It would be nice if most if not all diseases were cured and never existed but some good has come out of diseases I suppose. I was surprised when someone suggested that a virus is what sparked human evolution which makes since. There are viruses that can alter your genetic make-up and I always wondered how a T-rex equates to a chicken ( there actually cousins ). Yet many have died from diseases and viruses just the same. Sure it helped us to advance in life but it also ends the life so is diseases and viruses like a double edged sword. Could one disease help combat another ( vaccines are nothing but the disease injected into you so that your body will develope antibodies)? Just food for thought.
Whether they're 'good or bad' really depends on your viewpoint. For example, a smallpox virus causing the death of a person is 'bad' for the person, but 'good' for the virus. From a human perspective though (which i assume is what you are thinking about), diseases and viruses are a nuisance. The only positive effects from a human point of view would be the development of technologies (eg, Penicillin) derived or inspired by them, immunity from those strains of diseases and viruses, and the use of them in making things and GE (eg, commercial production of Insulin for diabetics.) Ehh, a few things i have qualms about.. yea, i know, i'm a fag > 1) Viruses didn't spark human evolution, humans evolved from single celled organisms if you extrapolate far enough, as did modern viruses. Its just that viruses have changed less. Theres also dispute over whether viruses are actually living or not. 2)'cousins' is a funny choice of word :lol: 3)As far as I know, you cannot use one disease to combat another directly, but i guess what you learn from one could help you combat another. Viruses DO infect bacteria though, and that sort of thing, but it would probably be rather impractical for medical use.
Most people would agree that viruses are non-living. Viruses can only reproduce by infecting a living cell, by injecting their genetic material into it and using that cells' parts. So without another living cell, they cannot reproduce. They don't show other signs that classify a thing as living.And viruses have been a contributing factor to human evolution.(see below). And it is thanks to bacteria that we are able to produce large quantities of insulin. I wouldn't say viruses sparked human evolution, but they have been a factor of human evolution. There have been many factors contributing to the human form we have now. Evolution is (I'm following Charles Darwin here) pretty much natural selection, survival of the fittest, which is when favourable traits are passed onto offspring, and become more and more common along generations. These traits are caused by mutation. Now, viruses can be a cause of mutation, but other mutagens that have affected evolution is radiation, error in cell division, or chemical mutagens, and transposons, which are parts of dna that can move around the genome in a cell. So yes, viruses and the others are listed as mutagens, which cause mutation, which causes traits that are passed on. So an example is giraffes. Due to natural selection, the giraffes that had longer necks (a favourable trait) may have been able to get more leaves from taller trees. The one with shorter necks may not have been able to survive, so the ones with longer necks survived and passed on that trait to their offspring. In similar ways have we evolved to be different from apes. We didn't evolve from apes and chimpanzees, but we did have a common ancestor. You could say that with the T.Rex and the chicken. Birds are thought to have evolved from dinosaurs, over the course of millions of years. Hmmm...diseases advancing life...diseases lets us have a stronger immunity response, but if it wasn't for diseases, we wouldn't need an immune response. Diseases may have let us become stronger as a whole but it has killed too many people in the process. I suppose if we were going to invade other planets, an immune response may become handy. (War of the Worlds...read it!!!!or watch it) I wouldn't call disease a double edged sword, we'd have been better without it. If you catch chicken pox as a kid, that means you won't catch it as an adult, which is a good thing. But if didn't exist in the first place, there wouldn't be a need for it. Chicken pox hasn't actually given you anything more, we'd have just been better off without it Vaccines aren't the disease that's injected into your body. Most vaccines (not all of them) are the microorganisms (usually viruses) that cause the disease, and you can't catch the disease from those microorganisms. So viruses are helpful in that they can develop an immune response so that you can't catch that virus, but It isn't one disease helping combat another. If you take a Hepatitis B vaccine, it isn't going to help protect you against the flu. And vice versa. First of all, yes, certain viruses infect bacteria. They are called bacteriophage. They are useful for medical use, you might want to google up phage therapy. I do know of one disease helping combat another, and also has had an effect on evolution, but doesn't involve viruses. But even in this example, we would be better if none of the diseases existed. The example would be the effect of the genetic disease sickle cell anemia on malaria. Malaria is caused by parasites that reproduce in your red blood cells, causing many bad symptoms, including death in the extreme. It is carried by mosquitoes. Sickle cell anemia is when you inherit (i'll try to simplify it) a sickle cell allele (specific sequence of DNA) from a parent, and another sickle cell allele from another parent. Sickle cell anemia produces malformed blood cells, and people who have it usually don't live to adulthood. Sickled red blood cells are usually destroyed quickly. If a person that only has one allele with sickle cell disease, and another normal allele, that person will only produce some sickled red blood cells. When the malaria virus infects the diseased RBCs to try to reproduce, they usually get destroyed along with the red blood cell. So the amount of malaria parasites is always kept low, to the point where that person is either not affected, or only affected a little bit. So due to malaria, a person with a normal and sickle cell allele is able to survive better than a person who has two normal alleles, and is then able to pass that sickle cell allele onto their offspring. So yeah, this is an example where one disease, in a way helps combat another, but you would be better off without both diseases. So I guess that we would be better off without diseases, and the only good that has come from diseases is to counteract the damage that diseases cause.
Yeah, I get a carried away, cause this is the stuff we learned in university, and this...is pretty much the first time i've ever been able to apply it. in this forum that is. And bacteria may cause many diseases, but not all bacteria are bad. Like sprite said, they are used for production of insulin, but they also help animals survive. Termites have a certain bacteria in their gut that lets them digest fibre. Without that bacteria, they wouldn't be able to live, and the animals that eat that termite would have to go to another food source, which may have competition by another animal. Which could ruin that certain ecosystem. So not all bacteria are bad, try drinking a Yakult. Bacteria is more like the double edged sword, rather than diseases. They help protect you from other more harmful bacteria, and also aid in digestion of food. So we couldn't survive without bacteria.
I just mentioned that because I took anatomy and my teacher told us that a vaccine is just the disease but what you mentioned is sort of the same thing as it being the disease, but not really. But you bring up a good point of if there were no diseases then no immunity would be needed. I just thought about how people have allergies ( that's not a disease is it) to various things and how a immunity is needed for things besides dieases and such. But now I want to bring into quesion does anyone know where or how exactly diseases sprang forth. Of course there would need to be certain conditions to help it breed but I want to say bacteria plays a small part since various things can come from bacteria. Bacteria in water will ceate something different from bacteria in the air.
If you have a disease, it basically means theres a micro-organism trying to kill you (ehh, a bit dramatic, but along those things). In this sense, the disease is a predator, preying on your cells, in more or less the same way that lions eat gazelles - except lions don't multiply as quickly. So to answer when diseases sprang forth: a long time ago, when the first multi-cellular organism was attacked by swarms of angry potatoes... erm, i mean bacteria.
Well, disease is really something in an organism (be it plant or animal) that affects the way they function. So a disease could alter the way you digest food, or could cause discomfort. It doesn't always have to be an attack by bacteria, there are many other causes of disease. Not eating enough vitamin C causes scurvy, smoking can cause lung cancer. Bacteria would be a biological cause, but there are others. Disease have a huge range of effects. You can't say that they kill you, because they might not affect cells directly. I mean, cancer is a disease that causes abnormal growth of cells. Fragile X syndrome is a genetic disease that could cause mental retardation, due to a certain protein not being expressed because the thing that causes it's production is inactivated. So there are many diseases that do destroy cells, but disease is not limited to that. It would be hard to determine the origin of diseases because so many things cause diseases.
The world is overpopulated. Disease is like bacteria, life ( not the one you live), it needs certain conditions inorder to thrive. Humans came from bacteria. Various life comes from bacteria if the conditions are good. I have seen bacteria grow for several weeks and it did start to look like new life but of course the world ( maybe humans) aren't ready for that and get rid of it before it grows into something more. If the disease can grow inside of you then you are the source of the disease. You provide the neccesary conditions for the disease to flourish although certan things contribute to its development. Diseases are "bad", clearly but I should have said is bacteria good or bad. It is what has bred humans as well as viruses ( no offense to religious people, I respect your views). I would say that bacteria is "good" overall.
Uhhh.....like I said before, there are different causes of diseases. Bacteria can cause disease. Various life comes from bacteria? Bacteria comes from bacteria. You say the world aren't ready for bacteria? Bacteria have existed for milions of years before us, and will continue to exist long after we've gone. They can survive in a huge range of conditions that we just can't. Bacteria is good and bad. You can't live with some of them, you can't live without some of them. You need to understand what disease is, and the differences between disease, bacteria and viruses.
Sweetie, I said "new life", life not put into a category of non-human, or something that goes beyond humans. Humans ( military of course) fears something like that because they think it will be like them and want to kill. I made of mistake of saying disease is like rather than disease is from. I know the difference of viruses, diseases, and bacteria. As well as the SIMILARITIES. Science is basically name-calling ( not ofensive ), like this will be called that. They can show why and explains why with evidence. Yet we are behind from what earlier scientists have learned. Not European scientists because they never had the right tools or resources ( tlking about past here and maybe a bit of present). Of course bacteria creates bacteria since the first step is self-creation, sort of like cloning but not. Humans don't originate from Earth ( not saying they existed on another planet but the basic composition was in another place ). Once humans got here ( not realy human at the time but a single cell organism ) the different exposure led to its development as well as downfall. Coming to a new place means exposure to new things that can attack an immune system that has never experienced it before ( sort of like small pox to african and malaria to european, the african have better defense to malaria as does european to smallpox, please excuse me if I chose the wrong historical diseases). But exposure to new things also meant growth to survive in the new place ( lot of sun, darker skin, or to protect eyes, double folds over eyes). If you need clarity let me know.
Thanks for calling me sweetie. I think you are a sugary substance as well. If you're referring that bacteria producing new life, yes. All living things do it. It's called reproduction. And of course we have to fear bacteria. We're running out of antibiotics. The many things we use, such as plasmid transferral, overprescription of antibiotics, animal feeding of antibiotics, antibacterial household cleaning products and transposition of antibiotic resistant genes have created very nasty bacteria resistant to most antibiotics. So in the process of us killing them before they could grow into something, we have created even more tougher bacteria. An example of this was in Denmark, in 1993. 22kg of vanomycin (an antibiotic) was used for humans, and 19000kg of avoparcin was used on animals. Since those two antibiotics are closely related, there became a resistance to vanomycin by the bacteria. So bacteria was found in the food. So yeah, we should fear bacteria. Uhhh...no. Science is not just name calling. It's a way of gaining more knowledge, based on scientific methods, and adding to the totality of science through research. Yes, we do name things. But that's to simplify compicated descriptions. When you add a phosphate group to glucose, it becomes phosphorylated. You wouldn't call it "adding a phosphate group to it" in a report. I'm not sure what you mean by "we are behind from what earlier scientists have learned." Because we are in front of what earlier scientists have learned. They gain knowledge, and scientists after those scientists use that knowledge. Bacteria reproduce by binary fission. Not cloning. But since you were so vague as to say "sort of like cloning but not" you could get away with that. Look, if you are saying life began on another planet, that's just a theory. There are many theories on how life began. "Primitive" extraterrestrial life such as the one you mentioned is but one. There is not one model that has been proven, and many different types of evidence support different theories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_ ... ent_models if you read this, you'll find out that the "Primitive" extraterrestrial life theory is not the main theory of how life on earth originated, in fact, it is listed under the "other" models. As for your theory, those 'pre-humans' wouldn't even have a immune system. The exposure to new things would mean different growth, it is part of evolution, as i did mention before, but your examples aren't accurate for these primitive organisms. They wouldn't even have eyes. And if I need you to clarify something, it wouldn't have to be the theories you bring up, but it would rather be on the grammar and spelling that can make a point unclear.
[ I put the ... at the end of you quote to imply that there is more. I was not talking about the theories already set by others. Also when I said the eye thing it was not for the earlier forms but rather after the later, closer to, final stages of developement. When I was taking about exposure it was appying to in general for various living-organisms rather than just humans. What I have posted has come from my own ideals an not the ones set by others although they are similar if not the same ( great minds think alike ). I come to my ideas based off of evidence that I have found. If you put an organism into water than the exposure to that environment will have a effect on its developement. This is evolution and is where I am coming from. You test bacteria and other organism in various conditions and see what happens. Do you find my grammer and spelling to make things unclear because you had a slight misspelling before but it didn't affect what you were saying. Probably depends on the person and what they are reading that determines the understanding.
If you're talking about lack of resistance, that isn't the case with bacteria and antibiotics. We humans are unwittingly breeding super bacteria, and in the future will run out of ways to fight them. Yes, what I post is my ideals. And when you posted that theory about life coming from another planet, you could have stated it was a theory. Not like it was a fact. And great minds may think alike, but so do mediocre and sub par minds, not that i'm impying you are anything of the like, mind you. And yes, I have tested bacteria and other organisms in various conditions. It was in this subject http://www.unimelb.edu.au/HB/subjects/652-216.html So I am aware of exposing microorganisms to various things. Look, I may have had a slight misspelling before, but it's not large enough to change the meaning. And my grammar is at a level that it's understandable. Your first post of viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13141&hilit= thread was a little confusing.
I hope I didn't miss post somewhere but I have put in parenthesis that I was NOT SAYING HUMAN COME FROM ANOTHER PLANET. But earth has come from another planet or what was once a living planet ( I'm sure you know what I am talking about ). I was saying that the basic components comes from somewhere else. The early bacteria would have to be powerful if they could survive traveling in space unless it was enclosed in something that could prevent the lack of oxygen and the pull or other planets. It would also need something, like water, to have been moved along with it to in its casing for it to have made it, if the distance was great. I will start adding better spacing and try to word myself more clearly. Also I should probably try not to do the whole point being made followed by outrageous example routine. I find that you will find a familiar word sometimes and go on that. I see why I would explain something and you would miss interpret because of the way I wrote it. Not saying that you don't read anything, because I'm sure you do. It just to me that sometimes it seems like you don't get the entire picture I'm trying to paint because I paint various sections at the same time so that it is harder to see what the end result is going to be.
No, I wasn't implying that you were implying that humans came from another planet.Let me quote you again. You said that life didn't originate from earth. You said that a single celled organism arrived on Earth. That is a theory, which you didn't mention. What you put in parenthesis was just that you were saying it wasn't humans that was from another planet, which I did understand. If you're talking about big bang nucleosynthesis, then yeah, I know where you're coming from. Well many bacteria don't use oxygen. In fact, when bacteria began life on earth (via another planet or from organic molecules becoming protocells) the more common model is that oxygen was extremely scarce. And the bacteria could have just been in the sediment. Bacteria are everywhere, especially in dirt. Plants need the bacteria for it's denitrifying ability. Thanks!
So the bacteria that other living creature, or non living, could have possibly came from a bacteria that does not require oxygen. Various bacteria needs various things to substain its existence. Of course it is known that humans are very young in how long its been around. So the earliest bacteria must have spent most of its time making the Earth plentiful in its resources. Forming and developing various objects and creatures and of these creatures came others that has change according to the "Survival of the Fittest" theory. Humans have come from animals ( I know about the whole monkey thing but this theory is heading more into others ). Not implying that cells have minds of there own but it seem that various cells have different needs. The lungs ( many cells-> tissue->organ) in many creatures uses oxygen, although more than that is inhaled and extracted while gills extract oxygen and other gases from water. Yet again conditions triggering developement. I have a question about babies. They are surmerged in water fro several months and I was just wondering why many humans cannot do the same today. Of course when babies come out then they need to be checked if they can breathe and if anything is wrong with the lungs but does what makes humans able to thrive in water atill around in more aged humans which brings out the title of "human mermaids" for peopel who can stay underwater for serveral minutes although they can't actually breathe the oxygen. Of course training can help in increasing lung compacity but what if there was a way to make lungs functional in and out of water without the extra weight on your back and the mask?
There are still bacteria in the world that don't require oxygen. The earliest bacteria...well...they spend most of their time using the resources that are there, and reproduce. As a byproduct they produce other resources. But it wasn't their intention to produce resources for others. Cells pretty much have minds of their own, not in the literal sense. It is regulated by signals and hormones and enzymes, but they all run pretty smoothly. They don't require us to choose whether to create more red blood cells or not. Many humans? I don't know of any humans that have been submerged in water as long as pregnancy takes. The reason babies can survive in the womb is because of the placenta. The placenta will provide the baby (along with many other things) oxygenated blood, and will remove deoxygenated blood. That's why you need to be careful on what drugs you take when pregnant. Some harmful substances can travel through the placenta. And in some cases, if a certain baby's blood passes into the mother, the mother will create antibodies that pass into the baby via the placenta that may destroy the baby's red blood cells. It's called rhesus disease. As for humans living in the water, you're asking if we had gills (pretty much) would we be all right? Well, our skin helps control our body temperature. It will sweat to cool our body through evaporation. If we didn't get enough sunlight, we could die because the skin produces vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. But this has gotten quite off topic. I reckon we'd be fine for a little while, living underwater. But for long term living, unless we made specific technology to compensate for the effects of the environment, i don't think we can.