I have a beeber-like device!
Do you know what that means?
Posted on 09/08/2005 5:16:56 PM PDT by Mike Bates
The evolution of the human brain is not quite a done deal, say researchers who've uncovered genetic evidence that man's mysterious gray matter is still undergoing beneficial change.
The scientists make their claim based on the recent evolutionary history of two genes -- microcephalin and abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated (ASPM) -- which appear to regulate brain size.
Over thousands of years, both genes seem to be generating new and improved versions of themselves -- beneficial mutations that are spreading rapidly among the human population to reshape and strengthen brain capacity.
"I think a lot of people might consider humans to be at the pinnacle of evolutionary lineage -- that we have achieved an advanced state as a species, and we have basically become the end-game," said study co-author Bruce T. Lahn, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago. "But what we found indicates that the species -- particularly when it comes to the brain, which is perhaps our most defining feature -- is still evolving."
In the Sept. 9 issue of Science, Lahn and his colleagues report on the results of two genetic analyses -- the first conducted among 90 men and women and a chimpanzee, and the second among almost 1,200 men and women. The participant pools were drawn from 59 ethnic groups from all over the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Well then, g'day mate.
How is that anything other than microevolution?
Seriously though, I'm inclined to believe that thousands of years ago humans were actually more intelligent. We may be more technologically advanced now, but some of the accomplishments of the ancients still confound us.
Now there is no way he can know that. It's just wishful thinking, because otherwise he must accept the concept they we might be someone else's pets some day.
I favor the stupid-design theory, rather than reverse-evolution.
Narf!
Yeah, the headline and the reporter's "sexing up" of the story are pretty goofy, but the research findings themselves are pretty interesting.
Most of the genes in most species have achieved what the mathemeticians call a "local optimum", and remain relatively stable for the life of the species. So it's always interesting to find the ones that evolution is still in the process of fine-tuning for optimal function. It's also a glimpse into which genes are more recent "inventions" and among the ones which separated us from our "cousin" species.
Poit!
YEC INTREP
|
Egad!
How did he get all the way over there?
...in almost all humans except for the branch of the human species known as the dummus recto-invertus, which suffers from a brain degenerating condition known as recto-cranial inversion
Sufferers of this condition are usually inhabit websites such as MoveOn.org, DU, and DNC.org, constantly engaging in contests with each other to see which among them can literate the most inane and nonsensical rants, often sounding like the padded room residents of the mental illness ward of the average hospital...
Often harmless, they pose littl threat to the public in general, except on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November, when they impose their insanity on the general population and society as a whole by voting for members of their own species (ie. Democrats, Liberals, etc.)
Even if you want to try to hairsplit it as "just microevolution", that's *still* evolution. Do you actually have a gripe with the article, or is the "microevolution" red herring just a reflex at this point?
Also, from the article:
The microcephalin mutation's first appearance coincided with the beginnings of man's development of art, music, religious practices, and complex tool-making techniques, the researchers point out. Similarly, the launch of the ASPM mutations occurred with the spread of agriculture, urban settlements, and the first record of written language.
As Lee Iaccoca says to Snoop in the commercial: That's what I hear.
I have a beeber-like device!
Do you know what that means?
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