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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (41314)	6/21/1999 4:53:00 AM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

There are several ways that new species (or noninterbreeding varieties) can be created. Backcrossing, to regain a gene that has dropped out can create a new variety, but the difficulty is in backcrossing two species with different numbers of chromosomes. Lab work can insert non-coexisting genes in many varieties today. We can produce human insulin in rats by inserting the right human genes into rats. Production is taking place in other animals now. The "natural" way of change is mutation of a a gene (usually by energetic radiation, gamma-rays, x-rays, or cosmic protons. Most mutations are dysfunctional. Occasionally one has survival value (such as the set of brain-size doubling genes in Homo erectus 1.3 million years ago. A fluke. Most of the big-brained infants probably died at birth along with their small hipped mothers in agony. Some made it through. God they were ugly! Huge big domes, instead of those sleek ape heads everyone loved so much, with heavy brow ridges and stupid apish looks in their beady eyes.