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Dark foliage
Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll.
Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB |
Dark foliage
Higgs Boson wrote:
Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. David |
Dark foliage
On 8/8/13 8:19 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. David In the August 2013 issue of Scientific American, the article "The Surprising Origins of Life's Complexity" suggests that evolution strongly depends, not so much on mutations that are advantageous, but more on mutations that are neutral. As such mutations accumulate in the gene pool, their combination eventually leads to changes in an organism. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity. -- David E. Ross Climate: California Mediterranean, see http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary |
Dark foliage
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words É‘É…É÷Éœός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. David Scientific American April 2008 The Colors of Plants on Other Worlds Pg. 48 The prospect of finding extraterrestrial life is no Ionger the domain of science fiction or UFO hunters. Rather than waiting for aliens to come to us, we are looking for them. We may not find technologically advanced civilizations, but we can look for the physical and chemical signs of fundamental life processes: “bio-signatures.” Beyond the solar system, astronomers have discovered more than 200 worlds orbiting other stars, so-called extrasolar planets. Although we have not been able to tell whether these planets harbor life, it is only a matter of time now. Last July astronomers confirmed the presence of water vapor on an extrasolar planet by observing the passage of starlight through the planet’s atmosphere. The world’s space agencies are now developing telescopes that will search for signs of life on Earth-size planets by observing the planets’ light spectra. Photosynthesis, in particular, could produce very conspicuous biosignatures. How plausible is it for photosynthesis to arise on another planet? Very. On Earth, the process is so successful that it is the foundation for nearly all life. Although some organisms live off the heat and methane of oceanic hydrothermal vents, the rich ecosystems on the planet’s surface all depend on sunlight. Photosynthetic biosignatures could be of two kinds: biologically generated atmospheric gases such as oxygen and its product, ozone; and surface colors that indicate the presence of specialized pigments such as green chlorophyll. The idea of looking for such pigments has a long history. A century ago astronomers sought to attribute the seasonal darkening of Mars to the growth of vegetation. They studied the spectrum of light reflected off the surface for signs of green plants. One difficulty with this strategy was evident to writer H. G. Wells, who imagined a different scenario in The War of the Worlds: “The vegetable kingdom in Mars, instead of having green for a dominant colour, is of a vivid blood-red tint.” Although we now know that Mars has no surface vegetation (the darkening is caused by dust storms), Wells was prescient in speculating that photosynthetic organisms on another planet might not be green. Even Earth has a diversity of photosynthetic organisms besides green plants. Some land plants have red leaves, and underwater algae and photosynthetic bacteria come in a rainbow of colors. Purple bacteria soak up solar infrared radiation as well as visible light. So what will dominate on another planet? And how will we know when we see it? The answers depend on the details of how alien photosynthesis adapts to light from a parent of different type than our sun, filtered through an atmosphere that may not have the same composition as Earth’s. Harvesting Light In trying to figure out how photosynthesis might operate other planets, the first step is to explain it on Earth. The energy spectrum of sunlight at Earth’s surface peaks in the blue-green, so scientists have long scratched their heads about why plants reflect green, thereby wasting what appears to be the best available light .The answer is that photosynthesis doesn’t depend on the total amount of light energy but on the energy per photon and the number of photons that make up the light. Whereas blue photons carry more energv than red ones, the sun emits more of the red kind. Plants use blue photons for their quality and red photons for their quantity. Tin green photons that lie in between have neither the energy nor the numbers, so plants have adapted to absorb fewer of them. The basic photosynthetic process, which fixes one carbon atom (obtained from carbon dioxide, CO2) into a simple sugar molecule, requires a minimum of eight photons. It takes one photon to split an oxygen-hydrogen bond in water H2O and thereby to obtain an electron for bio-chemical reactions. A total of four such bonds must be broken to create an oxygen molecule (O2). Each of those photons is matched by at least one additional photon for a second type of reaction to form the sugar. Each photon must have a minimum amount of energy to drive the reactions. The way plants harvest sunlight is a marvel of nature. Photosynthetic pigments such as chlorophyll are not isolated molecules. They operate in a network like an array of antennas, each tuned to pick out photons of particular wavelengths. Chlorophyll preferentially absorbs red and blue light, and carotenoid pigments (which produce the vibrant reds and yellows of fall foliage) pick up a slightly different shade of blue. All this energy gets funneled to a special chlorophyll molecule at a chemical reaction center, which splits water and releases oxygen. The tunneling process is the key to which colors the pigments select. The complex of molecules at the reaction center can perform chemical reactions only if it receives a red photon or the equivalent amount of energy in some other form. To take advantage of blue photons, the antenna pigments work in concert to convert the high energy (from blue photons) to a lower energy (redder), like a series of step-down transformers that reduces the 100,000 volts of electric power lines to the 120 or 240 volts of a wall outlet. The process begins when a blue photon hits a blue-absorbing pigment and energizes one of the electrons in the molecule. When that electron drops back down to its original state, it releases this energy―but because of energy losses to heat and vibrations, it releases less energy than it absorbed. The pigment molecule releases its energy not in the form of another photon but in the form of an electrical interaction with another pigment molecule that is able to absorb energy at that lower level. This pigment, in turn, releases an even lower amount of energy, and so the process continues until the original blue photon energy has been downgraded to red. The array of pigments can also convert cyan, green or yellow to red. The reaction center, as the receiving end of the cascade, adapts to absorb the lowest-energy available photons. On our planet’s surface, red photons are both the most abundant and the lowest energy within the visible spectrum. For underwater photosynthesizers, red photons are not necessarily the most abundant. Light niches change with depth because of filtering of light by water, by dissolved substances and by overlying organisms themselves. The result is a clear stratification of life-forms according to their mix of pigments. Organisms in lower water layers have pigments adapted to absorb the light colors left over by the layers above. For instance, algae and cyanobacteria have pigments known as phycobilins that harvest green and yellow photons. Nonoxygen-producing (anoxygenic) bacteria have bacteriochlorophylls that absorb far-red and near-infrared light, which is all that penetrates to the murky depths. Organisms adapted to low-light conditions tend to be slower-growing, because they have to put more effort into harvesting whatever light is available to them. At the planet’s surface, where light is abundant, it would be disadvantageous for plants to manufacture extra pigments, so they are selective in their use of color. The same evolutionary principles would operate on other worlds. Just as aquatic creatures have adapted to light filtered by water, land dwellers have adapted to light filtered by atmospheric gases. At the top of Earth’s atmosphere, yellow photons (at wavelengths of 560 to 590 nanometers) are the most abundant kind. The number of photons drops off gradually with longer wavelength and steeply with shorter wavelength. As sunlight passes through the upper atmosphere, water vapor absorbs the infrared light in several wavelength ands beyond 700 nm. Oxygen produces absorption lines―narrow ranges of wavelengths that the gas blocks―at 687 and 761 nm. We all know that ozone (O3) in the stratosphere strongly absorbs the ultraviolet (UV). Less well known is that it also absorbs weakly across the visible range. Putting it all together, our atmosphere demarcates windows through which radiation can make it to the planet’s surface. The visible radiation window is defined at its blue edge by the drop-off in the intensity of short-wavelength photons emitted by the sun and by ozone absorption of UV. The red edge is defined by oxygen absorption lines. The peak in photon abundance is shifted from yellow to red (about 685 nm) by ozone’s broad absorbance across the visible. Plants are adapted to this spectrum, which is determined largely by oxygen―yet plants are what put the oxygen into the atmosphere to begin with. When early photosynthetic organisms first appeared on Earth, the atmosphere lacked oxygen, so they must have used different pigments from chlorophyll. Only over time as photosynthesis altered the atmospheric composition, did chlorophyll emerge as optimal. The firm fossil evidence for photosynthesis dates to about 3.4 billion years ago (Ga), but earlier fossils exhibit signs of what could have been photosynthesis. Early photosynthesizers had to start out underwater, in part because water is a good solvent for biochemical reactions and in part because it provides protection against solar UV radiation―shielding that was essential in the absence of an atmospheric ozone layer. These earliest photosynthesizers were underwater bacteria that absorbed infrared photons. Their chemical reactions involved hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide or iron rather than water, so they did not produce oxygen gas. Oxygen-generating (oxygenic) photosynthesis by cyanobacteria in the oceans started 2.7 Ga. Oxygen levels and the ozone layer slowly built up, allowing red and brown algae to emerge. As shallower water became safe from UV, green algae evolved. They lacked phycobilins and were better adapted to the bright light in surface waters. Finally, plants descended from green algae emerged onto land― two billion years after oxygen had begun accumulating in the atmosphere. And then the complexity of plant life exploded, from mosses and liverworts on the ground to vascular plants with tall canopies that capture more light and have special adaptations to particular climates. Conifer trees have conical crowns that capture light efficiently at high latitudes with low sun angles; shade-adapted plants have anthocyanin as a sunscreen against too much light. Green chlorophyll not only is well suited to the present composition of the atmosphere but also helps to sustain that composition―a virtuous cycle that keeps our planet green. It may be that another step of evolution will favor an organism that takes advantage of the shade underneath tree canopies, using the phycobilins that absorb green and yellow light. But the organisms on top are still likely to stay green. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
Dark foliage
David E. Ross wrote:
On 8/8/13 8:19 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. David In the August 2013 issue of Scientific American, the article "The Surprising Origins of Life's Complexity" suggests that evolution strongly depends, not so much on mutations that are advantageous, but more on mutations that are neutral. As such mutations accumulate in the gene pool, their combination eventually leads to changes in an organism. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-surprising-origins-of-evolutionary-complexity. This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. D D |
Dark foliage
On 09/08/2013 04:19, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? I believe that there are some desert spiders which can escape predators by pulling themselves into a ball shape and rolling down sand dunes, but that not really the same thing as a wheel). It's probably because the moving parts of a wheel are completely separate from each other, and it would not be possible to repair the revolving part of the wheel if it was damaged, as it would have no blood supply. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. Yes, that's true. There are quite a few examples of parallel evolution (cacti and other succulents; alpines - particularly the giant lobelias and puyas) to support that. If you know how to grow cacti - which are really all New World plants - you will have little trouble if you decide to grow lithops from South Africa. And if you find it impossible to grow giant lobelias, you will find it just as impossible to grow puyas! :-) -- Jeff |
Dark foliage
Jeff Layman wrote:
On 09/08/2013 04:19, David Hare-Scott wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? I believe that there are some desert spiders which can escape predators by pulling themselves into a ball shape and rolling down sand dunes, but that not really the same thing as a wheel). It's probably because the moving parts of a wheel are completely separate from each other, and it would not be possible to repair the revolving part of the wheel if it was damaged, as it would have no blood supply. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. I see no evidence of either of those statements. Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. In saying they regressed (went backwards) you are saying there is a particular direction that is "right". It ain't so. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. Yes, that's true. There are quite a few examples of parallel evolution (cacti and other succulents; alpines - particularly the giant lobelias and puyas) to support that. If you know how to grow cacti - which are really all New World plants - you will have little trouble if you decide to grow lithops from South Africa. And if you find it impossible to grow giant lobelias, you will find it just as impossible to grow puyas! :-) OK D |
Dark foliage
Jeff Layman wrote:
It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around. The wheel is the most natural phenomina in nature. The wheel has existed since the creation of the universe... nothing is more natural than the "orbit" (straight lines don't exist in this universe). The wheel has always existed, man has only relatively recently *discovered* the wheel. Anyone who thinks man invented the wheel is the same kind of pinhead who thinks man invented fire. |
Dark foliage
On Fri, 09 Aug 2013 09:29:41 +0100, Jeff Layman
wrote: It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? That's a question which comes up frequently. There's an interesting paper on it at: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230... 102539587717 The current consensus is that the main problem with biological wheels is blood flow, but this author addresses a different argument. |
Dark foliage
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: Jeff Layman wrote: On 09/08/2013 04:19, David Hare-Scott wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words É‘É…É÷Éœός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? I believe that there are some desert spiders which can escape predators by pulling themselves into a ball shape and rolling down sand dunes, but that not really the same thing as a wheel). It's probably because the moving parts of a wheel are completely separate from each other, and it would not be possible to repair the revolving part of the wheel if it was damaged, as it would have no blood supply. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. I see no evidence of either of those statements. That biological reactions are carried out in aqueous solutions, and that vast amounts of water would allow divergent compounds a proximity to each other with the chance of interacting? Can you think of another crucible in which disparate amino acids, and ions could interact and then multiply? Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. In saying they regressed (went backwards) you are saying there is a particular direction that is "right". It ain't so. Once you have reached total randomness, you need less entropy, before you can have more again. If she no goes up, how she gonna come down? "Natural selection" isn't the only game in evolution, the occasional mutation can participate as well, but it is of necessity a minor player as most mutations are not beneficial. In case anybody thinks that evolution is too academic or even off topic, I think it is fair to say that having an understanding of evolution of plants and organisms that relate to plants (eg predators and symbiots) will make you a better gardener. Yes, that's true. There are quite a few examples of parallel evolution (cacti and other succulents; alpines - particularly the giant lobelias and puyas) to support that. If you know how to grow cacti - which are really all New World plants - you will have little trouble if you decide to grow lithops from South Africa. And if you find it impossible to grow giant lobelias, you will find it just as impossible to grow puyas! :-) OK D For a discussion on mutations in plant breeding see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_breeding For a real page turner on the theory of evolution see: http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Ghosts...ion/dp/0812981 707/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376073198&sr=1-1&keywords=Darwin%27s+ Ghost Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution by Rebecca Stott "Stott gives personality to her historical characters, introducing their families, their monetary concerns, their qualms about publishing so-called heretical theories, and the obsessions that kept them up at night. She also brings her settings and secondary characters to life, from the deformed sponge divers Aristotle consulted in ancient Lesbos to the exotic animals in the caliphate’s garden that inspired Jahiz in medieval Basra to lost seashells found by Maillet in the deserts outside 18th-century Cairo. Stott’s focus on her settings makes her narrative compellingly readable, and it also reminds us that even as animal species are shaped by their environment, so intellectuals are shaped by their societies….Stott’s book is a reminder that scientific discoveries do not happen in a vacuum, that they often stem from incorrect or pseudo-scientific inquiries, and that they are constantly changing, mutable concepts as they meander towards something that might eventually be called the truth.” ― Christian Science Monitor (Available at a library near you.) -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
Dark foliage
Jymesion wrote:
On Fri, 09 Aug 2013 09:29:41 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote: It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? That's a question which comes up frequently. There's an interesting paper on it at: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230... 102539587717 The current consensus is that the main problem with biological wheels is blood flow, but this author addresses a different argument. I haven't seen this article, I will have a look time permitting. One reason a wheel is not much use for transport biologically is that they require roads to be efficient. Legs are much better on broken ground and can be adapted to climbing, become wings, flippers etc. Also have a look at the bacterial flaggelum, it isn't a wheel that supports weight for transport but it does rotate and it is powered by biochemistry. David |
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David Hare-Scott wrote:
.... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. songbird |
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Jeff Layman wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote: .... Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. it is not an assumption, it is based upon the fossil record found to date with the oldest specimens showing that life did start in the seas. the exact process and steps are not known completely yet, but as time goes on we are getting more answers and finer details of how it could be possible. Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. the only thing required for any change in an organism to continue is that organism procreates. the causes/effects of selection, environment, mutations, etc. may be completely orthogonal to the simple fact of procreation. how niches in the environment become occupied is also orthogonal. the sea to land migration of both plants and animals is pretty well understood now. i don't think they are missing any significant steps in those two processes. i agree about understanding how life came about and learning what you can about life is valuable to a gardener. it's also just amazingly interesting. :) for one thing the possibilities are there that life moved back and forth from the sea to land from land to the sea several times as different disasters happened. not every- thing previously is wiped out, so different creation phases coexist (and still do). but in the past few hundred years life has woken up and been able to start taking a direct look at itself and the processes invovled... all i can say now is watch out it's gonna get very interesting. songbird |
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Billy wrote:
.... That biological reactions are carried out in aqueous solutions, and that vast amounts of water would allow divergent compounds a proximity to each other with the chance of interacting? Can you think of another crucible in which disparate amino acids, and ions could interact and then multiply? mud/clay/oils/bubbles/foams/salts but some would say hydrothermal vents and crusts of certain compounds may also be likely candidates. i'm more in favor of foam/bubbles/oils/clays/muds. i've seen them in action (building what used to be called a skimmer in reef aquarium keeping as a means to get organic materials out of the water, pump a lot of bubbles through a column of water and what comes to the top is gunk like the foam that collects on beaches). songbird |
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songbird wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote: ... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. songbird I don't understand what you are saying. Could you be more explicit? D |
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Billy wrote:
In article , "David Hare-Scott" wrote: Jeff Layman wrote: On 09/08/2013 04:19, David Hare-Scott wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words É‘É…É÷Éœός, chloros ("green") and φύλλον, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? I believe that there are some desert spiders which can escape predators by pulling themselves into a ball shape and rolling down sand dunes, but that not really the same thing as a wheel). It's probably because the moving parts of a wheel are completely separate from each other, and it would not be possible to repair the revolving part of the wheel if it was damaged, as it would have no blood supply. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. I see no evidence of either of those statements. That biological reactions are carried out in aqueous solutions, and that vast amounts of water would allow divergent compounds a proximity to each other with the chance of interacting? Can you think of another crucible in which disparate amino acids, and ions could interact and then multiply? I wasn't clear. The two statements I see no evidence for a 1) "that's not quite true" 2) "it should have stayed in that environment" Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. In saying they regressed (went backwards) you are saying there is a particular direction that is "right". It ain't so. Once you have reached total randomness, you need less entropy, before you can have more again. If she no goes up, how she gonna come down? I see no relation between your reply and what I said. I said evolution is undirected. Saying dolphins "regressed" suggests that when they (their ancestors really) were land animals they were 'higher' than as aquatic. The same goes for tapeworms that had ancestors that had not lost so many functions (that the tapeworm no longer needs). Fitness depends entirely on environment and only has meaning in the context of an environment so one organism is not more evolved in absolute terms but better or less fit for a specified environment. "Natural selection" isn't the only game in evolution, the occasional mutation can participate as well, but it is of necessity a minor player as most mutations are not beneficial. True but I don't see the relevance to this matter of regression. D |
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David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: ... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. I don't understand what you are saying. Could you be more explicit? saying that evolution is undirected is false. it is directed (sometimes in ways that are contradictory (one day it is cold, the next day it is hot), sometimes orthogonal to the variation (the change favors big feet with webs between the toes but the species lives on rocks not in or near water) but now there is a new more potent form of direction, an actual designer who can get around poor starting designs by coming up with something completely different. i for one would like a newly redesigned spine that isn't succeptible to disk bulges which pinch nerves. it is likely that within a few hundred to a thousand years we may actually get a differently designed spinal column (or leave biological forms behind in various ways). songbird |
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songbird wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote: songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: ... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. I don't understand what you are saying. Could you be more explicit? saying that evolution is undirected is false. Just to make sure we are not misunderstanding each other, what I mean is there are no targets or goals in structure or function the process aims for. That is there is no specific direction set from the outset, no planning. That doesn't mean that there is no change for the better (better only in the sense of more adapted to the current environment) but that such changes are reached by a combination of natural mechanisms that could well reach some other position. Evolution may or may not result in the reproductive success of the organism, if it does the organism is sufficiently suited to the environment if not it dies out. This is a critical point, there may be many possible adaptations, or combinations of them, that bring about a similar result but they are not known in advance. If you accept that then we agree. If not why do you say that? it is directed (sometimes in ways that are contradictory (one day it is cold, the next day it is hot), sometimes orthogonal to the variation (the change favors big feet with webs between the toes but the species lives on rocks not in or near water) but now there is a new more potent form of direction, an actual designer who can get around poor starting designs by coming up with something completely different. OK, who or what is this designer and how does she/it do this designing? What evidence do you have that such exists and please give an example of it doing its thing. i for one would like a newly redesigned spine that isn't succeptible to disk bulges which pinch nerves. it is likely that within a few hundred to a thousand years we may actually get a differently designed spinal column How will that happen? How do you know it will happen? (or leave biological forms behind in various ways). Are you talking about entering The Matrix or what? If you are tending towards religion or mysticism then you are outside the scope of science and there is no point in us going any further with this. D |
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David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: ... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. I don't understand what you are saying. Could you be more explicit? saying that evolution is undirected is false. Just to make sure we are not misunderstanding each other, what I mean is there are no targets or goals in structure or function the process aims for. That is there is no specific direction set from the outset, no planning. That doesn't mean that there is no change for the better (better only in the sense of more adapted to the current environment) but that such changes are reached by a combination of natural mechanisms that could well reach some other position. Evolution may or may not result in the reproductive success of the organism, if it does the organism is sufficiently suited to the environment if not it dies out. This is a critical point, there may be many possible adaptations, or combinations of them, that bring about a similar result but they are not known in advance. If you accept that then we agree. If not why do you say that? i've written similarly in this thread, so can't disagree in that it is how evolution used to happen and will likely happen somewhat like that into the future. the difference is now that humans are adjusting and removing different species at a rate much faster than blind evolution will ever accomplish. i.e. the process will become more efficient and more directed. we'll continue to select species we like and moderate or alter those we don't like (or get rid of them completely if we can -- i.e. polio, smallpox, t.b., saber toothed tigers) on the hit list at present i'm sure rats and mosquitoes are up there in the sights of some. weeds, certainly some species of those would be a target for elimination if various corporations and scientists could come up with a means. it is directed (sometimes in ways that are contradictory (one day it is cold, the next day it is hot), sometimes orthogonal to the variation (the change favors big feet with webs between the toes but the species lives on rocks not in or near water) but now there is a new more potent form of direction, an actual designer who can get around poor starting designs by coming up with something completely different. OK, who or what is this designer and how does she/it do this designing? What evidence do you have that such exists and please give an example of it doing its thing. humans, some scientists, some not, each acts as a selective agent that previously did not exist. i for one would like a newly redesigned spine that isn't succeptible to disk bulges which pinch nerves. it is likely that within a few hundred to a thousand years we may actually get a differently designed spinal column How will that happen? How do you know it will happen? science keeps advancing or working on the big problems. damaged and painful spinal problems are a huge health care need at present. some can be remedied with the right approaches, but others require a more radical intervention like surgery (with all the risks associated with that it is something many people would like to avoid if the option existed). so i know that science continues to work on the problem. that it might come up with a differently designed spine, be able to encode it in genes so that it is expressed as humans develop, and then have the right outcome is many years in the future. perhaps it won't be needed. i can't really predict the future, but i do know it is currently a huge problem. (or leave biological forms behind in various ways). Are you talking about entering The Matrix or what? If you are tending towards religion or mysticism then you are outside the scope of science and there is no point in us going any further with this. no, it may have been science fiction in the past to talk about interfacing humans to computers directly and many other techniques of biological processes getting taken over by biological chips or many other technologies only now coming along. still many years to go there too. but tell me this, if people are so willing to wear devices like hearing aids, have cochlear implants, have retinal implants to restore vision, develop kidneys and bladders from layers of cells, have heart pumps, drug pumps, etc. all implanted if needed. well tattoos alone tell you that many people don't care exactly what happens to their body as long as enough others will go along. in the case of a redesigned spine i'm pretty sure many people would gladly sign up for it as soon as it became generally available. would you deny your children a better spine that could resist injury or heal itself back to original form if it were damaged? would you not accept a better kidney if yours were already failing and it could be accomplished easily enough for a fairly modest use of resources? how about an extra heart or more memory for the brain? extra capacity for food storage or liquid storage? none of these things are that far-fetched. i really don't see any end to body modifications once that gets going and they are already going. thicker skin that can resist cold or heat but still have all the sensitivity of the original? who'd care about mosquitoes and bugs if they couldn't get through the skin or we didn't even have blood any longer? would we be able to design a skin that could resist the cold and vaccuum of space? perhaps somewhat. there is a ton of science still to be done. we're really just at the leading edge of this and once it does get going we will likely have a huge explosion in different forms of human. to exploit the new niches that become available once we get out of the gravity well of planets. anyways, no, i am not mystical in the sense that i would consider it impossible to leave biological processes behind. i don't think the mind exists apart from biology/matter/energy/physics and i'm fairly sure that the form may be able to change once we understand the basic arrangements and requirements. i do know that if we can ship minds to far away places along with whatever they need to create a manufacturing ability at the other end using local materials then we no longer have to solve the huge problem of shipping habitat and all the supporting life forms. instead we ship information and storage for information and basic manufacturing to ramp up at the other end. all of which can be sent at much higher accelerations and at less risk of failure (many copies of the same thing could be sent knowing most of them might not make it, but it only takes a few to get a new colony going). so we take a trick from the biological processes we have learned about here, but we kick it up a notch and go with a designed goal to reach other planets or star systems. as far as mysticism would go i would say that it is for the purpose of space travel that humans have been created (general problem solvers with minds flexible enough to solve the problem of reconfiguring their own existence so they can get out of the static trap they are in and move on to more adaptable forms). not that i'm biased against the biological world. i just see the danger of being a life-form, aware as we are, and being in only one location and subject to catastrophe so i want backup plans up and running ASAP. in the meantime, i garden. :) songbird |
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In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote: Billy wrote: In article , "David Hare-Scott" wrote: Jeff Layman wrote: On 09/08/2013 04:19, David Hare-Scott wrote: Higgs Boson wrote: Have often wondered how plants with dark foliage, like the dark red canna, handle chlorophyll. Wikipedia has a long article; this is the first graph: Chlorophyll (also chlorophyl) is a green pigment found in cyanobacteria and the chloroplasts of algae and plants.[1] Its name is derived from the Greek words Ô⤗Ô|Ô÷Ôųϑϒ, chloros ("green") and ?λλο12, phyllon ("leaf").[2] Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to absorb energy from light. Chlorophyll absorbs light most strongly in the blue portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by the red portion. However, it is a poor absorber of green and near-green portions of the spectrum, hence the green color of chlorophyll-containing tissues.[3] Chlorophyll was first isolated by Joseph Bienaimé Caventou and Pierre Joseph Pelletier in 1817.[4] Read the whole thing if interested, and make any comments...appreciated. HB The third section on why chlorophyll is green not black is quite interesting to me. The explanation given, which I think is widely accepted in the botanical community, is that some (apparently superior) structures and functions of living organisms have not been reached by evolution because there was no evolutionary pathway from where they came from to get there. This accounts for the less than optimal structure of many aspects of life, eg the human eye and the giraffe's neck. In fact it is characteristic of a process that proceeds by many small connected steps to have such inferior outcomes. A process of design (such as human engineering) can abandon a bad design and take a completely different approach. Evolution cannot do that. It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? I believe that there are some desert spiders which can escape predators by pulling themselves into a ball shape and rolling down sand dunes, but that not really the same thing as a wheel). It's probably because the moving parts of a wheel are completely separate from each other, and it would not be possible to repair the revolving part of the wheel if it was damaged, as it would have no blood supply. Evolution is undirected and has no 'final' target nor does it look to the future as an engineer does, it can only work incrementally on choosing which variation of structure or function is better suited to the environment the organism is in at that time. That's not quite true. If it is assumed that life started in the sea, it should have stayed in that environment, but it didn't. I see no evidence of either of those statements. That biological reactions are carried out in aqueous solutions, and that vast amounts of water would allow divergent compounds a proximity to each other with the chance of interacting? Can you think of another crucible in which disparate amino acids, and ions could interact and then multiply? I wasn't clear. The two statements I see no evidence for a 1) "that's not quite true" 2) "it should have stayed in that environment" 1) Agree 2) Agree Some animals changed (evolved?) to make use of land. Even more oddly, some changed back (eg seals) to make lesser or greater use of their "old" environment, whilst others, such as dolphins evolved (or should that be regressed?!) to become totally dependent on their old marine environment. In saying they regressed (went backwards) you are saying there is a particular direction that is "right". It ain't so. Once you have reached total randomness, you need less entropy, before you can have more again. If she no goes up, how she gonna come down? I see no relation between your reply and what I said. I said evolution is undirected. Saying dolphins "regressed" suggests that when they (their ancestors really) were land animals they were 'higher' than as aquatic. The same goes for tapeworms that had ancestors that had not lost so many functions (that the tapeworm no longer needs). Fitness depends entirely on environment and only has meaning in the context of an environment so one organism is not more evolved in absolute terms but better or less fit for a specified environment. I was referring to the earliest stages of evolution when structures that we now call organelles were "free swimming", and not protected by membranes. My point was that one can't go back, without going forward first. I don't mean forward to perfection. I mean forward to adaptation. If a mutation by radiation works, it works by improving an organisms ability to survive, buy then you have short term, and long term. A number of engineering problems exist in the human body, e.g. BONES THAT LOSE MINERALS AFTER AGE 30, FALLIBLE SPINAL DISKS, MUSCLES THAT LOSE MASS AND TONE, LEG VEINS PRONE TO VARICOSITY, RELATIVELY SHORT RIB CAGE, JOINTS THAT WEAR, WEAK LINK BETWEEN RETINA AND THE BACK OF EYE. These problems may be addressed some day, but how will that effect the memory of survival that is/was stored in our genes? We have existed as a Family (Hominidae) for 20 million years, and as a species for 200,000 years. We have gone through a lot of evolutionary change to get to where we are. That evolutionary trip is thought to reside in what we call our junk DNA. We prize biodiversity in plants, and animals. We need to prize it in ourselves as well. If we adapt to a time, as we have noted in some of our food cultivars, can we change again when the time changes? Changing to the time is why we continuously need to make room for new generations to try their hand at adapting, and for that we need all our biodiversity tricks. "Natural selection" isn't the only game in evolution, the occasional mutation can participate as well, but it is of necessity a minor player as most mutations are not beneficial. That was wrong. Mutations only help, if they help get you selected. True but I don't see the relevance to this matter of regression. D Sorry, time seems to only go forward (physicists may disagree). Conceptual thinking may not be as good as red claws, and teeth in the long run for survival, but as climax forests show us, there does come a time when a given approach to life maxes out, and a new direction needs to be taken. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... That biological reactions are carried out in aqueous solutions, and that vast amounts of water would allow divergent compounds a proximity to each other with the chance of interacting? Can you think of another crucible in which disparate amino acids, and ions could interact and then multiply? mud/clay/oils/bubbles/foams/salts but some would say hydrothermal vents and crusts of certain compounds may also be likely candidates. i'm more in favor of foam/bubbles/oils/clays/muds. i've seen them in action (building what used to be called a skimmer in reef aquarium keeping as a means to get organic materials out of the water, pump a lot of bubbles through a column of water and what comes to the top is gunk like the foam that collects on beaches). songbird But the water is still the medium that allows for reactants to move together, and assume the proper position for interaction, like an oxygen atom dropping a proton [H3O+] as it rotates in to get a p-orbital look at a Carbon nucleus as in a carboxylate ester. Foam/bubbles/oils/clays/muds are just the results of having an aqueous environment. Chunks don't really count, it's the ions and molecules with charge separation that are important (in an aqueous solution). -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: songbird wrote: David Hare-Scott wrote: ... This application of complexity theory is not universally accepted. No matter the point that I was trying to make, that the outcomes of evolution are limited by the availablity of pathways from the previous situation to a new one remains. Whether this postulated mechanism opens up more pathways that permit greater leaps from one state to another remains to be seen, as does how often it might occur. well now that there is an active designer in the house the game will significantly change... already it has begun and we're only in the few slivers of time in terms of the past and how long things have gone before. i would love to be able to sleep for five hundred or a thousand years and be able to come back and see what has happened. I don't understand what you are saying. Could you be more explicit? saying that evolution is undirected is false. Just to make sure we are not misunderstanding each other, what I mean is there are no targets or goals in structure or function the process aims for. That is there is no specific direction set from the outset, no planning. That doesn't mean that there is no change for the better (better only in the sense of more adapted to the current environment) but that such changes are reached by a combination of natural mechanisms that could well reach some other position. Evolution may or may not result in the reproductive success of the organism, if it does the organism is sufficiently suited to the environment if not it dies out. This is a critical point, there may be many possible adaptations, or combinations of them, that bring about a similar result but they are not known in advance. If you accept that then we agree. If not why do you say that? i've written similarly in this thread, so can't disagree in that it is how evolution used to happen and will likely happen somewhat like that into the future. the difference is now that humans are adjusting and removing different species at a rate much faster than blind evolution will ever accomplish. i.e. the process will become more efficient and more directed. we'll continue to select species we like and moderate or alter those we don't like (or get rid of them completely if we can -- i.e. polio, smallpox, t.b., saber toothed tigers) on the hit list at present i'm sure rats and mosquitoes are up there in the sights of some. weeds, certainly some species of those would be a target for elimination if various corporations and scientists could come up with a means. it is directed (sometimes in ways that are contradictory (one day it is cold, the next day it is hot), sometimes orthogonal to the variation (the change favors big feet with webs between the toes but the species lives on rocks not in or near water) but now there is a new more potent form of direction, an actual designer who can get around poor starting designs by coming up with something completely different. OK, who or what is this designer and how does she/it do this designing? What evidence do you have that such exists and please give an example of it doing its thing. humans, some scientists, some not, each acts as a selective agent that previously did not exist. i for one would like a newly redesigned spine that isn't succeptible to disk bulges which pinch nerves. it is likely that within a few hundred to a thousand years we may actually get a differently designed spinal column How will that happen? How do you know it will happen? science keeps advancing or working on the big problems. damaged and painful spinal problems are a huge health care need at present. some can be remedied with the right approaches, but others require a more radical intervention like surgery (with all the risks associated with that it is something many people would like to avoid if the option existed). so i know that science continues to work on the problem. that it might come up with a differently designed spine, be able to encode it in genes so that it is expressed as humans develop, and then have the right outcome is many years in the future. perhaps it won't be needed. i can't really predict the future, but i do know it is currently a huge problem. (or leave biological forms behind in various ways). Are you talking about entering The Matrix or what? If you are tending towards religion or mysticism then you are outside the scope of science and there is no point in us going any further with this. no, it may have been science fiction in the past to talk about interfacing humans to computers directly and many other techniques of biological processes getting taken over by biological chips or many other technologies only now coming along. still many years to go there too. but tell me this, if people are so willing to wear devices like hearing aids, have cochlear implants, have retinal implants to restore vision, develop kidneys and bladders from layers of cells, have heart pumps, drug pumps, etc. all implanted if needed. well tattoos alone tell you that many people don't care exactly what happens to their body as long as enough others will go along. in the case of a redesigned spine i'm pretty sure many people would gladly sign up for it as soon as it became generally available. would you deny your children a better spine that could resist injury or heal itself back to original form if it were damaged? would you not accept a better kidney if yours were already failing and it could be accomplished easily enough for a fairly modest use of resources? how about an extra heart or more memory for the brain? extra capacity for food storage or liquid storage? none of these things are that far-fetched. i really don't see any end to body modifications once that gets going and they are already going. thicker skin that can resist cold or heat but still have all the sensitivity of the original? who'd care about mosquitoes and bugs if they couldn't get through the skin or we didn't even have blood any longer? would we be able to design a skin that could resist the cold and vaccuum of space? perhaps somewhat. there is a ton of science still to be done. we're really just at the leading edge of this and once it does get going we will likely have a huge explosion in different forms of human. to exploit the new niches that become available once we get out of the gravity well of planets. anyways, no, i am not mystical in the sense that i would consider it impossible to leave biological processes behind. i don't think the mind exists apart from biology/matter/energy/physics and i'm fairly sure that the form may be able to change once we understand the basic arrangements and requirements. i do know that if we can ship minds to far away places along with whatever they need to create a manufacturing ability at the other end using local materials then we no longer have to solve the huge problem of shipping habitat and all the supporting life forms. instead we ship information and storage for information and basic manufacturing to ramp up at the other end. all of which can be sent at much higher accelerations and at less risk of failure (many copies of the same thing could be sent knowing most of them might not make it, but it only takes a few to get a new colony going). so we take a trick from the biological processes we have learned about here, but we kick it up a notch and go with a designed goal to reach other planets or star systems. as far as mysticism would go i would say that it is for the purpose of space travel that humans have been created (general problem solvers with minds flexible enough to solve the problem of reconfiguring their own existence so they can get out of the static trap they are in and move on to more adaptable forms). not that i'm biased against the biological world. i just see the danger of being a life-form, aware as we are, and being in only one location and subject to catastrophe so i want backup plans up and running ASAP. in the meantime, i garden. :) songbird Just as long as we don't paint ourselves into a corner. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/05 8 Ways Privatization Has Failed America Free-market health care has been taking care of the CEOs. Ronald DePinho, president of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, made $1,845,000 in 2012. That's over ten times as much as the $170,000 made by the federal Medicare Administrator in 2010. Stephen J. Hemsley, the CEO of United Health Group, made three hundred times as much, with most of his $48 million coming from stock gains. http://www.npr.org/2013/08/07/209585...ts-why-america n-health-care-is-so-pricey 'Paying Till It Hurts': Why American Health Care Is So Pricey -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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On 09/08/2013 23:14, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Jymesion wrote: On Fri, 09 Aug 2013 09:29:41 +0100, Jeff Layman wrote: It's interesting that nature didn't come up with the wheel, one of the most energy-efficient ways of moving around (or did I read a few years ago that there was some strange organism which could move like a wheel? That's a question which comes up frequently. There's an interesting paper on it at: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230... 102539587717 The current consensus is that the main problem with biological wheels is blood flow, but this author addresses a different argument. I haven't seen this article, I will have a look time permitting. One reason a wheel is not much use for transport biologically is that they require roads to be efficient. Legs are much better on broken ground and can be adapted to climbing, become wings, flippers etc. Well, ATVs get around ok. Even caterpillar tracks are just a form of elongated wheel. They have little problem with rough ground. Just look at the moon and Mars rovers. True, they don't move far, but they can get around. And remember there are vast tracts of flat lands here on Earth - the prairies, steppes, savannah, etc on which wheels would move freely and efficiently if Nature had evolved them. Its interesting that Nature did evolve an alternative, and more efficient form of motion than standard legs - that used by Macropods and similar animals (although they are still, of course, legs). Storing "elastic energy" is much more efficient than using muscle contraction all the time. So why isn't that form of motion much more common around the world? There are a few examples, such as jerboas, but you'd expect a lot more. Maybe if there is sufficient food, efficiency doesn't matter so much. So even when that particular evolutionary niche has appeared, it doesn't mean it's going to be universal. And then, of course, there are the tree kangaroos!... Also have a look at the bacterial flaggelum, it isn't a wheel that supports weight for transport but it does rotate and it is powered by biochemistry. Indeed, but it's limited to that size of organism. It could not scale up. I guess it bears a greater similarity to a propeller than a wheel, anyway. -- Jeff |
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songbird wrote:
.... anyways, no, i am not mystical in the sense that i would consider it impossible to leave biological "biological" is the wrong word there, it should have been "physical". processes behind. i don't think the mind exists apart from biology/matter/energy/physics and i'm fairly sure that the form may be able to change once we understand the basic arrangements and requirements. .... songbird |
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Billy wrote:
.... Just as long as we don't paint ourselves into a corner. in an ever-expanding universe there aren't any corners. i'm more concerned at present with the "all the eggs in one basket" trap we are already in. once we have viable colony ships off towards other stars (in whatever forms) then things get more interesting. in terms of diaspora, genetic changes, modifications, etc. if they are engineered and understood then they can be reversed. more likely though we'll have a large number of humanoid variants, some which would no longer be biologically or socially compatible (the only thing added there is the biological incompatibility as it's pretty clear to me that many cultures are already socially incompatible anyways). as far as costs/profits/investments/markets/etc. that's too far afield. however, to think of it realistically, if you could modify your germ line to correct an otherwise constantly bothersome problem of your existing form that would be one of the most cost-effective investments in the future health of your decendents that you could ever make. what would that be worth? billions? trillions? songbird |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Just as long as we don't paint ourselves into a corner. in an ever-expanding universe there aren't any corners. i'm more concerned at present with the "all the eggs in one basket" trap we are already in. once we have viable colony ships off towards other stars (in whatever forms) then things get more interesting. in terms of diaspora, genetic changes, modifications, etc. if they are engineered and understood then they can be reversed. more likely though we'll have a large number of humanoid variants, some which would no longer be biologically or socially compatible (the only thing added there is the biological incompatibility as it's pretty clear to me that many cultures are already socially incompatible anyways). as far as costs/profits/investments/markets/etc. that's too far afield. however, to think of it realistically, if you could modify your germ line to correct an otherwise constantly bothersome problem of your existing form that would be one of the most cost-effective investments in the future health of your decendents that you could ever make. what would that be worth? billions? trillions? songbird I guess I worry more about the species. Remember we just did a big chat up about Superwheat. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...heat-boosts-cr ops-30--Creation-new-grain-hailed-biggest-advance-farming-generation.html The 'superwheat' that boosts crops by 30%: Creation of new grain hailed as biggest advance in farming in a generation Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with ancient wild grass Trials proved the 'superwheat' crop is more resilient and disease resistant ----- The point was that diversity had been bred out of modern wheat. You mentioned teosinte, which is a reservoir of genetic tricks for corn. We need these cave dwellers. We can't throw-away the accumulated wisdom of 4.5 billion years. The point I'm trying to make is that the perfect man for today, may not be the perfect man for tomorrow, and he may not be so good for the day after that. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, You are living in the present. - Lao Tzu -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Just as long as we don't paint ourselves into a corner. in an ever-expanding universe there aren't any corners. i'm more concerned at present with the "all the eggs in one basket" trap we are already in. once we have viable colony ships off towards other stars (in whatever forms) then things get more interesting. in terms of diaspora, genetic changes, modifications, etc. if they are engineered and understood then they can be reversed. more likely though we'll have a large number of humanoid variants, some which would no longer be biologically or socially compatible (the only thing added there is the biological incompatibility as it's pretty clear to me that many cultures are already socially incompatible anyways). as far as costs/profits/investments/markets/etc. that's too far afield. however, to think of it realistically, if you could modify your germ line to correct an otherwise constantly bothersome problem of your existing form that would be one of the most cost-effective investments in the future health of your decendents that you could ever make. what would that be worth? billions? trillions? songbird I guess I worry more about the species. Remember we just did a big chat up about Superwheat. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...heat-boosts-cr ops-30--Creation-new-grain-hailed-biggest-advance-farming-generation.html The 'superwheat' that boosts crops by 30%: Creation of new grain hailed as biggest advance in farming in a generation Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with ancient wild grass Trials proved the 'superwheat' crop is more resilient and disease resistant ----- The point was that diversity had been bred out of modern wheat. You mentioned teosinte, which is a reservoir of genetic tricks for corn. We need these cave dwellers. We can't throw-away the accumulated wisdom of 4.5 billion years. i did not nor will i ever say that we should throw away anything along the lines of any existing species, but that it is very likely future generations will spin off from the basic germ line we already have established much like we have mutations and selection acting on current species via existing mechanisms. it's just that we're likely to do it much faster and with a more directed (i.e. designed) focus. there will always be peoples like the Amish who have no truck with genetic tinkerings directly. The point I'm trying to make is that the perfect man for today, may not be the perfect man for tomorrow, and he may not be so good for the day after that. the perfect person for what? the perfect person for space travel may be different than the perfect person for gardening in the desert. songbird |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Just as long as we don't paint ourselves into a corner. in an ever-expanding universe there aren't any corners. i'm more concerned at present with the "all the eggs in one basket" trap we are already in. once we have viable colony ships off towards other stars (in whatever forms) then things get more interesting. in terms of diaspora, genetic changes, modifications, etc. if they are engineered and understood then they can be reversed. more likely though we'll have a large number of humanoid variants, some which would no longer be biologically or socially compatible (the only thing added there is the biological incompatibility as it's pretty clear to me that many cultures are already socially incompatible anyways). as far as costs/profits/investments/markets/etc. that's too far afield. however, to think of it realistically, if you could modify your germ line to correct an otherwise constantly bothersome problem of your existing form that would be one of the most cost-effective investments in the future health of your decendents that you could ever make. what would that be worth? billions? trillions? songbird I guess I worry more about the species. Remember we just did a big chat up about Superwheat. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...heat-boosts-cr ops-30--Creation-new-grain-hailed-biggest-advance-farming-generation.html The 'superwheat' that boosts crops by 30%: Creation of new grain hailed as biggest advance in farming in a generation ? Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with ancient wild grass ? Trials proved the 'superwheat' crop is more resilient and disease resistant ----- The point was that diversity had been bred out of modern wheat. You mentioned teosinte, which is a reservoir of genetic tricks for corn. We need these cave dwellers. We can't throw-away the accumulated wisdom of 4.5 billion years. i did not nor will i ever say that we should throw away anything along the lines of any existing species, but that it is very likely future generations will spin off from the basic germ line we already have established much like we have mutations and selection acting on current species via existing mechanisms. it's just that we're likely to do it much faster and with a more directed (i.e. designed) focus. there will always be peoples like the Amish who have no truck with genetic tinkerings directly. The point I'm trying to make is that the perfect man for today, may not be the perfect man for tomorrow, and he may not be so good for the day after that. the perfect person for what? the perfect person for space travel may be different than the perfect person for gardening in the desert. songbird And my point was we don't need a specialist, we need a generalist who can adapt to whatever. Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with "ancient wild" grass (the generalist). -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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Billy wrote:
.... And my point was we don't need a specialist, we need a generalist who can adapt to whatever. Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with "ancient wild" grass (the generalist). yes, so that means they still have the generalist available. i was just looking at Einkorn. doesn't look threatened. some seed lines are so ancient we haven't been able to find the exact sources yet (corn being one), but the sources may still exist in some corner of the world. a lot left to be known. songbird |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... And my point was we don't need a specialist, we need a generalist who can adapt to whatever. Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with "ancient wild" grass (the generalist). yes, so that means they still have the generalist available. i was just looking at Einkorn. doesn't look threatened. some seed lines are so ancient we haven't been able to find the exact sources yet (corn being one), but the sources may still exist in some corner of the world. a lot left to be known. songbird The point that you seem to be dancing around is that modern cultivars have lost much of their genetic diversity, and to breed new cultivars to resist present conditions the full genetic repertoire is needed. The repertoire that was lost because of selective breeding. Why would one think that breeding humans would be any different? -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... And my point was we don't need a specialist, we need a generalist who can adapt to whatever. Researchers have cross-bred modern wheat seed with "ancient wild" grass (the generalist). yes, so that means they still have the generalist available. i was just looking at Einkorn. doesn't look threatened. some seed lines are so ancient we haven't been able to find the exact sources yet (corn being one), but the sources may still exist in some corner of the world. a lot left to be known. songbird Whether homo sapiens become Borg, or readily malleable GMOs, humanity's best chance to endure is to hold on to ALL of our survival tricks, biological, and technological. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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Billy wrote:
.... Whether homo sapiens become Borg, or readily malleable GMOs, humanity's best chance to endure is to hold on to ALL of our survival tricks, biological, and technological. the idea that some base human stock will supply a better path forwards is likely a false one if the designer has the knowledge it would take to redo organisms from scratch. we are not there yet. we are still in the baby-step stage. the future will likely be vastly different than you or i can imagine. but it is still fun to try. songbird |
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Billy wrote:
.... The point that you seem to be dancing around is that modern cultivars have lost much of their genetic diversity, and to breed new cultivars to resist present conditions the full genetic repertoire is needed. sounds to me like an erronious assumption or unsupportable claim. if you know what genes/mutations are involved then there's nothing keeping those from being included in other seeds. i think GM technology is heading that direction. we have ancient seed lines to work with if we need them. there's nothing which prevents further mutations from happening or other changes to be introduced as needed. at least in theory... The repertoire that was lost because of selective breeding. Why would one think that breeding humans would be any different? we don't breed humans as much as we breed other animals or plants, but that is likely to change. anywys, the basic human stock of DNA is already sequenced in several ways, and more copies are already being collected and compared and worked with. i don't think there is any danger of that being "lost" as long as there is some kind of technical society left to understand the meaning of the sequences. an active designed with a vast store of knowledge and sequences is unlikely to worry about losing something. tell me what can be lost? here is only one example of information being collected: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ncing-science/ i'm pretty sure it is not the only one... songbird |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... The point that you seem to be dancing around is that modern cultivars have lost much of their genetic diversity, and to breed new cultivars to resist present conditions the full genetic repertoire is needed. sounds to me like an erronious assumption or unsupportable claim. if you know what genes/mutations are involved then there's nothing keeping those from being included in other seeds. i think GM technology is heading that direction. we have ancient seed lines to work with if we need them. there's nothing which prevents further mutations from happening or other changes to be introduced as needed. at least in theory... The repertoire that was lost because of selective breeding. Why would one think that breeding humans would be any different? we don't breed humans as much as we breed other animals or plants, but that is likely to change. anywys, the basic human stock of DNA is already sequenced in several ways, and more copies are already being collected and compared and worked with. i don't think there is any danger of that being "lost" as long as there is some kind of technical society left to understand the meaning of the sequences. an active designed with a vast store of knowledge and sequences is unlikely to worry about losing something. tell me what can be lost? here is only one example of information being collected: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...smithsonian-dn a-sequencing-science/ i'm pretty sure it is not the only one... songbird Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ths-species-8- 7-million-biology-planet-animals-science/ -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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Billy wrote:
.... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. .... well then tell me, what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. cheers, songbird |
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In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. ... well then tell me, Try and stop me ;O) what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? Planning ahead is a good thing, but looking out some 5 billion years might be pushing the envelope some. What are you going to do in a few years when you're gone, or non-viable? (I'll sign a petition, if you like. ;O) do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? The trouble with going away is where ever you go, there you are. I've never really felt "stuck" on this planet, even if there is no way for me to walk home. Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. Mr. Fukuoka is a wise man. You have your family and friends with barbecues, and cheating at cards afterwards, on the week-ends. There are the plants, and animals to know, and the smell that comes after the rain, the flowers of spring, tending the garden, a cooling swim on a hot day, stars to look at, the colors of harvest, the migrating geese, the sound of rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? It is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Tool_and_weapon_use I doubt that people could be prevented from tinkering whether it's crating and transporting fire, or making a sharp edge, or peering over the edge of the Standard Model to see what else is out there. yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. I don't see a contradiction, as long as I don't have to eat their experiments before they are proved to be safe. But what of the day when people only exist in the conceptual reality between their ears, as "tweakers" do, and that "consciousness" can be transferred to a chip (solid state drive) in a mechanical, inorganic, ageless being. The day that humanity leaves nature behind. Then we can talk about whether life is worth saving. anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. cheers, songbird The squash has arrived in all its glory. One zucca, and one crookneck are producing all we can eat, and the zuchs haven't started yet. The cucumbers and lettuce are starting to hit their pace. We have tomatoes most of the week, but it's only the nose of the camel. The peppers have been sporadic, but now the heat is on us again, after a 6 week departure. Our weather guesser keeps forecasting 80s F, and we keep getting 90s F. Work starts in about 2 weeks, and I'm hustling to finish up my projects. The thunder from the YouTube video posted above reminds me that it's too bad those inorganic beings of the future aren't here yet. Chili beans for dinner tonight, with the usual reaction products expected tomorrow. ;O) "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. ... well then tell me, Try and stop me ;O) har! what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? Planning ahead is a good thing, but looking out some 5 billion years might be pushing the envelope some. yes, but perhaps it's not 5 billion years ahead when we face a planet busting asteriod that we can't detect or dodge or the next ice-age (but perhaps global warming will be good for something after all)... so you're answer so far is "do nothing" too? What are you going to do in a few years when you're gone, or non-viable? (I'll sign a petition, if you like. ;O) if you like signing petitions and putting some action behind it try the one at the National Geographic newswatch website for restoring water flow to the Colorado River Delta. also, Sandra Postel and others have plenty of interesting articles/reading at the Water Currents section. as for me, not sure yet, the worms and other soil critters get to digest me, beyond that i'm not decided yet because a lot depends upon if i stay here or move someplace else. the older i get the more likely i'm not going to have the energy to start all over again from scratch, but that is what i would really like to do. do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? The trouble with going away is where ever you go, there you are. i've always been happy with my own company. I've never really felt "stuck" on this planet, even if there is no way for me to walk home. i don't feel stuck, but we are near the bottom of a deep gravity well which costs a lot to escape. it may not be stuck, but it's darned close if we have to get away quick. the question to be answered at present is if humans can transfer enough of our environment to another closed system (space-ship, colony on the moon, mars, or asteroid) so that it can be self- sustaining. if we cannot figure that out then we are stuck or we must change to a different form which does not require such an extensive support environment. Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. Mr. Fukuoka is a wise man. You have your family and friends with barbecues, and cheating at cards afterwards, on the week-ends. There are the plants, and animals to know, and the smell that comes after the rain, the flowers of spring, tending the garden, a cooling swim on a hot day, stars to look at, the colors of harvest, the migrating geese, the sound of rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs his form of happiness is not universal. not everyone wants to be a farmer. some people find their happiness in discovery or in other artistic ways. no matter what it doesn't get us into space before lights out. which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? It is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Tool_and_weapon_use I doubt that people could be prevented from tinkering whether it's crating and transporting fire, or making a sharp edge, or peering over the edge of the Standard Model to see what else is out there. yep, so he's not so wise after all? one of his claims in the book of his i just re-read (natural farming methods) was that the earth could support 60 times the population (around 5 billion when he wrote) if it would eat grains and vegetables. can you imagine our world of 300 billion people? even if you strip things down to very basic support for water and calories and force everyone under ground i still don't think the earth can support that many of us and still have wild areas. already we see limits based upon fresh water availability for the 7 billion and the future is looking very interesting already just at this level of ecosystem disruption and exploitation... yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. I don't see a contradiction, as long as I don't have to eat their experiments before they are proved to be safe. while i agree with the general sentiment, previously there were (and still are) plenty of things in the world that are not safe to eat, yet we abide. i'm looking forwards to the day when we know a lot more about GMOs in food crops. But what of the day when people only exist in the conceptual reality between their ears, as "tweakers" do, and that "consciousness" can be transferred to a chip (solid state drive) in a mechanical, inorganic, ageless being. The day that humanity leaves nature behind. Then we can talk about whether life is worth saving. enough people would argue it is no longer life anyways (the current ancients complain that their children don't have much of a life as it is and i'm ancient enough that i see their point). anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. The squash has arrived in all its glory. One zucca, and one crookneck are producing all we can eat, and the zuchs haven't started yet. The cucumbers and lettuce are starting to hit their pace. We have tomatoes most of the week, but it's only the nose of the camel. The peppers have been sporadic, but now the heat is on us again, after a 6 week departure. Our weather guesser keeps forecasting 80s F, and we keep getting 90s F. funny. we might hit 90 next week. our own bit of humour is that we have cherry tomatoes that are yellow to golden colored, i've been waiting for them to get red... that is what happens when you plant mystery tomato plants. we sure don't need six cherry tomato plants (for two people). they will go into the mix when canning juice for sure, and salsa if we make any this season. Work starts in about 2 weeks, and I'm hustling to finish up my projects. don't freak out! deep breaths, in, out, slowly, there ya go... The thunder from the YouTube video posted above reminds me that it's too bad those inorganic beings of the future aren't here yet. Chili beans for dinner tonight, with the usual reaction products expected tomorrow. ;O) simulations are often a necessary step in understanding any suitably complex system. :) "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi no-till wasn't popular then. there's a bit in _Seven Years in Tibet_ which we enjoyed when they were building the movie theatre and the people digging would not dig any more until they found a way to rescue each worm uncovered. songbird |
Dark foliage
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. ... well then tell me, Try and stop me ;O) har! what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? Planning ahead is a good thing, but looking out some 5 billion years might be pushing the envelope some. yes, but perhaps it's not 5 billion years ahead when we face a planet busting asteriod that we can't detect or dodge or the next ice-age (but perhaps global warming will be good for something after all)... so you're answer so far is "do nothing" too? You taking lessons from tx.guns now? They love to tell you that you said something (that you didn't), and then disprove it in they own, inimitable, logic free fashion. Seems that's where you'd be going after saying that perhaps global warming will be good for something. I doubt that it will be good for the starving, homeless refugees. What are you going to do in a few years when you're gone, or non-viable? (I'll sign a petition, if you like. ;O) if you like signing petitions and putting some action behind it try the one at the National Geographic newswatch website for restoring water flow to the Colorado River Delta. also, Sandra Postel and others have plenty of interesting articles/reading at the Water Currents section. You want to kill Arizona's golf courses? TERRORIST! It's a job killer. as for me, not sure yet, the worms and other soil critters get to digest me, beyond that i'm not decided yet because a lot depends upon if i stay here or move someplace else. the older i get the more likely i'm not going to have the energy to start all over again from scratch, but that is what i would really like to do. I'll probably be moving soon too. I hate to leave this hill, but we're getting too old to live on a slope. Living on the flat makes so many things easier. do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? The trouble with going away is where ever you go, there you are. i've always been happy with my own company. I've never really felt "stuck" on this planet, even if there is no way for me to walk home. i don't feel stuck, but we are near the bottom of a deep gravity well which costs a lot to escape. it may not be stuck, but it's darned close if we have to get away quick. the question to be answered at present is if humans can transfer enough of our environment to another closed system (space-ship, colony on the moon, mars, or asteroid) so that it can be self- sustaining. if we cannot figure that out then we are stuck or we must change to a different form which does not require such an extensive support environment. When you consider how much we (Homidea) have changed in the last 2 million years, if we are still around when the Sun goes "red giant" I'd be surprised if we recognized our descendants. Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. Mr. Fukuoka is a wise man. You have your family and friends with barbecues, and cheating at cards afterwards, on the week-ends. There are the plants, and animals to know, and the smell that comes after the rain, the flowers of spring, tending the garden, a cooling swim on a hot day, stars to look at, the colors of harvest, the migrating geese, the sound of rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs his form of happiness is not universal. not everyone wants to be a farmer. some people find their happiness in discovery or in other artistic ways. The Calvinist "work-ethic" can be over come. no matter what it doesn't get us into space before lights out. Relax, your descendants may yet be able to transport to the star of their choice, and tomorrow's science will indeed look like today's magic. which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? It is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Tool_and_weapon_use I doubt that people could be prevented from tinkering whether it's crating and transporting fire, or making a sharp edge, or peering over the edge of the Standard Model to see what else is out there. yep, so he's not so wise after all? We call it diversity. Life doesn't give me meaning. I give meaning to life. YMMV one of his claims in the book of his i just re-read (natural farming methods) was that the earth could support 60 times the population (around 5 billion when he wrote) if it would eat grains and vegetables. can you imagine our world of 300 billion people? even if you strip things down to very basic support for water and calories and force everyone under ground i still don't think the earth can support that many of us and still have wild areas. already we see limits based upon fresh water availability for the 7 billion and the future is looking very interesting already just at this level of ecosystem disruption and exploitation... yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. I don't see a contradiction, as long as I don't have to eat their experiments before they are proved to be safe. while i agree with the general sentiment, previously there were (and still are) plenty of things in the world that are not safe to eat, yet we abide. That's why provenance has given us a liver, but it only protects against what already exists, not the new toxin on the block. i'm looking forwards to the day when we know a lot more about GMOs in food crops. I'll take that in a good way, and not when we find out what they may have done to us. But what of the day when people only exist in the conceptual reality between their ears, as "tweakers" do, and that "consciousness" can be transferred to a chip (solid state drive) in a mechanical, inorganic, ageless being. The day that humanity leaves nature behind. Then we can talk about whether life is worth saving. enough people would argue it is no longer life anyways (the current ancients complain that their children don't have much of a life as it is and i'm ancient enough that i see their point). The way I heard it is that there are hieroglyphics on the pyramids that say that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is proven by the behavior of the young. anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. The squash has arrived in all its glory. One zucca, and one crookneck are producing all we can eat, and the zuchs haven't started yet. The cucumbers and lettuce are starting to hit their pace. We have tomatoes most of the week, but it's only the nose of the camel. The peppers have been sporadic, but now the heat is on us again, after a 6 week departure. Our weather guesser keeps forecasting 80s F, and we keep getting 90s F. funny. we might hit 90 next week. So are we, but if the weather gueser is true to form, it will closer to 100F. our own bit of humour is that we have cherry tomatoes that are yellow to golden colored, i've been waiting for them to get red... that is what happens when you plant mystery tomato plants. we sure don't need six cherry tomato plants (for two people). they will go into the mix when canning juice for sure, and salsa if we make any this season. Work starts in about 2 weeks, and I'm hustling to finish up my projects. What a Pollyanna I am. Work starts Tue. at 9AM. So many projects still to finish. I hope they have the AC cranked up. don't freak out! deep breaths, in, out, slowly, there ya go... In this heat, it is more like panting ;O) The peppers are loving it though. The thunder from the YouTube video posted above reminds me that it's too bad those inorganic beings of the future aren't here yet. Chili beans for dinner tonight, with the usual reaction products expected tomorrow. ;O) simulations are often a necessary step in understanding any suitably complex system. :) Prediction confirmed;O) "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi To be fair, he did say "dig". no-till wasn't popular then. there's a bit in _Seven Years in Tibet_ which we enjoyed when they were building the movie theatre and the people digging would not dig any more until they found a way to rescue each worm uncovered. Oh, were the Jainists putting them on again? What a sense of humor. Maybe they should have hired Confucianists. songbird -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
Dark foliage
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. ... well then tell me, Try and stop me ;O) har! what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? Planning ahead is a good thing, but looking out some 5 billion years might be pushing the envelope some. yes, but perhaps it's not 5 billion years ahead when we face a planet busting asteriod that we can't detect or dodge or the next ice-age (but perhaps global warming will be good for something after all)... so you're answer so far is "do nothing" too? You taking lessons from tx.guns now? They love to tell you that you said something (that you didn't), and then disprove it in they own, inimitable, logic free fashion. when you've had two chances to answer a direct question and wander around it yet again? Seems that's where you'd be going after saying that perhaps global warming will be good for something. I doubt that it will be good for the starving, homeless refugees. if an ice-age started in the next 30 years? if the one offset the other? perhaps there will not be the disruption and refugees? if we get hit by the cosmic/comet lotto the whole exercise may become rather moot. What are you going to do in a few years when you're gone, or non-viable? (I'll sign a petition, if you like. ;O) if you like signing petitions and putting some action behind it try the one at the National Geographic newswatch website for restoring water flow to the Colorado River Delta. also, Sandra Postel and others have plenty of interesting articles/reading at the Water Currents section. You want to kill Arizona's golf courses? TERRORIST! It's a job killer. if the golf courses were supplied with recycled water and if they didn't use *cides i wouldn't say much about them. better yet, if they were mowed with sheep and green energy lawn mowers, then my opposition goes down even further. i'm no big fan of dead spaces and wasted water or energy, but in contrast that green space may be less negative impact on an area than leaving it as pavement, parking lot or bare roof tops. if we could take advantage of that green space (in the roughs and the other edges) to provide habitat for bees and other wildlife then we might actually gain some level beyond what is liable to happen in an otherwise arid region. take it up another notch to using the space as a provider of green manure, fodder, fruits, veggies and open to the poor for free then you've got a bit more of my support. the bad news: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...ater-scarcity/ and some good news: http://environment.nationalgeographi...bazaar--india/ as for me, not sure yet, the worms and other soil critters get to digest me, beyond that i'm not decided yet because a lot depends upon if i stay here or move someplace else. the older i get the more likely i'm not going to have the energy to start all over again from scratch, but that is what i would really like to do. I'll probably be moving soon too. I hate to leave this hill, but we're getting too old to live on a slope. Living on the flat makes so many things easier. i hope you can find a good place to be. do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? The trouble with going away is where ever you go, there you are. i've always been happy with my own company. I've never really felt "stuck" on this planet, even if there is no way for me to walk home. i don't feel stuck, but we are near the bottom of a deep gravity well which costs a lot to escape. it may not be stuck, but it's darned close if we have to get away quick. the question to be answered at present is if humans can transfer enough of our environment to another closed system (space-ship, colony on the moon, mars, or asteroid) so that it can be self- sustaining. if we cannot figure that out then we are stuck or we must change to a different form which does not require such an extensive support environment. When you consider how much we (Homidea) have changed in the last 2 million years, if we are still around when the Sun goes "red giant" I'd be surprised if we recognized our descendants. my guess is we'll have split into thousands of new variants by then. some recognisable and others not. Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. Mr. Fukuoka is a wise man. You have your family and friends with barbecues, and cheating at cards afterwards, on the week-ends. There are the plants, and animals to know, and the smell that comes after the rain, the flowers of spring, tending the garden, a cooling swim on a hot day, stars to look at, the colors of harvest, the migrating geese, the sound of rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs his form of happiness is not universal. not everyone wants to be a farmer. some people find their happiness in discovery or in other artistic ways. The Calvinist "work-ethic" can be over come. Calvinist or Protestant? i've actually done a decent job of it myself. at a fairly young age i decided i wanted off the common treadmill and made consistent choices after that to get there. i made the leap off at age 33.5 no matter what it doesn't get us into space before lights out. Relax, your descendants may yet be able to transport to the star of their choice, and tomorrow's science will indeed look like today's magic. no decendents of me. i'm a genetic dead end. which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? It is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Tool_and_weapon_use I doubt that people could be prevented from tinkering whether it's crating and transporting fire, or making a sharp edge, or peering over the edge of the Standard Model to see what else is out there. yep, so he's not so wise after all? We call it diversity. Life doesn't give me meaning. I give meaning to life. YMMV like many i would like to think that i provide meaning too, but a hundred years from now the likelyhood of being remembered or understood is faint. so i don't get a big head. one of his claims in the book of his i just re-read (natural farming methods) was that the earth could support 60 times the population (around 5 billion when he wrote) if it would eat grains and vegetables. can you imagine our world of 300 billion people? even if you strip things down to very basic support for water and calories and force everyone under ground i still don't think the earth can support that many of us and still have wild areas. already we see limits based upon fresh water availability for the 7 billion and the future is looking very interesting already just at this level of ecosystem disruption and exploitation... yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. I don't see a contradiction, as long as I don't have to eat their experiments before they are proved to be safe. while i agree with the general sentiment, previously there were (and still are) plenty of things in the world that are not safe to eat, yet we abide. That's why provenance has given us a liver, but it only protects against what already exists, not the new toxin on the block. always a good idea to let someone else go first. :) "yeah, you eat all those GMOs you want and i'll try to avoid them and keep an eye peeled for toxic effects in you and your children." i'm looking forwards to the day when we know a lot more about GMOs in food crops. I'll take that in a good way, and not when we find out what they may have done to us. yes, i sure hope it works out ok, that we've not crossed some point of no return. But what of the day when people only exist in the conceptual reality between their ears, as "tweakers" do, and that "consciousness" can be transferred to a chip (solid state drive) in a mechanical, inorganic, ageless being. The day that humanity leaves nature behind. Then we can talk about whether life is worth saving. enough people would argue it is no longer life anyways (the current ancients complain that their children don't have much of a life as it is and i'm ancient enough that i see their point). The way I heard it is that there are hieroglyphics on the pyramids that say that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is proven by the behavior of the young. haha, that would be funny indeed. anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. The squash has arrived in all its glory. One zucca, and one crookneck are producing all we can eat, and the zuchs haven't started yet. The cucumbers and lettuce are starting to hit their pace. We have tomatoes most of the week, but it's only the nose of the camel. The peppers have been sporadic, but now the heat is on us again, after a 6 week departure. Our weather guesser keeps forecasting 80s F, and we keep getting 90s F. funny. we might hit 90 next week. So are we, but if the weather gueser is true to form, it will closer to 100F. today was a prime example. forecast to go into the mid 80s, but it didn't make it to 80. still the sunshine is appreciated. gotta water some bit every day to keep everything happy. better to spread it out so that we don't have to draw on the well so heavily at any one time. our own bit of humour is that we have cherry tomatoes that are yellow to golden colored, i've been waiting for them to get red... that is what happens when you plant mystery tomato plants. we sure don't need six cherry tomato plants (for two people). they will go into the mix when canning juice for sure, and salsa if we make any this season. Work starts in about 2 weeks, and I'm hustling to finish up my projects. What a Pollyanna I am. Work starts Tue. at 9AM. So many projects still to finish. I hope they have the AC cranked up. :) get your pipettes ready! don't freak out! deep breaths, in, out, slowly, there ya go... In this heat, it is more like panting ;O) The peppers are loving it though. yes, the peppers are coming along well here too. finally was able to pick about 10lbs of tomatoes today. some BER in the smaller romas that were developing about a month ago in that heat wave we had. this round of heat there is much more cover and mulch to help. The thunder from the YouTube video posted above reminds me that it's too bad those inorganic beings of the future aren't here yet. Chili beans for dinner tonight, with the usual reaction products expected tomorrow. ;O) simulations are often a necessary step in understanding any suitably complex system. :) Prediction confirmed;O) my condolences to all affected. ever since we started growing more dry beans i've gradually increased fiber and while it has special moments of regret the overall improvement is well worth it. "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi To be fair, he did say "dig". i can dig it. no-till wasn't popular then. there's a bit in _Seven Years in Tibet_ which we enjoyed when they were building the movie theatre and the people digging would not dig any more until they found a way to rescue each worm uncovered. Oh, were the Jainists putting them on again? What a sense of humor. Maybe they should have hired Confucianists. just a movie, but amusing anyways as it happened we first watched it when i was starting with the small scale worm farm. songbird |
Dark foliage
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Ah yes, in that great rising up morning, bye and bye, when we know everything, then nothing will be too hard for humanity to fix. It will be wonderful. In the meantime, we walk in the dark, barking our shins on coffee tables, and running into walls. ... well then tell me, Try and stop me ;O) har! what would you do knowing that in some number of years the planet earth, the sun and most of the local system will be gone or uninhabitable? Planning ahead is a good thing, but looking out some 5 billion years might be pushing the envelope some. yes, but perhaps it's not 5 billion years ahead when we face a planet busting asteriod that we can't detect or dodge or the next ice-age (but perhaps global warming will be good for something after all)... so you're answer so far is "do nothing" too? You taking lessons from tx.guns now? They love to tell you that you said something (that you didn't), and then disprove it in they own, inimitable, logic free fashion. when you've had two chances to answer a direct question and wander around it yet again? You've projected a self-serving answer into a question that on its merit is, at best, a rhetorical question. Bottom feeders will also tell you that a smile is implied consent. Debating the point while your being raped seems, somehow, pointless. You want a straight answer to your silly question? (And the peanut gallery moans.) The best thing we can do about the Sun going to a red giant in 5 BILLION YEARS is to stay alive for the event. That represents staying alive for 2,500 times longer than our Family, Hominidea, or 25,000 times longer than our species, Homo sapiens, has existed. As you say, I'm happy playing in the mud, but bends in the road have always held a fascination for me. Western science lost a 1000 years with the fall of Rome. Given the increase in information, I would expect our species to be doing some impressive manipulation of space and time within a couple of hundred years, IF baser human instincts like greed can be reined in. Our greatest threat is from our selves. Ever see that experiment where they put a couple of rats in a large cage, and then let nature take its course? Over population drove the rats crazy. Some went catatonic. Some chewed on themselves, and most just became aggressive. Ice Age canceling Dante's Inferno? Let's look at the science. http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...culation-may-h ave-released-co2-at-end-of-ice-ages At the end of each ice age, the ocean exhales carbon dioxide. Scientists believe this explains the difference in atmospheric CO2 concentrations between ice ages, which have lower concentrations of carbon dioxide, and warmer, more CO2-saturated periods like the one we're living in now. ----- I'm sure you know that even if we stop burning fossil fuel now, it will take some hundreds of years, with present technology, to return to 390 ppm CO2. ----- A comet collision, a MASSIVE volcanic eruption, or a nuclear war could throw enough particulate matter high enough into the atmosphere to block the sun, perhaps for decades, and give us an ice age, and there would also be human suffering on an unimaginable scale. What do you see as triggering this joyous convergence of Ice Age/Inferno? Seems that's where you'd be going after saying that perhaps global warming will be good for something. I doubt that it will be good for the starving, homeless refugees. if an ice-age started in the next 30 years? if the one offset the other? perhaps there will not be the disruption and refugees? if we get hit by the cosmic/comet lotto the whole exercise may become rather moot. Yes, with a bang or a whimper, in fire or in ice, we all die, some, damned, inconvenient day. You may get hit in the cross walk. There are no guarantees, the best you can do is to minimize risk, which we aren't doing. On a daily basis, the best I can do for the world is to keep a few hundred sq. ft. of soil alive, buy organic, buy locally, and try to find a politician who isn't a corporation whore to vote for. What are you going to do in a few years when you're gone, or non-viable? (I'll sign a petition, if you like. ;O) if you like signing petitions and putting some action behind it try the one at the National Geographic website for restoring water flow to the Colorado River Delta. also, Sandra Postel and others have plenty of interesting articles/reading at the Water Currents section. I see being facetious with you is a lost cause. Petitions are are near worthless. If you're not out in the street making a nuisance of yourself, nothing will happen. Beat those pots, and block those intersections. You want to kill Arizona's golf courses? TERRORIST! It's a job killer. if the golf courses were supplied with recycled water and if they didn't use *cides i wouldn't say much about them. better yet, if they were mowed with sheep and green energy lawn mowers, then my opposition goes down even further. i'm no big fan of dead spaces and wasted water or energy, but in contrast that green space may be less negative impact on an area than leaving it as pavement, parking lot or bare roof tops. if we could take advantage of that green space (in the roughs and the other edges) to provide habitat for bees and other wildlife then we might actually gain some level beyond what is liable to happen in an otherwise arid region. take it up another notch to using the space as a provider of green manure, fodder, fruits, veggies and open to the poor for free then you've got a bit more of my support. Do you know what the temp is today in Phoenix? 107F. What grows well in 100F+ heat, bird? You gonna give the sheep T-shirts and caps to wear? The area also sucks up fossil-fuel-made electricity for AC. There are better uses for Colorado River water, and Global Warming coal fires. Use the resources sensibly and return Phoenix to the "snow birds". the bad news: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...o-river-drough t-lake-powell-mead-water-scarcity/ Freshwater sources around the world have been used at rates faster than they can replenish themselves. Pipelines for freshwater from Canada or Greenland make more sense than KeystoneXL. and some good news: http://environment.nationalgeographi...er/l/lessons-f rom-the-field-rainwater-harvesting-in-hiware-bazaar--india/ Rationing may make sense to you or me, but Capitalism wants to turn water into a commodity, i.e. you get what you can afford. Can't afford it it? Tough! Watch the Guardians of Privilege come out to fight this. as for me, not sure yet, the worms and other soil critters get to digest me, beyond that i'm not decided yet because a lot depends upon if i stay here or move someplace else. the older i get the more likely i'm not going to have the energy to start all over again from scratch, but that is what i would really like to do. I'll probably be moving soon too. I hate to leave this hill, but we're getting too old to live on a slope. Living on the flat makes so many things easier. i hope you can find a good place to be. We won't go far. We can go to the boonies, if need be. Back roads aren't as bad as the freeways around here. do you think that we are stuck on this planet forever without recourse? The trouble with going away is where ever you go, there you are. i've always been happy with my own company. I've never really felt "stuck" on this planet, even if there is no way for me to walk home. i don't feel stuck, but we are near the bottom of a deep gravity well which costs a lot to escape. it may not be stuck, but it's darned close if we have to get away quick. the question to be answered at present is if humans can transfer enough of our environment to another closed system (space-ship, colony on the moon, mars, or asteroid) so that it can be self- sustaining. if we cannot figure that out then we are stuck or we must change to a different form which does not require such an extensive support environment. When you consider how much we (Homidea) have changed in the last 2 million years, if we are still around when the Sun goes "red giant" I'd be surprised if we recognized our descendants. my guess is we'll have split into thousands of new variants by then. some recognisable and others not. Mammals didn't really get going until after the Chicxulub event, some 66 million years ago. Look how much mammals have changed to take advantage of the empty niches that the dinosaurs left. Mr. Fukuoka and his natural farming would say that we are not meant to know nature, that science is useless, that nature is perfect, etc. to be happy is to be a farmer and doing as little as possible. Mr. Fukuoka is a wise man. You have your family and friends with barbecues, and cheating at cards afterwards, on the week-ends. There are the plants, and animals to know, and the smell that comes after the rain, the flowers of spring, tending the garden, a cooling swim on a hot day, stars to look at, the colors of harvest, the migrating geese, the sound of rain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6OhIZODLDs his form of happiness is not universal. not everyone wants to be a farmer. some people find their happiness in discovery or in other artistic ways. The Calvinist "work-ethic" can be over come. Calvinist or Protestant? All Cavinists are Protestant. I'm not sure if all Protestants are Calvinist. (I lost interest.) But yes, it normally is cast as the "Protestant Work Ethic". The belief that if your work was successful, then you were one of God's chosen. Made most famous by the sociologist Max Weber in his seminal work,"The Protestant Work Ethic, and the Spirit of Capitalism". Calvinism is perfect for those who want to suffer stoically, and contemptuously. If you haven't seen it, get Babbette's Feast". It says it all. A wonderful movie. i've actually done a decent job of it myself. at a fairly young age i decided i wanted off the common treadmill and made consistent choices after that to get there. i made the leap off at age 33.5 no matter what it doesn't get us into space before lights out. Relax, your descendants may yet be able to transport to the star of their choice, and tomorrow's science will indeed look like today's magic. no decendents of me. i'm a genetic dead end. If more people had that attitude, there would be more hope for humanity. As it is, it looks like the plutocrates are herding us towards lemming's leap. I hope you're enjoying the trip, because I think that is all that there is to it. which is a nice way to go for some, but others like to engineer and design and tinker. why is the way of the tinker outlawed in nature? It is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition#Tool_and_weapon_use I doubt that people could be prevented from tinkering whether it's crating and transporting fire, or making a sharp edge, or peering over the edge of the Standard Model to see what else is out there. yep, so he's not so wise after all? We call it diversity. Life doesn't give me meaning. I give meaning to life. YMMV like many i would like to think that i provide meaning too, but a hundred years from now the likelyhood of being remembered or understood is faint. so i don't get a big head. Leave Mayayana to the messiahs. Hinayana is all I can deal with. one of his claims in the book of his i just re-read (natural farming methods) was that the earth could support 60 times the population (around 5 billion when he wrote) if it would eat grains and vegetables. can you imagine our world of 300 billion people? even if you strip things down to very basic support for water and calories and force everyone under ground i still don't think the earth can support that many of us and still have wild areas. already we see limits based upon fresh water availability for the 7 billion and the future is looking very interesting already just at this level of ecosystem disruption and exploitation... Let ye among you without typos cast the first stone. yes, i know that only so much can be changed at a time if nature is to continue in some forms and still be able to function. i'm not talking about obliterating nature or any species that currently exist. i just wonder where those concerned about nature and sustainable agriculture can find some common ground with the makers and designers. I don't see a contradiction, as long as I don't have to eat their experiments before they are proved to be safe. while i agree with the general sentiment, previously there were (and still are) plenty of things in the world that are not safe to eat, yet we abide. That's why provenance has given us a liver, but it only protects against what already exists, not the new toxin on the block. always a good idea to let someone else go first. :) "yeah, you eat all those GMOs you want and i'll try to avoid them and keep an eye peeled for toxic effects in you and your children." Too much enthusiasm. I would never recommend for someone to be a guinea pig. If there is a problem, I trust the government that as been encouraging us to spend our money to be the test animals for GMO feeding studies, will step in and offer assistance to those who took their advice. i'm looking forwards to the day when we know a lot more about GMOs in food crops. I'll take that in a good way, and not when we find out what they may have done to us. yes, i sure hope it works out ok, that we've not crossed some point of no return. But what of the day when people only exist in the conceptual reality between their ears, as "tweakers" do, and that "consciousness" can be transferred to a chip (solid state drive) in a mechanical, inorganic, ageless being. The day that humanity leaves nature behind. Then we can talk about whether life is worth saving. enough people would argue it is no longer life anyways (the current ancients complain that their children don't have much of a life as it is and i'm ancient enough that i see their point). The way I heard it is that there are hieroglyphics on the pyramids that say that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is proven by the behavior of the young. haha, that would be funny indeed. anyways, those are the thoughts of today... in other news, got some of the turnip seeds and buckwheat seeds scattered and watered in. starting also to get tomatoes turning color. the weather this week is forecast sunny, sunny, sunny and getting warmer. so we'll have a chance of it. will have to water. The squash has arrived in all its glory. One zucca, and one crookneck are producing all we can eat, and the zuchs haven't started yet. The cucumbers and lettuce are starting to hit their pace. We have tomatoes most of the week, but it's only the nose of the camel. The peppers have been sporadic, but now the heat is on us again, after a 6 week departure. Our weather guesser keeps forecasting 80s F, and we keep getting 90s F. funny. we might hit 90 next week. So are we, but if the weather gueser is true to form, it will closer to 100F. today was a prime example. forecast to go into the mid 80s, but it didn't make it to 80. still the sunshine is appreciated. gotta water some bit every day to keep everything happy. better to spread it out so that we don't have to draw on the well so heavily at any one time. our own bit of humour is that we have cherry tomatoes that are yellow to golden colored, i've been waiting for them to get red... that is what happens when you plant mystery tomato plants. we sure don't need six cherry tomato plants (for two people). they will go into the mix when canning juice for sure, and salsa if we make any this season. Work starts in about 2 weeks, and I'm hustling to finish up my projects. What a Pollyanna I am. Work starts Tue. at 9AM. So many projects still to finish. I hope they have the AC cranked up. :) get your pipettes ready! They were calibrated 2 weeks ago. We start of with juice samples, which is pretty basic, pH, Total Acidty (TA), sugar (by refractometer), and the accursed potassium. Fun starts when we have wine, AND juice samples. This is the nobody leaves until all the work is done stage. When fermentation is over, it quickly becomes "no overtime". don't freak out! deep breaths, in, out, slowly, there ya go... In this heat, it is more like panting ;O) The peppers are loving it though. yes, the peppers are coming along well here too. finally was able to pick about 10lbs of tomatoes today. some BER in the smaller romas that were developing about a month ago in that heat wave we had. this round of heat there is much more cover and mulch to help. Most of our tomatoes are still holding back, but we are close. The thunder from the YouTube video posted above reminds me that it's too bad those inorganic beings of the future aren't here yet. Chili beans for dinner tonight, with the usual reaction products expected tomorrow. ;O) simulations are often a necessary step in understanding any suitably complex system. :) Prediction confirmed;O) my condolences to all affected. The survivor thank you for your wishes. ever since we started growing more dry beans i've gradually increased fiber and while it has special moments of regret the overall improvement is well worth it. "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi To be fair, he did say "dig". i can dig it. Mahatma dug it. no-till wasn't popular then. there's a bit in _Seven Years in Tibet_ which we enjoyed when they were building the movie theatre and the people digging would not dig any more until they found a way to rescue each worm uncovered. Oh, were the Jainists putting them on again? What a sense of humor. Maybe they should have hired Confucianists. just a movie, but amusing anyways as it happened we first watched it when i was starting with the small scale worm farm. songbird Probably won't be back 'till the week-end. Try not to get into trouble without me. -- Palestinian Child Detained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSzH38jYcg Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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