are we all Jedi knights?

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by leftwingtaoist, Dec 19, 2011.

  1. leftwingtaoist

    leftwingtaoist Valued Member

    Scientists are beginning to wander if the old definition of what is human can still be applied.
    Are we a complex multi cell organism which is a constantly being attacked by viruses, bacteria and fungi?
    Or are we just a transport vehicle and a food gathering device for the same viruses, bacteria and fungi?
    Or are we just a complex multi cell organism which partially consists of what we used to call our cells and partially of viruses, bacteria and fungi, where all of these cells play their own important part in this complex multi organism system?

    1. If we carry in and on our body 10 times more bacterial cells than our own cells, if the power producing part of our own cells, mitochondria, are actually microorganisms prokaryotes which live inside our cells
    2. if numerous other bacteria and viruses also can enter and continue to live inside our cells,
    3. if 8 percent of our dna material is of viral origin which shows that viruses influenced our own evolution,
    4. if human dna sequences are found in bacterial dna which shows that bacteria used our own dna to make themselves more adopted to deal with us as a host,
    5. if parasites, bacteria, viruses and fungi can influence and control our immune, endocrine, nervous, digestive and all the other subsystems, if they can change our behavior
    Where do we stop and where do “they” start?

    So the question is: are we all Jedi knights? :)
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2011
  2. leftwingtaoist

    leftwingtaoist Valued Member

    1.
    ScienceDaily (June 3, 2008) — The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human are estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1. Changes in these microbial communities may be responsible for digestive disorders, skin diseases, gum disease and even obesity. Despite their vital imporance in human health and disease, these communities residing within us remain largely unstudied and a concerted research effort needs to be made to better understand them, say researchers June 3 at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston.
    "This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease. In order to understand how changes in normal bacterial populations affect or are affected by disease we first have to establish what normal is or if normal even exists," says Margaret McFall Ngai of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

    2.
    Mitochondria are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of chemical energy. In addition to supplying cellular energy, mitochondria are involved in a range of other processes, such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth. Mitochondria are also believed to be actually microorganisms which just live inside our cells.
    Mitochondria have many features in common with prokaryotes. As a result, they are believed to be originally derived from endosymbiotic prokaryotes.
    A mitochondrion contains DNA, which is organized as several copies of a single, circular chromosome. This mitochondrial chromosome contains genes for redox proteins such as those of the respiratory chain. The CoRR hypothesis proposes that this co-location is required for redox regulation. The mitochondrial genome codes for some RNAs of ribosomes, and the twenty-two tRNAs necessary for the translation of messenger RNAs into protein. The circular structure is also found in prokaryotes, and the similarity is extended by the fact that mitochondrial DNA is organized with a variant genetic code similar to that of Proteobacteria. This suggests that their ancestor, the so-called proto-mitochondrion, was a member of the Proteobacteria. In particular, the proto-mitochondrion was probably closely related to the rickettsia. However, the exact relationship of the ancestor of mitochondria to the alpha-proteobacteria and whether the mitochondria was formed at the same time or after the nucleus, remains controversial.
    A recent study by researchers of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the Oregon State University, seems to indicate that SAR11 could be the ancestor of mitochondrion existing in most eukaryotic cells.

    3.
    8 Percent of Human Genome Was Inserted By Virus, and May Cause Schizophrenia. The rise of psychopharmacology has led doctors to not only treat mental illnesses like regular diseases, but think of them as such as well. Turns out, schizophrenia may be more than just a disease in concept, but actually a virus itself. According to new research, as much as eight percent of the human genome consists of viruses that inserted themselves into our DNA for replication, including the gene that causes schizophrenia.
    Writing in this week's issue of the journal Nature, Cédric Feschotte, a professor of biology at the University of Texas, Arlington, explains how traces of animal virus DNA *found by Keizo Tomonaga, a professor at Osaka University, Japan, may form the genes for schizophrenia and other mood disorders.
    By spreading his search to a class of viruses ignored by other researchers due to its inability to infect primates, Tomonaga found far more viral DNA in our genome than previous studies. The virus type, called bornaviruses, typically infects hoofed mammals and birds, but clearly it used to infect primates sometime in the past. Although most of the viral DNA is junk, Feschotte found that the mutations that cause those psychological diseases strongly resemble bornaviruses.
    Science has long known that some components of our DNA are relics of viruses that entered into our genome in some past infection. However, no one ever thought that virus remnants formed this much of our genome, or that one of the viruses might lead to disease, let alone something as complex as mental illness.
    The findings are controversial, and the link between bornavirus DNA infection and schizophrenia remains poorly understood. However, the ability of viruses to alter our DNA throws an interesting new wrinkle into our understanding of how potentially dangerous mutations managed to escape natural selection.

    4.
    The bacterium called Neisseria gonorrhoeae is what gives humans the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. And it also takes something: human DNA. Northwestern University researchers report in the journal mBio that they’ve found pieces of human DNA in samples of the bacteria.
    Gonorrhea is one of very few diseases exclusive to our species, and is one of the oldest recorded diseases in human history. An ancient disease that resembles gonorrhea’s symptoms is even described in the Bible, according to Hank Seifert, senior author of a paper on the gene transfer. [Popular Science]
    Seifert and colleague Mark Anderson looked at 14 different samples of N. gonorrhoeae. Three of them possessed the chunk of human DNA. And they only saw it in the gonorrhea bacteria:
    The pair looked for the same human DNA fragment in the genetically related bacterium Neisseria menigitidis, known to cause meningitis. “We screened many isolates and it wasn’t present,” says Seifert. That means the transfer to N. gonorrhoeae must have occurred since the two bacterial species diverged around 200,000 years ago. [New Scientist]
    This is the first such transfer seen from humans to bacteria, though horizontal gene transfer is (somewhat frighteningly) common.
    Scientists have observed similar genetic transfers across species, he said — including relatively frequent transfers between different bacteria, between bacteria and viruses or between bacteria and other microbes such as yeast. One particularly significant exchange involves antibiotic resistance genes; when bacteria share these, it can make infections harder to treat with antibiotics. [Los Angeles Times]
    But Seifert and Anderson don’t know just how the human DNA chunk got into the gonorrhea bacteria—whether it was a one-time event or not—nor what it might be doing in there. The DNA sequence is missing a key part and not producing a protein, Seifert says, so it’s possibly doing nothing in the virus, and only sticks around because it isn’t harmful, either.
    5.
    Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite infects most genera of warm-blooded animals, including humans, but the primary host is the felid (cat) family. Animals are infected by eating infected meat, by ingestion of feces of a cat that has itself recently been infected, or by transmission from mother to fetus. Cats are the primary source of infection to human hosts, although contact with raw meat, especially pork, is a more significant source of human infections in some countries. Fecal contamination of hands is a significant risk factor.
    Up to one third of the world's human population is estimated to carry a Toxoplasma infection.
    Studies have been conducted that show the toxoplasmosis parasite may affect behavior and may present as or be a causative or contributory factor in various psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. In 11 of 19 scientific studies, T. gondii antibody levels were found to be significantly higher in individuals affected by first-incidence schizophrenia than in unaffected persons. Individuals with schizophrenia are also more likely to report a clinical history of toxoplasmosis than those in the general population. Recent work at the University of Leeds has found that the parasite produces an enzyme with tyrosine hydroxylase and phenylalanine hydroxylase activity. This enzyme may contribute to the behavioral changes observed in toxoplasmosis by altering the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in mood, sociability, attention, motivation and sleep patterns. Schizophrenia has long been linked to dopamine dysregulation.
     
  3. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

  4. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Speak for yourself Si.

    Paul Kwai Smith.
     
  5. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Jedi...pah!

    Sith all the way baby!
     
  6. Rand86

    Rand86 likes to butt heads

    [​IMG]
     
  7. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

  8. John R. Gambit

    John R. Gambit The 'Rona Wrangler

    Sweet Jesus, there is a Jedi Church out there? If it wasn't so dorky, they might become the next Scientologists.
     
  9. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    It is almost along the lines of Pastafarianism...except they mean it
     
  10. leftwingtaoist

    leftwingtaoist Valued Member

    sometimes i am not sure if you guys are serious or not. it must be my english language skills.

    the article is serious but the question was a joke. did you notice :) at the end ???

    i will have to do monty pitons for those who didn't get it:

    JOKE
     
  11. Dean Winchester

    Dean Winchester Valued Member

    These are the same type of guys who were getting twitchy over here when the sword ban hit.



    They were worried about the potential impact it might have on them when Lightsabers were developed!

    :eek:
     
  12. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    You thought our replies were serious ?
     
  13. leftwingtaoist

    leftwingtaoist Valued Member

    with some people you never know. they get easily excited. :)
     
  14. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Now we don't! How dare you!























































    yes that was a "joke".....not a funny one, but it was a sporting try
     
  15. leftwingtaoist

    leftwingtaoist Valued Member

    hannibal i got your one. and it was funny. :)
     
  16. m1k3jobs

    m1k3jobs Dudeist Priest

    OP, I'm confused, how does being infested with symbiotic or parasitic organisms make you a jedi knight?

    Even if it's a joke I still don't get the connection.

    Every one knows it makes you Borg. We are a collective and we are not amused with your humor.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2011
  17. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

  18. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Midichlorians!
     
  19. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    I used to be a Jedi Knight




    Then i took an arrow to the knee

    BOOM! First Skyrim reference for the day!
     
  20. bassai

    bassai onwards and upwards ! Moderator Supporter

    While I'm at it

    [​IMG]
     

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