61–70 of 71 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really? What did you have for lunch today? All the herbivores in Animal Kingdom would disagree with that statement.
Plants still count as life.
Think of a squirrel, perhaps, and how it feeds on plants.
(Still don't agree with the GP)
a book about this very topic: http://www.rachelsussman.com/oltw/
There is a description of Lomatia Tasmanica which is claimed to be 43000 years old. Obviously, growing clonally.
It seems that one could argue that the first single-celled organism has never died. Single-celled organisms reproduce by dividing, and there's no distinction between parent and offspring, right? So if any offspring survives, then the original organism arguably has not died.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plants still count as life.
In many (most?) cases herbivores aren't taking the life of the plant. Think of a squirrel, perhaps, and how it feeds on plants. (Still don't agree with the GP)
It seems that one could argue that the first single-celled organism has never died. Single-celled organisms reproduce by dividing, and there's no distinction between parent and offspring, right? So if any offspring survives, then the original organism arguably has not died.
That is analogous to the "I've had this brush for years, and it's had a new handle 3 times and a new brush head 5 times." type idea. Safe to say that no, it is not the same organism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
DNA is probably your best bet for bottom up approach. Its surprisingly difficult data to find and the rate probably varies a lot, but wikipedia claims: "The human germline mutation rate is approximately 0.5×10−9 per basepair per year" My RAID array does better, polaroid pictures somewhat worse, etc. A bit error rate of 1e-9/yr is something that can be worked around over a lifespan but probably not over a million year…
Why not over a million years? That would still only be 0.1% of bits flipped, and it should be possible to design a code with enough redundancy or error correction to take care of that. Is there some compounding effect I'm not thinking of? Or simply that it's hard to keep a species alive for a million years?
"Mammals, for instance, have an average species "lifespan" from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years."
Evolution: Library: The Current Mass Extinction - PBS www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html
So yeah, it would be a shame if space aliens visited and encoded a message to us in saber toothed tigers or trilobites.
Also I have no religious hangups, I'm a direct descendant of the ancestor of amoebas or whatever exactly, and if the message were encoded into whatever makes an amoeba an amoeba, well, its definitely gone now.
I think it would be hard to "infect" a species with stored data. They'd have to burn more protein to replicate that extra DNA material, which would provide a competitive advantage to any individual not carrying the data, so its not going to last long. Even thinking outside the box with a virus, wouldn't smaller ones have better odds of survival?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when it becomes a multi-celled organism through various mutations? If you could trace your lineage back to the first single-celled organism, would that make you the oldest lifeform on the planet?
There's a good argument to be made that organisms which reproduce with haploid gametes (animals and plants) truly generate "new" individuals when the sperm and egg fuse to create the first cell with a nucleus containing a truly unique genotype. However, organisms that reproduce by fission, where one complete living cell divides into two identical complete living cells (minor single-site mutations aside) have a much s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not over a million years? That would still only be 0.1% of bits flipped, and it should be possible to design a code with enough redundancy or error correction to take care of that. Is there some compounding effect I'm not thinking of? Or simply that it's hard to keep a species alive for a million years?
Ouch I did some research and found "Mammals, for instance, have an average species "lifespan" from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years." Evolution: Library: The Current Mass Extinction - PBS www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html So yeah, it would be a shame if space aliens visited and encoded a message to us in saber toothed…
Yeah, but what about encoding a message/knowledge into the mating rituals of an species (or artificially-modified subspecies) from the start? [0]
> if the message were encoded into whatever makes an amoeba an amoeba, well, its definitely gone now.
Are we sure humans don't have any "useless" DNA? What about seemingly superfluous organs like the appendix?