That's actually pretty interesting. That's probably why rats are extremely popular lab test animals (well, that and they're really easy to get a hold of). The reason why pigs are important relatives to humans is because their organs are big enough for human transplant and whatnot. You can't put a rat heart in a person :B

True. I've heard about the human/pig organ transplantation, that's why i thought the two were closely related...

i watched a crazy documentary on science groups that raise a sow in completely germ free environments, artificially inseminate her, do a cesarean section to retrieve the piglets, dunk the newborns in iodine to cleanse them before they breathe, and then raise the piglets in germ-free environments for perfect organs for transplant. really nuts. it hasn't worked perfectly yet (most monkeys who retrieved these organs died), but the idea is insaaaane. so interesting :O

Yes. Quite terrifying. Sort of related: just yesterday I came to the conclusion that medicine is the single most destructive invention to homo sapiens sapiens' existance. But I'll refrain about going into a full-blown rant about that... Have you read Oryx & Crake? A very interesting and scary book... scary because all of it can and even is likely to happen. I somehow got the feeling you might find the book interesting.

oh, yeah i actually have heard of this book but never picked it up yet. i think i will later today, it seems awesome 8>

i agree in your views on medicine. it contains the tiniest gap between incredibly helpful and incredibly destructive. personally, my favorite concept, due to how close we actually are to this, is genetically-related eugenics. forget skin color discrimination, it'll be about how superior your genetic make-up is. have you ever seen the movie Gattaca? it revolves around this idea. it's one of my favorite movies |D

It's always about how superior ones genetic makeup is. That's what nature is about and that's why medicine is destructive - once humans start building their own DNA according to their own misguided desires (which don't suit the same purposes they're built for anymore), they'll be limited by their own ideas, theories and limits of their knowledge. Nature doesn't have knowledge, ideas or desires, it's chaos that (blindly and very objectively) goes with what works.

The problems medicine "solves" don't go away, they just accumulate; all it does is hide constructional flaws long enought for them to be passed on. And then again and again...

When it comes to DNA it might just cause more problems than it solves. It's a complex system with way too many workarounds that can be exploited for business purposes. Business and consumerism is where the sad stuff starts happening...

It's the death of evolution in my eyes. Where would we be without evolution? Nowhere. Then again, drug-resistant superviruses seem to be one of the most deadly results of medicine, and that all stems from evolution. Biology is amazing.

Speaking of business and genetics, I'm wondering if you're aware of sites like https://www.23andme.com/ 1000 dollars for a giant list of things you can maybe, possibly die from? Seems like a huge waste to me, but so many people are actually doing it. There are very few genetic tests that can fully predict which genetic diseases you have. Soon enough it will cost much less than $1000, and everyone will be aware of certain faults they may have given they choose to take such a test. Oh gosh, I'm going to get on a rant again. I have to get to class!

Yes, my thoughts likewise. Evolution is slow. If given small constant pressure, it can withstand and adapt, but if there's no pressure for a long time (that means our beloved medicine) - evolutionary mechanisms don't work, stuff that doesn't work accumulates and once the thing snaps and there's one real big threat - things have a certain possibility of going real bad... (Dinosaurs, anyone?)

Problem is... do you know anyone who'd choose to die, just because s/he got flu? -- There's no way of getting out of this mess.

Thanks for the links, btw.
The first one is the stuff nightmares are made of.
The 2nd one made my day. :D

Yeah, often when I get sick my mother makes me take amoxicillan (sp?). But, with colds and such, people tend to shove medication down their throat like it's candy. Colds are no longer an actual threat to your body, these medications don't actually work on colds, and all they're effectively doing is forcing the cold virus to adapt into something that can actually harm us. I never take anything for colds. It's ridiculous.

The scary thing is, there are about 3 other sites that do the exact same thing as 23 and me. I have an article about it at home I should scan for you.

I hope you enjoyed the spider goats :>

ONE MORE THING: Here's a humorous, but interesting little article about strange animal genetic tests: http://www.cracked.com/article_1580.....-humanity.html

About those germ-free sows: I'm somewhat surprised that animals born and raised in a germ-free environment develop into healthy adults. Of course, a weak immune system wouldn't be a problem, but still...I'd have expected that some external microorganisms would be anticipated by the organism and that their absence would mess up something. Also, why are organs grown in a sterile environment necessarily better suited for transplantation into a body that'll be exposed to germs? (I know next to nothing about organ transplants or development, so please bear with me if I'm being stupid -_-)

I lack a solid foundation (as well as the English/Latin scientific vocabulary...) to evaluate the classification procedures or how large the shift in relatedness is, but this doesn't really strike me as all that surprising - at least the ruminant/whale/pig thing. A lot of critical re-evaluations has taken place in recent years (I think), and molecular biology is rarely straightforward. Our perception of relatedness is skewered by obvious similarities like habitat, appearance etc. and ignores "deeper" similarities. I'm sure we'll be in for plenty of other surprises as methods improve.

I'm not super-well informed on the topic, but the point was that they wanted organs for humans. Pigs generally obtain a variety of germs and diseases that only pigs get. Also, think about this:

In human-to-human organ transplants, organs deemed "unusable" have diseases in them (hepatitis, etc).

So, they want perfectly usable organs. Also, a perfect organ can be replicated with stem cells. They wouldn't want to replicate a non-clean organ.

That makes sense...My reasoning was kind of reliant on the correctness of my completely unfounded assumption that living in a sterile environment from birth to death might somehow mess with development.
I also wasn't thinking of stem cell replication and hence wondered why the organs obtained would need to be "cleaner" than the ones you usually transplant. Thank you!

Well, on the other hand genetic modification is our only realistic chance to actually solve problems and prevent exactly the kind of accumulation of "flaws" you mentioned. Since people will, quite understandably, refuse to die for the good of the species, gene therapy (in the broadest sense) seems to me to be the only alternative to nazi-style eugenics if we don't want to end up completely dependant on our artificial environment and substances. The discoveries have been made, so people WILL use and abuse them. I still see the potential to undo a lot of the damage traditional medicine has done in the long run.

I LOVED ORYX AND CRAKE :OOO

Oh man, I didn't know many people really took a look at it. Sorry, I was scrolling to the bottom of the page and the bold just stuck out like that XDD

It was horrifying in the sense that farm animals were bred/created to be what they only needed to survive by to maximize production of their meat. Like what the chickens became. Buh, blob of flesh in a bottle, that was so f-ed up.

And then there were the perfect humanoid creatures that the main character frequented. And the Wolfogs.

I always found subjects like this very interesting. I believe it.

The word "related" is pretty subjective here, since they're only comparing the similarities of average genetic sequences of species. Taxonomy is complicated when taking into account genetic variation. Whether or not these similarities imply branching points of evolution, or something that developed to suit biological purposes is quite debatable.

This is just my input on it, though I'm sure there are furries here more well-versed in molecular biology than I am. In any case, it does make fine material for furry sci-fic. ^_^

Yes. But it's very unlikely that the same identical gene would develop again in the same place after having been lost. DNA analysis can't be the only source, but if complemented by other research, it has a pretty high chance of being right.

Then there's the difference between taxonomy and phylogeny... I guess I ment phylogenic relatedness. That's what i'm most interested in anyways, since it explains how life works and evolves more directly.

explain better? i think it flew over my head a little

By doing (various) DNA analysis, scientists can determine when which animals diverged into different clades/orders/classes. In this case hippos AND whales (probably they were quite alike then) divered from pigs sooner than they divereg from each other, that's evident in the ammount of genetic material that's identical and systems that work the same way, despite the two living in totaly different environments and very different kind of lives.

Basicly those DNA analysis have changed the way life is classified. Earlier taxonomies relied heavily on morphology, now it's possible to analyze relations between animals by theyr chemical mechanisms at DNA level. That's a less error-prone level to work at.

I'm rubbish at explaining, sorry.

im just not a science buff XD but i get the jist :P thanks

Also, even naïvely I'd have said that hippos might be relatively closely related to whales, similar habitats, body shapes and all...But I'm pretty sure I've read about this before, so maybe I'm biased.

And Pakicetus looks cute.

Crazy.
With all the animals on earth and what we know of the genetic makeup of each and every one, I doubt we (as a species) know more than a fraction of a percent of the subject. In fifty years time, that genetic could be different.

But that's just what I know.