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Author Topic:   Is everything made of the same material?
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 1 of 45 (401047)
05-18-2007 1:36 AM


Hello everybody, this is my first post! I’m a little nervous!
I have a question about evolution and how it occurs. Having had very little biological education in the past - my biology class consisted of reading a textbook, filling out a worksheet, and then discussing football and movies - I hope I can educate myself at this site. I’ll try to take the position as a student.
Let’s start at the beginning of life, with an organism called “X”. Theoretically, you can take the genetic material of X and mutate it, eventually forming a redwood tree, or a dog. This would take billions of years, and it would involve artificial selection instead of natural selection. It would also be improbable due to human constraints, but it's possible.
My question may sound stupid, but here it is: If you start out with X, and you end with a redwood tree, where did all that material come from? How can you go from X to bark and leaves and branches, etc.? Surely trees and bacteria aren’t made of the same material?
I think I have an explanation: Even the bark and the leaves are “planned” by DNA strands, and these strands can order the organism to gather materials. So DNA may be like the boss telling his employees to gather the buns and meat and fry a hamburger. He doesn’t contain the materials, but he gives orders to gather them. Is this on the right track?
Thanks for any help!!

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Modulous, posted 05-18-2007 2:18 AM taylor_31 has replied
 Message 4 by Doddy, posted 05-18-2007 3:26 AM taylor_31 has replied
 Message 23 by IamJoseph, posted 07-11-2007 6:03 AM taylor_31 has not replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 5 of 45 (401368)
05-19-2007 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Modulous
05-18-2007 2:18 AM


Thanks for your reply, it was very helpful!
Modulous writes:
Also, remember that life is built out of proteins, which are basically made in the same way (by chaining approximately 20 amino acids together in various different ways).
If life is made of roughly twenty proteins, then the chain holding them together should be very long, correct? So if each "link" in the chain has twenty possibilities, then the total number of possibilities grows very high. (20 x 20 x 20 x 20 etc.) This would account for the diversity in life, wouldn't it?
Modulous writes:
The DNA contains the recipe for which amino acids are combined together and thus which proteins are made
I read in The Blind Watchmaker that DNA is translated into RNA and then into amino acids. So DNA is made of nucleotides, and when they are transcribed, they "order" the amino acids in their places. These acids make up proteins, the basis of life. Is this right?
It's mind-boggling (for me) to think that proteins can have that much effect on life. Once the proteins are there, what happens? How do they directly effect the life process? If they are "instructions" of some sort, then what is reading them?
Again, thanks for any help!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Modulous, posted 05-18-2007 2:18 AM Modulous has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by crashfrog, posted 05-19-2007 1:09 PM taylor_31 has replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 6 of 45 (401370)
05-19-2007 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Doddy
05-18-2007 3:26 AM


Thanks for the good post, it was very helpful!
Doddy writes:
Mostly, as you mention later in your post, from 'gathering' from the environment.
That makes sense. I didn't think that mutation could generate that much "new" material on its own.
So gathering material must have been beneficial to the DNA in some way. Could this have been from food consumption? Or possibly protection?
Doddy writes:
We, plants and bacteria are all carbon-based lifeforms, meaning we are all made of chemical compounds comprised mostly of carbon, (with significant amounts of nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen).
So even the nucleotides of DNA are formed of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and hydrogen, right? A broader question is, is everything in the known universe made of elements from the periodic table?
Sorry if I seem twisted in knots. Biology has always had that effect on me.

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 Message 4 by Doddy, posted 05-18-2007 3:26 AM Doddy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Coragyps, posted 05-19-2007 1:15 PM taylor_31 has not replied
 Message 9 by crashfrog, posted 05-19-2007 1:23 PM taylor_31 has not replied
 Message 20 by AnswersInGenitals, posted 05-21-2007 12:13 AM taylor_31 has not replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 10 of 45 (401449)
05-20-2007 1:42 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by crashfrog
05-19-2007 1:09 PM


Thank you for the helpful post, it was very interesting.
crashfrog writes:
It's like having a box with 20 different kinds of Legos in it, and you can make whatever you want by hooking the Legos together, and you basically have as many of each kind of Lego that you need.
Okay, so each protein is made of twenty different kinds of amino acids. The exact number making up the protein, however, doesn't have to be exactly twenty. There could be scores of amino acids, but each one is one of the twenty kinds, correct?
crashfrog writes:
In reality, living things employ only a very small number of all the possible proteins, because the majority of "random" proteins have no chemical function at all.
So should we find useless proteins in our bodies? Or is DNA so precise that there are none? I suppose that natural selection may have ruled out the DNA that gave instructions for useless proteins.
To draw back to my point in the OP, you could manipulate the DNA instructions to build a multitude of proteins. These proteins are the building blocks of all life, whether for bacteria or a redwood tree. The difference between the two is that the proteins for each species do different functions, correct? So the proteins for the redwood tree perform different functions from the bacteria proteins. Furthermore, every transitional from the bacteria to the redwood is a result of random mutation in the DNA instructions and natural selection, and each transitional is a fully functional species. Is this correct?
Also, theoretically, if we had the transitional "steps" from the two species, could we see a slight, successive change in the DNA instructions?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by crashfrog, posted 05-19-2007 1:09 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Nuggin, posted 05-20-2007 1:58 AM taylor_31 has replied
 Message 12 by Doddy, posted 05-20-2007 2:31 AM taylor_31 has replied
 Message 13 by crashfrog, posted 05-20-2007 12:59 PM taylor_31 has replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 14 of 45 (401534)
05-20-2007 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Nuggin
05-20-2007 1:58 AM


Re: Junk in the trunk
Nuggin writes:
If you have a bit of junk DNA which has no real effect on your ability to reproduce (either for or against), chances are natural selection is gonna let that one slip on by.
Okay, that makes sense. But you said only "a bit" of junk DNA. Would large pieces of junk DNA be selected against? I would think so because competing DNA strands might be more efficient by having less "junk".
Thanks for your help!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Nuggin, posted 05-20-2007 1:58 AM Nuggin has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Doddy, posted 05-20-2007 8:24 PM taylor_31 has not replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 15 of 45 (401539)
05-20-2007 2:48 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Doddy
05-20-2007 2:31 AM


Thanks for the great post, it was very educational!
Doddy writes:
Organisms of course have evolved to live with this, so they have structures (also proteins) we call 'chaperones' to refold the proteins, and 'proteasomes' to break up those damaged beyond repair, so they can be recycled.
That's really amazing. It seems that the microbiological world is similar to the world we live in (plants, animals, etc.) but on a much smaller level. Natural selection must be equally potent in that world if it's so complex.
Did this "micro" complexity arise like our ecosystem did, which was through random mutation (with exceptions, like you and crashfrog pointed out) and natural selection? (This might be a poorly worded question because that "micro" world is part of our ecosystem, but I'm talking about the "big" world. It seems that the "micro" world has its own ecosystem, with predators and the like.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by Doddy, posted 05-20-2007 2:31 AM Doddy has not replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 16 of 45 (401543)
05-20-2007 3:06 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by crashfrog
05-20-2007 12:59 PM


Thank you for the effort you put into that post. It was a very interesting read!
crashfrog writes:
What happened was, in the distant past, an organism like a bacteria literally absorbed a smaller, different organism into its cell, but instead of digesting it, they because dependent on each other.
If the bacteria-like organism "absorbed" the smaller organism, how did the smaller organism appear in the descendants? When the bacteria-like organism reproduces , will the smaller organism appear in the new bacteria, or will it have to absorb another one?
My superficial guess is that the mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own reproductive process, and when the bacteria reproduce, the mitochondria and chloroplasts do the same somehow. Is this right?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by crashfrog, posted 05-20-2007 12:59 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Doddy, posted 05-20-2007 8:38 PM taylor_31 has not replied
 Message 19 by crashfrog, posted 05-20-2007 10:30 PM taylor_31 has not replied

  
taylor_31
Member (Idle past 5924 days)
Posts: 86
From: Oklahoma!
Joined: 05-14-2007


Message 22 of 45 (401763)
05-22-2007 12:34 AM


Thank you everybody for all the help. I believe that I have a stronger understanding of this issue and I will continue in my spare time to research it, and I will also read the information that everybody has provided.
With Zoology looming in the approaching semester, I'm going to need every piece of knowledge I can get.

  
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