Artificial evolution

[alxian]

i've noticed that humanity has sunken into a rut.. its now morally reprehensible to consider humans can/will ever evolve..

 

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Bioe/BioeMcGe.htm

 

do you think that with such things as these and eventually true genetic engineering on the scale of the dna artist (heinleins friday) that humanity may finally exceed itself?

[alxian]

vs natural evolution (in literature)

 

i've had an idea i've been trying to make into an epic novel..

 

it goes something like dragons egg meets war of the worlds meets the bible story of the prodigal son.

 

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the basic part i'm stuck with is how to have a species plausibly evolve in an extreme UV environment

 

essentially a poison to life as we know it UV radiation could be used as an extremely potent element in the metobolism of life forms not succeptible to its intensity..

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do any of you think that given enough time to evovle that a species could evolve mechanisms to metabolize UV radiation.. the whole idea though would be that this energy source in a very high abundance would create vast amounts of energy for the species that evovled the necessary mechanisms to harness UV.. also it would give them an unnatural advantage over the rest of the life forms who could not adapt immediately but that also did not perish given that they could pray on the evolved animals and thus absorb at least the miracle chemical and survive through a predator-pray relationship.

[pgrmdave]

If there is anything that I've learned in biology, it is that life will find a way to survive. No matter what, even if many species die, life as a whole will continue. So yes, I believe that eventually a species would evolve to be able to harness the energy. But nature also nearly always takes the quick and easy route, not the best. So if there is an easier way to evolve, nature will select that. As for the nonevolution of humans, it is because there is no real natural selection. Unless large groups of similar population begin to die for some reason, there won't be any evolution in any species.

[Tormod]

If there is anything that I've learned in biology, it is that life will find a way to survive.

The problem as I see it is that in the scenario described by alxian life would have a hard time getting a foothold in the first place, as the location is swamped with deadly radiation.

 

So there would not be any life which could adapt.

 

But maybe life could have evolved there prior to some even which cause the radiation? Like a blown-away atmosphere or something.

[pgrmdave]

well, if the radiation increased slowly, more like a gradual eating away of the ozone, then life could adapt slowly enough to be able to cope with it, although not really thrive. After thousands of years of the weakest dying and the strongest reproducing, the changes that alxian is looking for may have occured.

[pgrmdave]

But I do agree that if it was a sudden change, nearly all of the life on the world would die off, but you would still be left with subterranean and deep ocean life that would be able to evolve to live on land, just like it did millions of years ago.

[Tormod]

True. And maybe that is exactly what we will find on Mars.

[pgrmdave]

Are there any signs that there was life on Mars? I know that they recently proved there was liquid water, but were there signs of life?

[alxian]

i was sure that a new planet as i had described it would not have any form of atmosphere to speak of until a life form was succesful enough to coat the surface of the planet or ocean anduse their metabolisms to break down either rock or dihydrous oxide to form an atmosphere, that is in addition to their being a strong enough garvity filed being generated by the mass of the home planet to hold that fledgling atmosphere in place..

 

for the pruposes of my fiction no the planet is not immediately bathed in UV, in fact the planet would develop its slimes and then microbiotic life, then as on earth once creature turn to aerobic metabolisms live would explode both on land and sea.

 

afte which huge creatures would dominated the land and sea feeding on any and everything creating mroe and more consumable biomass.

 

but eventually the UV would start to creep in, killing off all life not able to adapt to it. i'm just trying to figure out which forms of life have the best chance of survival, micro or macro biotic life forms..

 

assuming the thick skinned animals scar they would be the best candidates, but what if all their prey dies out? they would starve. if the prey survive but the hunters die out, the prey having adapted to a faster birth rate would experience population explosions and starve themselves as well (unless they evolve canabalism). if everything but micro biotic life dies then you'd be facing a huge time gap for evolution to create macros again..

[alxian]

also i was wondering what a plant that used UV instead of IR would look like..

 

herbert said they would bepurple.. but i think it would be more important to think of the actual chemistry to have the most perfect fiction. (thats actually possible)

[pgrmdave]

Well, what makes green the optimum color for plants on earth?

[pgrmdave]

If you can answer that, then you have a better chance of understanding what a plant would need to do to absord a higher energy light wave.

[alxian]

i don't believe chlorophyll is green.. i.e. cartenoids are also light absorbing but not as effective as chlorophyll, which means there could be an even better compound that plants have yet to evolve a tolorence for... and humans and application for. no doubt we know of one or more.

 

its just one of the healthiest derivations of that form of metabolism. the green colour

 

as i said eslewhere herbert postulated that a plant species capable of metaboliszing raw radiation would be purple.. not to mention highly potent.. poisonous.

 

there would also be the question of efficiency and what other benefits can be derived form the photo reactive chemical... it must be solvent in the cell and non toxic.. or at leat non toxic in the environment of the cell, which could be adapted to remove or ignore any latent toxicity so long as that immunity is energy efficient