks again. Apparently 97% of an ape's genes is the same as humans. Does that 3% make such a difference to the way humans have been able to cooperate?

97% of an ape is the same as a human (technically, many biologists would say humans are a species of ape).

It has been said that we share 50% of our genes with a banana.

But, looking at an ape, it has two arms, two legs, a heart, and basically all of the same organs as a human (as do almost all mammals).  There are differences in the size of different organs, and differences in their exact shapes, but essentially the underlying design is much the same.

When you get down to a cellular level, again, the underlying cell activity is substantially the same, although the slight differences that do exist can have dramatic differences in outcome.

Although we may have a similar number of genes, they are actually arranged slightly differently, in that humans have one less pair of chromosomes than the other great apes (two of the original chromosomes pairs became fused into one larger chromosome pair, so the same genes might exist, but they are located differently, and so may behave differently).

Even if we look at the functioning of the human brain - most of it is still doing fairly fairly mundane stuff, like learning to walk upright, interpret vision, and smells.  Other apes might have a bit more of their brain dedicated to smell, while humans have a little bit more dedicated to producing complex sounds and processing language (even chimps can process language, and have been taught to communicate using complex grammar by use of a keyboard - although this is not to say that they can use language to the same degree as humans - I don't think we yet have the answer to that).

The differences are very small, but those small differences can sometimes have dramatic differences in outcome.

Hey George, thanks for that. Cleared my minds up a bit, because the 97% of genes thing got me confuzzled! Anyway, I've got to go for today. I hope to start the conversation tomorrow again. Thanks for all today =)