http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art.....es/PMC3273317/

Thanks.

That nails it.

The idea popped into my head while I was watching people avoiding speedbumps in a parking lot.

Np hun lol^^

Could you elaborate on what the first sentence actually means? As far as I know biological plasticity is generally pheotypic, and mediated by differential expression of a fixed genome, at least within an individual. Do you mean the way genomes change over multiple generations and across a population, and the different factors affecting how that change occurs?

Where does the exponent come from in the advancement of adaptability? A change over time? What do you mean by advancement of adaptability?

I left it open to get questions like yours. I am just scratching the surface on an idea that randomly popped into my head. So, it's still fairly vague.

I was looking to see if the plasticity of a species's genome had a correlation to not only the ability to adapt, but if there would be an exponential advance that would also correlate.

Best example I was curios about, was the seeming quantum leap from our direct hominid ancestors to humans today.

Waht was the mechanism that caused such a surge in such a short time.

Also, do we see this in other creatures. Including, bacteria, and other microbes.

I don't have much of an opinion on it ether way. So, I have no way elaborate outside of the curiosity.

Humans are an odd species, because our adaptability is cultural/memetic rather than biological. We evolved the ability to solve problems WITHOUT the need for a different phenotype, once that relatively minor change had occurred, we were able to "adapt" to different environments in a way no other species has.

To live in the Arctic, near hairless humans did not have to evolve long fur, but use the intelligence they already had to skin animals and use their pelts for warmth. They did not have to evolve long teeth and claws to hunt large prey, but used that same intelligence to make spears and axes.

Bacteria in new environments evolve entirely novel proteins to process new food sources. Humans *process* new food sources to make the unpalatable palatable; there are rainforest peoples who live off root vegetables which are full of cyanide, but instead of evolving the ability to eat cyanide, they developed a method of processing the root to REMOVE the cyanide before eating the root.

Biologically, our unusual intelligence might thus not be seen as a huge quantum leap, but a relatively minor change which cascaded because of the possibilities it opened up

I have come to a similar conclusion. Where are current evolution transcends a biological component. We have a technological evolution that directly affects our ability of adaption.

I still think it's terribly fascinating. I am reading the article posted above. It is fairly enlightening on components I had yet to consider.

Sorry for the grammar fail.. I am a little distracted at the moment.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but the evolutionary hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium might be something to read up about. Basic theory is that a species spends most of its time in stasis, and evolutionary advances occur rapidly, and is typically cladogenetic (one species branches off into a new species very quickly). Contrasting that idea is the theory of phyletic gradualism, which basically means evolution occurs pretty much constantly, in small steps.

I think it's a bit of both. Evolution is really just a change over time, and every species genome changes, for better or worse, with every new generation. Even if it's a minute change. We have witnessed a rapid change in evolution, though. The long term e. coli experiment showed a very rapid switch from being unable to use citrate as a carbon source, to being able to. Because e. coli reproduce asexually, speciation is less specific (there are no geological or physical means to prevent reproduction so that they can become completely new, separate species) , but it still is a very good example of just a very quick switch over from one thing to another.

I don't know how much this ties into what you're trying to research, exactly, but it's interesting nonetheless. I'm not really sure I understand what you're trying to research. Phenotypic plasticity is a species ability to adapt to changes in the environment. So you're curious if having more ability to adapt would correlate with their ability to adapt? Of course it would. As for advances, adaptations such as that may disappear after the change in the environment is no longer an issue, or it may continue on. It may even develop into something increasingly different over time. I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but nothing is impossible in the eye of evolution. :)

Darwin's theories were very gradualistic. However, given our limited span of perception in a single lifetime(or two, or three, or four thanks to visual cataloguing), not seeing species A develop different visible traits makes a more 'wham bam' evolutionary theory seem more appealing because of our inherent nature of "see it to believe it"ism. I've read up on punctuated equilibrium, and while I found the theory appealing, I just didn't see the evidence to back it. ALTHOUGH TO BE FAIR, we don't have an extensive amount of evidence backing evolution, either. Well, not enough to make it a conclusive theory(like gravity), it's just widely accepted because we have some persuasive evidence and not a ton to the contrary. So my personal preference is gradualism but folks should definitely read up on punct. eq. There's a lot of zoological books out there(Especially ones in recent memory) that include this theory and sometimes some anecdotal evidence.

If you're interested, media, I have a buttload of zoology/biology texts you're welcome to borrow.

"we don't have an extensive amount of evidence backing evolution, either."

Heh. What? There is a mountain of evidence for evolution. Evolution is one of the most extensively documented theories out there, and it's one of the few without any real opposing theories--creationism does not count as a theory. Even gravity has its opposing theories, and differing explanations. And it touches a multitude of sciences. It is the basis of every life science. You can't begin to understand biology or life itself without having an understanding of evolution.

Sorry, forgot to mention: The Cambrian Explosion is one of the reasons punctuated equilibrium is still considered a possibility. Around 530 million years ago, pretty much everything went from simple to complex, and started to diversify. There have been other, smaller explosion events as well, but most of the niches were already filled by the Cambrian explosion. And that's pretty much how evolution works: if there's a niche, it gets filled. Without those empty niches, we're less likely to have anything rapidly develop to fill them, but when one does open up, we get a jump in evolution. Hence why I said I kind of think it's both. An environment that's maintaining itself (relatively) will be subject to phyletic gradualism. But if humans were suddenly wiped out, a jump in evolution would probably occur.

And I just realized, rereading your comment, that I'm probably telling you things you already know about. I know you're well-versed on this stuff, so I'm sorry if I came across as, I don't know, talking down to you or anything.

I just mean that evolution is still a theory because there isn't ENOUGH evidence to make it a conclusive, scientific fact. I doubt there will ever be enough, because of the 'I know what I see' line of thinking with people :) We're looking, though, and there's lots of maybe little things that convince specialists in their fields, but nothing big and impressive that will convince the public at large. Thus, it remains a theory for the time being!

Er... you do know that "theory" in scientific terms is just another word for "principle," yes? I mean, nearly everything is a theory. Gravity is a theory. Evolution, regardless of the amount of evidence we ever find, will always be a theory, because theories never become scientific laws--they're two totally different things. Theories are an explanation of an aspect of the world. Evolution explains why living things are the way they are. There's even a cell theory. It basically describes properties of cells. But we know for a fact that cells exist. Cell theory is still a theory, though.

No offense meant at all by this, but being educated in this subject, I'd hope that in the future you may reconsider subscribing to the idea that "evolution is just a theory." There is a big difference between the layman's theory and a scientific theory, and more people need to recognize this issue, because one of the most common arguments against evolution is that it's "just a theory." Not enough people recognize the semantics behind the word.

I think hard science and biological sciences view what a theory is differently, then. All of my A+P/microbio professors were very firm about the idea that scientific theories are constantly accumulating new evidence and require certain certainties to be codified as fact, and that all theories are left as theories because they aren't certainties, they just work for our understanding of the world at the time, as science is constantly evolving as our understanding of life changes.

I'm not saying evolution is 'just a theory', I'm saying that evolution is a scientific theory, which means there's still room for refinement of the theory as our understanding improves. That's my understanding of a theory. It means that what we believe evolution to be and what caused it is different than what people 20 or 30 years ago thought it was or what caused it, yeah? Not saying it's JUST A THEORY SO ITS NOT SOMETHING WE CANT TRUST IN BECAUSE (religious argument here). There could be a better explanation of what causes evolution than natural selection based on the most beneficial mutation for reproduction, right now the majority of evidence points towards natural selection based on mutation, but it could change. It doesn't mean it'll change our idea of evolution(Chimps -> People, Armored Fish -> Sharks, Dinosaurs - > Chickens), just how we got from A to B.

Okay okay okay. I get what you're saying now. I must have misinterpreted. When you said evolution, I thought you meant the idea of evolution itself, which there is definitely a consensus about. We know it's true and all. I think you actually just meant the mechanisms of evolution, then. So I get'cha. :)

Communication between the meat flaps and the thinkmeats breaks down pretty easily for me XD Thats why I resort to shouting a lot!

And its fine lol monsters just shout to communicate in garbled half sentient messages, sometimes I just shout things and it can be confusing as to what I'm really saying. I'm not sure if I know half the time.

You and I should just speak in expletives from now on. Fuck shit titty fart.

goddamnit cuntty fuck shit backfatqueef ripfart

Backfatqueef?? xD

I'm almost certain it is a real noise.

You never cease to amaze me. :) Good luck with the study.

I would look at the Theropod vs. Thecodont and Cursorial vs. Arboreal hypotheses of the evolution of dinosaurs to present day birds. The evolution of feathers and flight to what they are now and how diverse they have evolved. That is of course, unless you've already investigated it. :P Another area to look at would be insects. Entomology has some of the most amazing adaptations and most diverse organisms, as does Ornithology as I'm finding out.