Week 3: Genetic Evolution

1.a "99.4% of the most critical DNA sites are identical in human and chimp genes."

Well, this one's not much of a leap for me having already gotten over my shock that all beings within the atmospheric boundaries of La Pachama mother earth are made from the same set of genes.  I know the author was trying to really stir things up.  Ok, let me also admit that when I was in middle school I did a report on chimpanzees and that's when I actually heard how genetically close we are to them.  The other cool thing to learn from those that should be in our same species-according to Wiki-you know what again, bonobos have been observed to totally do it with pretty much any bonobo at many different times.  So like, we shouldn't feel so guilty if our close cousins totally have no problem with it (of course it's better to see all beings as family, anyhow, I mean, bacteria females turn into males every time they mate!).

1.b  Look, I got just a few words on this:  my body is teaming with life, like the earth.   Oh yeah.  Oh, and I'd like to hear more about the Methanogenic Archaea.  Come on, details, what were these genes like that those scientists never saw before.  Did they learn anything about other dimensions from these Archaea?

The bacteria thing was a hoot.  Why don't more scientists write funny things like that?  That way it's more accessible to the reader.  Another strange thing is that at fairly high frequencies I also turn into a female.  Isn't that weird?  I know really strange.  I totally feel like this big beautiful earth orb sphere with all these happy bacteria around. Except they're always like "why don't you go out into the sun more?" cause I'm so cold! ha ha!

2.I liked the NASA one-clues that life began in deep space.  Wait, so is where we are not considered deep space?  Or is deep considered only in it's relation to Earth?  Or is deep space meant by like, the other dimensions that can't be seen with the naked eye.  ""Scientists believe the molecules needed to make a cell’s membrane, and thus for the origin of life, are all over space."  No offense, but this seems like really common sense to me.  Of course our molecules came from space, we're from space, we're sitting right in it.  Am I missing something here?  Now, if you consider alien DNA to be similar to aliens (like they're made up of it), that means our ancestors are aliens.  That means we are alien children!  Maybe the aliens sent their DNA down here to grow because they were lonely and wanted to have kids.

3.  I like the concept that "many complex systems will spontaneously evolve to the critical edge between order (stability) and chaos, where the size of disturbances obeys a power law, large disturbances being less frequent than small ones."  This makes a lot of sense.  Chaos will occur til it's large enough to become self-organized and stable.  Stability means fewer large disturbances, smaller disturbances don't threaten that stability.  But the little bits of chaos are essentially the smaller disturbances, and life can live well within that.  Nifty.