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Pastimes : History's effect on Religion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (63)	5/7/2003 4:23:58 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 520

On Sperm and Competition...Zonder may want to make note of the second section. There is even a book on the subject amazon.com The grander conclusions of the book are in dispute but I have not found anyone negating the premises...besides, I've actually seen footage of them in action...btw, Z, I am including this part for your benefit and that of all men and women who engage in sex <vbg> plannedparenthood.org states that "Sperm in the cervical mucus of a woman's vagina can survive for up to seven days." ST A startling insight into the evolution of human mating behavior has been extracted from the dry DNA data generated by the federal human genome project. The genes involved in sperm production have been evolving at a much faster rate than most other human genes, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Nature by Dr. Chung-I Wu and colleagues at the University of Chicago. The finding implies that, at least in the human evolutionary past, women generally had many sexual partners, enough that the males' sperm needed to compete with one another. shamema.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even book reviews can yield delightful anomalies. Take, for example, the January Scientific American review of Human Sperm Competition, by R.R. Baker and M.A. Bellis. Baker and Bellis have advanced the Kamikaze-Sperm Hypothesis. (SF#78) Central to this idea is the observation that the sperm of many animals, including humans, are polymorphic. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, some of which are patently unsuited for penetrating an egg. Baker and Bellis draw upon their own studies and classifications of sperm types as well as research by R.A. Beatty and D. Ralt. They assert that sperm come in at least four varieties: "Fertilizers," the egg-penetration specialists, "Blockers," the ones that construct copulatory plugs to prevent further insemination, "Search-and destroy sperm" that hunt down as kill "enemy" sperm from other sources, "Family-planning sperm" that kill all sperm. One can liken this array of sperm types to polymorphic ant colonies with their castes of workers, soldiers, and queen. Baker and Bellis go further and suggest that the numbers of each sperm type are under the control (certainly not conscious control) of the males. For example, where promiscuity is observed, as is common in chimpanzee troops, the numbers of seek-and-destroy sperm are very high. All this out of a short review! Unfortunately, the book itself lists at $78.95, and we don't have a copy. (Sozou, Peter D.; "Mating Games," Scientific American, 274:102, January 1996) Comments. Exercising self control, we add only two comments. First, these specialized sperm cannot be as simple as those drawn in the biology books. The search-and-destroy type must have evolved biochemical "devices" that find, identify, and destroy other sperm and maybe even defend itself. Second, one should not ignore the eggs, which are much larger and likely more sophisticated. The receptivity of the eggs may be influenced (perhaps not unconsciously) by the female. science-frontiers.com

To: Volsi Mimir who wrote (63)	5/7/2003 4:33:24 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 520

> The belief in after life is ingrained in our genes Only if you are taught......... You should know me better than that. I don't make claims that I don't think I can find objective reasoning to support them. Since prehistoric times and going back to early humanoids, have had ritual burials and have buried the objects dear to the deceased next to him. The only reasonable explanation is that they believed in after life. And since these rituals are before anything close to what we call religion could have existed, I'd say we have a genetic predisposition to such beliefs. ST