Tracing the origin of Ancient Sumerians

It is of considerable interest to trace where the ancient Sumerians emerged from because of their primary contribution to human civilization. It was suggested that Sumerians appeared in Southern Mesopotamia around five and half thousand years ago carrying with them the seeds of civilization. It was also suggested that they migrated from the west coast of India. The fact that they were not a local people is suggested by the fact that their language belongs to a completely different and isolated group. There are two further lines of investigation one may adopt to confirm this hypothesis. The first is to explore for other groups in India with a similar language and the second is to carry out a physical examination of the Sumerian skeletons as available at the present time to detect racial similarities.

In western India there are a number of tribal groups that have existed from ancient times. Today many live on the fringes of mainstream communities as exist in India today. The mainstream communities belong to either the Indo-Aryan or Dravidian linguistic groups. Sumerian does not belong to either. As regards the tribal, it is now fruitless to look for any similarities between Sumerian and present tribal languages in India because over thousands of years their original languages have disappeared because of the overwhelming influence of other languages. The western tribal communities of India now speak modified versions or mixtures of the mainstream languages. However, all is not lost because although the tribal in India such as kols and Bheels have been overly influenced, it is not so with some of their branches that migrated further east towards Australia in ancient times, and form a branch of the same human groups. One may then look for similarities between Sumerian and Austric languages. This study has in fact been already done and the consensus is a resounding, yes. The austric languages are indeed similar to ancient Sumerian. The similarities are so numerous and clear that they are beyond doubt or a result of any chance coincidence. (The Austric Origin of the Sumerian Language, Language Form, vol. 22, no.1-2, Jan.-Dec. 1996.) Therefore now it may be said with confidence that ancient Sumerian is not a linguistic isolate. It belongs to the australoid/ austric group of languages. They belong to this group because the ancient tribal people of Indian west coast also belonged to the same group of people, and it is from here that they must have migrated to Mesopotamia. Both the Australoid and Austric type are found in India. There are clear reasons to rule out any other location for the Sumerian migration: Western India is geographically close to Southern Mesopotamia as compared to south East Asia and Australia and there are no know instances of civilization east of the Indus valley around five thousand years ago. Such evidence has been found in the Indus valley. The second study concerns physical examination of Sumerian skulls. Buxton and Rice have found that of 26 Sumerian crania they examined 22 were Australoid or Austrics. Further According to Penniman who studied skulls from other Sumerian sites, the Australoid Eurafrican, Austric and Armenoid were the "racial" types associated with the Sumerians. Here is Penniman's description of the Austric type found at Sumer: "These people are of medium stature, with complexion and hair like those of the Eurafrican, to which race they are allied with dark eyes, and oval faces, broad noses, rather feeble jaws, and slight sinewy bodies." This description also closely describes the regal person seen on a famous clay tablet from the Indus Valley. This same tribe in an evolved version undoubtedly established the Indus civilization as well as the Sumerian one after the submergence of their coastal cities. In North-western India they would have encountered Neolithic people of Indo-European origin with which manpower they established the Indus cities. An analysis of skeletal remains from Indus valley confirms this mixture. Both the IndoSumerian-austric language must then have persisted side by side as in Mesopotamia with the official language of the rulers being IndoSumerian-austric. Just as in Mesopotamia, ancient Sumerian was replaced by the language of the majority(Akkadians) in the Indus valley it would have been replaced eventually by an Indo-Aryan language. At what precise moment in history this occurred is not certain but most probably the Sumerian language disappeared from India by 2000 BC. In this latter case there was no question of preserving it for ritual purposes either. This is because the IndoSumerian-Austric language never developed as a fully written language in India to inscribe full texts. In any case, a better Indo-Aryan language with its own full-fledged script soom emerged probably because of Hittite influences in the Indian sub-continent around that time.

UPDATE: September 16, 2013

At the time this post was written some seven years ago, it was ahead of its time and the suggestion that Sumerian language is not a linguistic isolate but belongs to the Austric group was shunned by many Many linguistic historians. Since then new studies have emerged that have shown a clear similarity between archaic Tamil, a language belonging to the Austric group and still spoken in its modern form in southern India by millions. and Sumerian, not just words but also whole sentences.  Just search through the internet for the relevant references since presently I was involved with another project, - my new book, the Babaji Affair. However, here is one quick reference to begin with https://sites.google.com/site/sumeriantamil/tamil-sumerian-turkish

Origin of Egyptian Civilization

Although Egyptian civilisation is at least seven thousand years old, a unified Egyptian civilisation with urban centers and a central authority emerged in Egypt with the coming of the Pharaohs beginning with the scorpion king Narmer/ Nirmer/ Naram- Ara of Sumerian origin. The Scorpion gods were warrior gods in Sumeria and it is a mark of respect to regard a great warrior king as one.

This movement into the Nile Valley may have coincided with the end of the Uruk period that in turn coincided with the Piora oscillation, a dry period  that began in c. 3200 BCE and ended in 2900 BCE that marked the end of a long wetter, warmer climate period from about 9,000 to 5,000 years ago, called the Holocene climatic optimum.


A prehistoric flint knife, with a handle carved from the tooth of a hippopotamus, in the possession of Louvre and found at Gebel el Arak near Nag Hamâdi depicts a scene from the conquest. On one side of the handle is a battle-scene including some remarkable representations of ancient boats. Many of the warriors are nude with the exception of a loin girdle, but, while one set of combatants have shaven heads or short hair, the others have abundant locks falling in a thick mass upon the shoulder. The nude warriors are obviously of local African origin. It displays the wisdom of the conquerors in utilizing locals for their campaigns. On the other face of the handle is carved a hunting scene. In the upper field is a remarkable group, consisting of a personage struggling with two lions arranged symmetrically. The rest of the composition is not very unlike other examples of prehistoric Egyptian carving in low relief, but here attitude, figure, and clothing are un-Egyptian. The hero wears a turban on his abundant hair, and a full and rounded beard descends upon his breast. A long garment clothes him from the waist and falls below the knees, his muscular calves ending in the claws of a bird of prey. There is no doubt that the heroic personage is represented in the familiar attitude of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh struggling with lions, a favorite subject of early Sumerian and Babylonian seals. His garment is Sumerian rather than Egyptian. The design itself is unmistakably of Mesopotamian origin. There was no physical barrier to the use of the river-route from Mesopotamia into Syria and of the tracks thence southward along the land bridge to the Nile's delta.

After the conquest Nirmer appears to have returned to to his homeland leaving his son Menes in charge of the new kingdom with assistance of Priests and soldiers. Menes unified the scattered communities of the entire Nile Valley. There he established the First Egyptian Dynasty with an Uruk period Sumerian civilization. The unified state led to the development of writing, the start of large scale construction and the venturing out from the Nile Valley to trade. The most remarkable evidence of cultural connection is shown in the architecture of Early Dynastic tombs of Egypt and Mesopotamian seal-impressions showing exactly similar buildings. A problem that early Sumerian ruling class faced upon arrival in Egypt was the different, even contrary religious beliefs. Egyptians glorified the floods whereas the Sumerian dreaded it because of their religious records of the deluge that had originally flooded their homeland and beautiful cities perhaps on the western coast of India leading to their exodus. However the Sumerians soon assimilated everything useful they found in the new lands and thus developed their culture even further.

Unlike the colonists of eighteenth century the Sumerians arrived in any new territory with the intention of making it their home and progressed from strength to strength as they marched westwards. However the Nile valley was the limit of their expansion since their were no other great rivers flowing through vast arid plains to the west of the Nile.

Who was the Frist Egyptian Pharao

There is considerable confusion amongst scholars as to who the first Egyptian Pharaoh was, who ruled over all of Egypt from his capital at Memphis. According to the kings list made a thousand years after his time, his name was Men, Meni or Mena. The reason for using different vowels is because in Egyptian writing vowels are not written (as at times in Arabic) and these have to be guessed. The Greek historian Mantheo of 200 BC who was known for developing meticulous historical records, called him Menes in Greek. That is the most popular way Mene is mentioned in modern literature. This pharaoh is the legendary king that came from the town of Tinis in Upper Egypt and took over Lower Egypt (the North) by force. He then became the first king over the whole country and founded a new capital for united Egypt - Memphis, just where the two states bordered on each other. According to archaeological dating this was around 3200 BC. For thousands of years, King Menes was thought to be the first king of Egypt. Ancient Egyptian records clearly identify him as the first king of the first dynasty.

However since then much else has been discovered by archeological findings that have led to some confusion. In the last decade of the 1900s the old royal tombs in Abydos were re-excavated. Two seal impressions were found from the tombs of Den and Qaa, the fifth and eighth ruler of the first dynasty. The motif was a line of kings in a successive order, and both had Narmer as the founder of the first dynasty. This record should be an authentic one since it comes from a time much before Menthos or even the Kings list. Most of all, it was prepared by the descendents of Narmer himself. Some scholars postulated that Menes and Narmer may be the same person. Was it really so? The matter requires further enquiry. The seal impressions of Den and Qaa describe the kings of the first dynasty as:

Narmer,

Aha,

Djer,

Djet,

Den

Thus it is clear that Aha was the son and successor of Narmer. King Aha, on the other hand, was the first pharaoh who built monuments of substance over the whole country, and his large tomb constructions (with buried retainers for the first time) were in dimensions that far overshadowed his predecessors including Narmer his father. He has also left a written sign interpreted as the name "Mene" written beside his ordinary name on one occasion. This at once indicates that he is the same as king Mene (or its Greek form Menes). Thus available evidence indicates that it was Aha and Menes who were one and the same person and not Narmer and Menes.

Confusion may have arisen in interpreting historic records because both Narmer (Also known popularly as the scorpion King) and Menes together united Upper and Lower Egypt. The credit of unification would go to Narmer as the father and this is indeed supported by a later archeological find the -Narmer Palette. Menes or Aha on the other hand was the first king to build substantial monuments in Egypt and may have been regarded by many as the first real Pharaoh of Egypt, thus leading to the confusion.

Narmer's Palette found at the temple of Hierakonpolis shows that behind the king is his sandal-bearer, a high dignitary, possibly his son, who is identified by a rosette (seven petalled) the divine or royal emblem. This son is likely to be the legendary Menes who accompanied Narmer in the conquests. Both may have ruled different parts of Egypt together for a period after the conquest with the younger Menes focusing more on the building of a new Capital at Memphis. Thus it may be concluded that Narmer was the first king of united Egypt and his son Menes the first king that ruled over all of Egypt from Memphis. After the establishment of dynastic rule in Egypt, the villages of Egypt were transformed from members of a loosely organized society in which autonomous chieftains and merchants played the most significant roles, to one under the centralized control of an imperial king.

The kings list of later dynasties appears to have focused on listing the kings of Memphis and thus correctly listed Menes as the first king to rule from that capital, ignoring the father who affected the unification. The second dynasty of Egypt had different roots from the first one. When they came to power they replaced the falcon symbol of the first dynasty by the symbol of a dog. The descendents of Narmer himself would not however ignore their ancestor in developing their own list of kings and listed Narmer as the first king.

Published earlier by author at Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/314530

Mesopotamia

Spread of Civilisation in the ancient World

The Indus valley people began moving towards Sumer as early as 3200 BC and established their first settlements in ancient Sumer. They spoke the language of their forefathers. It was a completely different language from that of local populations of the area. Ancient Sumerian language is different from other languages of the area such as Hebrew, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Aramaic, which are Semitic languages, and Elamite a non-Semitic tribal language of the area with African connections. However, as the ruling class, the colonizers made Sumerian the official language. The local population continued to use Akkadian language. 

Whenever an official language differs from a local one, it is a clear indication that the rulers are of foreign origin. It is surprising that ancient historians on earth have not used this as a clue to tracing the origin of the people who brought civilization to Mesopotamia. The extent of the civilized world around 3000 BC lies in a belt extending from the Nile valley to the Indus valley. Since ancient Sumerian is completely different from the local languages around Mesopotamia, it is not difficult to guess where these new colonizers had come from. Their language was different from that of Nile Valley as well. However, since it was the Sumerians who established civilization in the Nile Valley too, some of their vocabulary did enter Egypt and continues to be used till today, as for example the word Khet for an agricultural holding. By the time Sumerians reached the Nile valley they had no need to establish Sumerian as the official language of Nile valley since they had become familiar with local languages of the area. As intermarriages between local Akkadians and ruling Sumerians increased, Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC. Nevertheless, it continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. From the beginning of the second millennium, Babylonians and Assyrians maintained and utilized the extinct Sumerian language in much the same way that ancient Greek and Latin are used for artistic, religious and scholarly purposes today.

Although the Sumerian language is not an Indo-Aryan language it uses the root system for developing words. This was later adapted by Indo-Aryans in the development of Sanskrit in the Indus Valley. The use of Sumerian language began first in southern Mesopotamia and spread northwards indicating from which direction Indus people arrive in Mesopotamia. Ancient scribes have provided equivalence between Sumerian and Akkadian words and these can be employed to advantage by historians struggling to decipher the Indus Script. So far they have been looking elsewhere trying to establish its equivalence with Dravidian or Indo-European languages and failed. The Indus language was replaced by Indo-Aryan languages in the Indus valley as in much of the old world with the arrival of Aryans. Some of the words of the Indus-Sumerian language however continue to persist in local dialects till today.

Map from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spread_of_Oecumene_Mesopotamia.jpg This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The image has been modified before use here.

 

Spaceships of God

We now know that the sun will eventually start to cool down, expand and explode. Mankind hopes that well before that it will escape from earth and colonize other planets so that the human race as it exists on earth can be preserved. This is easier said than done. Interplanetary travel from one habitable planet to another is a daunting task for the most advanced of civilizations and even if it did become possible one may find on arrival on another planet that the precise chemical composition of the new planet has made all available food toxic. The mineral compositions of planets vary.

Mankind need not despair. Nature has devised a better plan. In fact it has been in place ever since the universe has existed. In fact that is how humans arrived on Earth to begin with.

When a star begins to cool down, most forms of life are frozen into extinction. However many bacteria, including the most useful ones have the ability to go into frozen hibernation and do so promptly on freezing up. Most significantly, these bacteria contain the genetic codes of all higher life forms on the planet as entrapped viruses and extra chromosomal elements.

When a star system dies and explodes, bits of its planets are ejected into the cosmos at varying trajectories. These bits of comets head for other star systems. On reaching another star they are pulled towards it by gravity. The warmth of that star begins a process that leads to disintegration of the comet into smaller bits. This phenomenon can be observed frequently in our galaxy. Some bits land on planets that are too cold and remain in frozen hibernation. Others land on planets without atmosphere or those that are too hot and die. Bits reach planets with a livable climate. Here with the availability of light and moisture, the bacteria wake up from their long hibernation and begin to multiply. If the planet already contains life, they join in bringing in new genetic codes. If the planet is toxic then the bacteria is able to make adjustments quickly to overcome the toxins. We see them doing it all the time with modern antibiotics. Incase the planet has no life, water and oxygen it does not matter. Bacteria know how to prepare that too. The cyno-bacteria are the first to wake up and with the help of light and carbon dioxide on the planet begin to produce oxygen. Methane-producing bacteria produce methane. The methane and any hydrogen on the planet then combine rapidly with oxygen producing more water and carbon dioxide. The process goes on until we end up with an atmosphere like that of earth. Plants and higher life forms then emerge by a process already described. Eventually humans reappear all adapted to a somewhat different environment of the new planet. With their ancient genetic memories, a process of recreation of civilization begins once more.

In this process, the comets are the spaceships of God and the little bacteria the workers that travel on these ship that create a habitat. Bits of comets that break off are like shuttle flights that take off from this gigantic spaceship. Comets travel from star system to star system. They also travel to other galaxies. It is easy to pick out the comets that have come from other star systems or even galaxies as compared to local asteroids etc. This is because in any star system there is a plane in which the local planets lie because of gravitational effects. Comets that come at a different angle are from other star systems. There are such gravitational planes of galaxies as well that can help identify comets of other galaxies.

Because of the cosmic sharing mechanism, similar life forms exist throughout the universe. However, it can be expected that a human from one planet will look quite different from that on another planet because of local influences i.e. planetary physical features are distinct on distinct planets. Since comet spaceships are flying around the galaxy on continuous basis, genetic codes from different planets arrive on any planet on several occasions. This leads to a situation where the code for the same species including humans arrives on earth from different planets on more than one occasion and this may result in the distinct features of different races.

The details of all this are too long to include in a single note. They can be found in eleven more notes stated at the end of this one.

Conclusion: Such is the account of human creation, an alien account, transcribed as accurately was feasible by this blogger. Errors must have entered but experts in the subject, would be able to correct this and for others it would not make a significant difference in getting the gist of it

Blogger posts appear in reverse order, if someone would like to read the story from the beginning in the correct order, I have gathered the links in the following list omitting the link of this final post,

The Pansmeria Theory blog list

1. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/universe-we-live-in.html

2. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/code-for-life.html

3. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/big-bang.html

4. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/life-everywhere.html

5. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/microbes-beginning-of-life.html

6. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/from-bacteria-to-amoeba.html

7. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/from-single-to-multiple-cells.html

8. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/joy-of-sex.html

9. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/viral-action.html

10. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/human-genes.html

11. https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/intelligient-design.html

 having read the story of creation of humans in these 12 posts of September 2006, now read the story of creation of their civilization in subsequent posts. Search through the archives after opening the left side bar (three dash sign) as to whatever interests you. Best wishes.

Intelligient Design

Comets leave in their wake trails of rocky material, the source of annual meteor showers on Earth. As the rocks burn up in Earth's atmosphere some wonder if the intense heat destroy any organics within the rocks? Apparently not, says NASA astro-biologist Peter Jenniskens. He and his team of researchers observed the Leonids meteor shower from aboard aircraft. Jenniskens has announced that much of the organic material in the rocks appears to have survived entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Life's components have come from space on Earth just as they have done so on other planets. The cosmos shares the same gene pool. Therefore it is not surprising that some species are similar even on planets light years away from each other. However since the possible varieties, especially of plant and animal life is vast, different species show up on different planets. Nevertheless, since the so-called intelligent species in the universe are limited, there is greater likelihood of finding the same intelligent species, such as humans in several planets of the cosmos, as well as intermediate species that lead to the creation of a human.

Since the difference between a human and the animal that precedes it imply only a small increase in genes, the first humans to appear on a planet are only slightly different from animals. The major difference is that a human has more versatile vocal apparatus so that his language is more elaborate than that of an animal. He has more dexterous hands as well so that the use of tools to help him in his daily life comes more naturally to him than it would to animals. A bigger brain allows even the most primitive human to appreciate the rudiments of art such as body paint and ornaments that an animal would consider scandalous encumbrances. However, in spite of these significant differences the most primitive human still remains close to animals. True he builds some mud or thatch shelter, but even birds do that better even without the use of hands and tools. It is also true that even the most primitive human can learn elements of an advanced culture such as reading and writing if urged and trained to do so, but then animals too, such as dogs and monkeys can be taught a lot of tricks given enough patience.

Along with genes comes an element of genetic memory( to be more precise spiritual memory ) that urges species to repeat what they have known before. At a certain stage of further evolution human groups that race ahead in genetic evolutionary development are prompted to rediscover writing, numbers and the science of mathematics. It has happened on earth from time to time, to Sumerians, Egyptians, Aryans, Mongoloids, Greeks, Romans, Europeans and so on. Such groups surge ahead in their development and are able to spread the skills to their less advanced human cousins as well, so that the less endowed groups may carry on with some development too, albeit in a messy sort of a way. Further development leads to higher values of discipline, organization, philosophy, morality, science, freedom of the individual, and the arts. At a certain stage of development humans learn about the genetic code, and learn to manipulate it so that they may improve upon their own physical apparatus, food sources as well as other species on their planets. This is the point when they begin approaching their intended creation in the image of the Gods, for now they contribute to the work of Gods through Intelligent Design.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/spaceships-of-god.html

Human Genes

The human genome contains not 100,000 genes but around 25,000 genes, little less than double the 13,601 genes of a fruit fly and barely little more than the roundworm’s 19,098. Moreover, there is hardly any uniqueness to the human genes. They are akin to 99 percent of the chimpanzees, and 70 percent of the mouse. Human genes, with the same functions, were found to be identical to genes of other vertebrates, as well as invertebrates, plants, fungi, even yeast. The findings confirm that there is one source of DNA for all life on Earth. It enables scientists to trace how more complex organisms evolved, genetically, from simpler ones, adopting at each stage a few more genes contributed by viruses culminating with Homo sapiens. The genomic loci and length of certain types of small repetitive sequences are highly variable from person to person, which is the basis of DNA fingerprinting and DNA paternity testing technologies.

Scientists have found that the human genome contains 223 genes that do not have the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree. In the evolutionary progression from bacteria to invertebrates (such as the lineages of yeast, worms, flies or mustard weed – which have been deciphered) to vertebrates (mice, chimpanzees) and finally modern humans, these 223 genes are completely missing in the invertebrate phase. The answer lies in viral transfer of genes that makes humans a unique species. These 223 genes make an enormous difference. The Y chromosome defining all the male human characteristics contains only 78 genes. The difference between a human and a chimp is around 300 genes. An analysis of the functions of these genes through the proteins that they spell out, conducted by the Public Consortium team and published in the journal Nature, shows that they include not only proteins involved in important physiological but also psychiatric functions. One of the genes is expressed strongly in the developing neo-cortex during weeks seven to nine of pregnancy. It is expressed in cells that have a fundamental role in the design and development of the mammalian cortex. Moreover, they are responsible for important neurological enzymes that stem only from the mitochondria portion of the DNA – the so-called “Eve” DNA that humankind inherited only through the mother-line, all the way back to a single Eve. It is these psychiatric and neurological functions that make humans what they are and this discussion possible. Our brains are three times larger than our closest relatives, the chimps.

The Public Consortium team, conducting a detailed search, found that some 113 genes (out of the 223) “are widespread among bacteria” – though they are entirely absent even in invertebrates. The remaining 100 genes will be found in bacteria as well as extra chromosomal elements with further study, since that is the source from which they emerge, the bacteria being the storehouse and virus the vectors that accomplish the transfer. An analysis of the proteins that the enigmatic genes express showed that out of 35 identified, only ten had counterparts in vertebrates (ranging from cows to rodents to fish). 25 of the 35 were unique to humans and thus must necessarily be carried by bacteria as extra chromosomal elements to be inserted at the right opportunity.

The Bible asserts that the God said: “Let us fashion the Adam in our image and after our likeness.” Is there a symbolic meaning to the statement? Yes it means that these genes are bits of code that came from beings that already existed in the cosmos. In USA the patenting of genes are allowed by individuals and private companies. Companies own several of yours so that they can profit from them. Human greed is all blinding to the point of hilarity.

Humans have not stopped evolving. It is an ever ongoing process. The work that God set out to do has not stopped. Nicholas Wade reported the results of a study in, New York Times, March 2006 Providing evidence that humans are still evolving. Researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years. Influenced by Darwinism the researcher presumed that this reshaping is due to natural selection. That is not the case. It is simply viral action. The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function. Dr. Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago who headed the study lists selected genes that include five affecting skin color. The selected versions of the genes occur solely in Europeans and are presumably responsible for pale skin. Anthropologists have generally assumed that the first modern humans to arrive in Europe some 45,000 years ago had the dark skin of their African origins, but soon acquired the paler skin. It is a correct assumption. The first humans that were just different from chimps were dark. Since then some groups have acquired additional genes causing changes. The virus causing this change disappeared before reaching Africa. However the human species has not yet changed hence sexual compatibility still persists between the dark and pale groups. Sunlight has very little to do with this skin color. If it were so South Africans of European origin would have become black and blacks in Sweden would be blonde. However, the bacteria that store the pale color gene probably do have a better rate of survival in cooler climates. The tanning effect of sunlight is only a temporary change and not a genetic one.

Dr. Pritchard also detected selection at work in brain genes, including a group known as microcephaly genes because, when disrupted, they cause people to be born with unusually small brains. Dr. Bruce Lahn, also of the University of Chicago, theorizes that successive changes in the microcephaly genes may have enabled the brain to enlarge in primate evolution, a process that may have continued in the recent human past. Last September, Dr. Lahn reported that one microcephaly gene had recently changed in Europeans and another in Europeans and Asians. He predicted that other brain genes would be found to have changed in other populations.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/intelligient-design.html

Viral Action

A viral protein, known as syncytin, is hugely expressed in placental tissue – especially at the beginning of embryonic development – and is giving signs of bearing an essential role in placental architecture. Placental evolution, and indeed all evolution, results from viral actions. The virus in question is in fact a retrovirus known as human endogenous retrovirus, HERV-W. The human genome – as indeed many other eukaryotic genomes – is retroviral and viral genes added in stages to those of an amoeba. The retroviral protein syncytin is an example of how a retroviral product has been integrated in the host’s genome. The placenta is lined, on the mother’s side, by a tissue known as the syncytiotrophoblast – from where the protein’s name derives. The syncytiotrophoblast is an essential tissue for the proper development of the embryo, acting as a place of nutritional exchange between the mother and her child, as well as a center for hormone synthesis and it has a role in the fetus immunity. The syncytiotrophoblast is a one-celled layer formed via the fusion of trophoblasts. Trophoblasts are the cells that accompany the fetus in the very early stages of development giving it the help it needs to anchor itself in the womb. The fusion of trophoblasts creates the syncytiotrophoblast, the tissue that hugs the placenta. Syncytin is involved in the fusion of trophoblasts. A virus is at the heart of something so essential as the human placenta. There are a number of different HERV-W families that are found dispersed in various mammals. It is these viral families that are at the heart of the diverse types of placenta observed in mammals today.

Another example is that buried within the genetic blueprint of every human is a snippet of DNA that resembles a gene sequence from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University. Cullen's group published these findings in the November 9, 1999, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact the human genome is nothing more than genetic material contributed by viruses along with a few primitive bacterial genes and a few rare ones derived through mutation and natural selection as visualized by Darwin.

Viruses not only cause improvements of a species but also lead to the emergence of new species. A big evolutionary step has to be taken by at least two members of a breeding pair, simultaneously. This is impossible if genetic changes arise from blind mutations and recombination only. However, if infectious viruses insert new genetic instructions, then the problem of finding two members of a breeding pair, both equipped for a big evolutionary step, is solved. Viruses infect whole populations so two members of a breeding pair are likely to carry the same new instructions. This is the way for evolution to advance, and in very much larger steps than Darwin imagined.

However, what if humans got infected with genes for elephant tusks. The tusk would not appear quite the same because the entire genome, especially the switching genes, has an influence. Nevertheless it would be an odd nose. However nature has taken care that it does not happen because different viruses act on different hosts. They carry the identity codes of the life forms they emerged from and that is what they set about to reproduce. Various life forms emit plasmids during break-up that carry bits of the genetic code. These find homes in bacteria from which they emerge later as host specific viruses.

Unlike most other organisms, the genome of a retrovirus is composed of RNA instead of DNA. This means that infectious retroviral particles contain RNA. After infection of a cell by a retrovirus, the viral RNA is released into the cell along with several proteins that are required for the initial steps of viral replication. One of these proteins is called reverse transcriptase. After the release of the RNA, the reverse transcriptase makes, or transcribes, a DNA copy of the viral genome. This DNA copy is then inserted into the DNA of the infected cell. After the DNA copy is inserted into the cell's DNA, viral sequences then direct the expression of the viral genome. During this process, a complete RNA copy of the entire viral genome is produced. This RNA is then packaged into infectious viral particles, and the viral particles are subsequently start the cycle again.

In order for a virus to cause evolution in creatures, it must infect the germ line and become integrated into the genome there. This process has been proven to occur. If, for example, the DNA is injected into the nucleus of a mouse's fertilized egg, the genes will be found in many cells of the adult animal and sometimes even in its germ cells. Retroviruses can become integrated into the germ line as endogenous viruses, leading to permanent genetic consequences for the descendents of the original host. Perhaps it would be a reasonable compromise if a new virus were able to establish an infection and become widespread within the individual host's body one time only, and never again. That's the way our mammalian immune system often handles viruses.

It would make sense if the host's descendant who actually inherited the new genes were born with immunity to disease-causing, infection by the virus. In fact, it has been known since 1933 that resistance to a disease caused by a virus can be inherited. Even resistance to AIDS may be inheritable. AIDS is an incurable viral disease from which it was first thought no one is immune. Studies are now suggesting, however, that some children of mothers with AIDS are born immune to the disease. This is the story in Science, "Can Some Infants Beat HIV?"

Viruses install genetic instructions for big evolutionary steps and some of the steps require several genes so that they cannot be installed all at once but only in stages. During the long installation process, the not-yet-activated DNA remains silent, to become useful in future when the entire code is installed. This is something like downloading Windows from Micro Soft is stages. It becomes possible for very large genetic programs to be installed in stages. The parts installed first remain silent until the whole program has been installed. Sexual reproduction cleans up any errors that might occur in this code both in the expressed genes as well as the silent ones.

Things many humans consider dirty are necessary for life and life exists because of the underlying matrix of bacteria that exists in the universe.

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Sexual Differentiation

The most primitive of multi-celled creatures may reproduce both by conjugation or fission. However those that produce by conjugation survive many more generations than others reproducing by fission simply because then genes that develop errors can be ignored and deleted. On the other hand organisms reproducing by fission cannot maintain the genetic integrity required to perpetuate more complex multi-celled creature. The most primitive of the conjugating organisms can play the role of a male or female according to convenience. With further evolution the role gets segregated into distinct male and female characteristics.

The need for gene repair is the primary reason sex evolved. A second reason for encouraging sex is that it leads to the development of societies and that is essential for evolution of different forms of life. For evolution it is necessary to infect large populations living in societies to affect a genetic change. A third reason is that in more complex life forms, nurturing the young requires assistance of both the father and mother. Complex societies also need variety that sexual reproduction produces rather than a series of identical clones that mere division by duplication would produce.

Asexual organisms, which cannot pair-up their chromosomes to edit them, accumulate mutational damage in a process of irreversible genetic decay biologists call Muller’s Ratchet, a progressive loss of genes that leads to eventual extinction. men and women differ by 1 percent of their genomes. Males, by contrast to females, have only one copy of this X chromosome, not two. The other chromosome of the pair in males is called the Y chromosome and is much smaller than the X. There are about 80 genes in the human Y chromosome. It is the key in determining sex of the child. Sex provides the opportunity for DNA strands of the male and female to be compared and therby edit errors. The Y chromosome on the other hand carries a duplicate set of genes that repair by a comparison within itself.

NEXT:  https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/viral-action.html

From Single to Multiple Cells

Human and animal egg cells are astonishingly similar to those of an amoeba. They both have a nucleus, they share all the same kinds of membranes and organelles. They both divide using the same mechanism (mitosis). The difference is that once the human egg cell starts dividing, the resulting cells stick together, and eventually start 'differentiating' - i.e. becoming different kinds of cells which results in the different types of structures and organs we can see in a human. But the question is can a single celled amoeba develop into a multicelled creature? The answer is yes, and scientists have seen it happen.

The social amoebae are exceptional in their ability to alternate between unicellular and multicellular forms. The best-studied member of this group is Dictyostelium discoideum, known as Dicty to researchers, spends most of its time living alone in the soil as a single-celled amoeba. However, in a food shortage the individual cells communicate, aggregate and then develop into a multicellular organism that produces spores, the only survivors of the time of hunger. Its development from single cell to true multicellular organism makes it valuable as a model, allowing biologists to define the ways in which cells in complex organisms develop. Cell communication is an absolute requirement for multicellular life. The genome sequence consists of 34 million base pairs - letters of genetic code - that contain the instructions for 12,500 proteins - about half as many as the human genome and more than twice as many as simple yeasts. Among these are genes involved in complex processes characteristic of multicellular life - communication, adhesion, movement - that cannot be modeled in simpler species. "The genome of Dictyostelium discoideum is one of the most distinctive analyzed so far, reflecting the intriguing biology of this organism," commented Marie-Adele Rajandream, leader of the sequencing component at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. For several decades, Dictyostelium has been studied in laboratories around the world as a perfect test-bed in which to study processes such as how cells move and how individual cells specialize and coordinate to form complex organisms. The solitary amoeba shares many features with our own cells, particularly those that patrol our bodies and engulf harmful bacteria.

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From Bacteria to Amoeba

Eukaryotic cells that include humans, animals, and amoebae, contain small structures called organelles. Bacteria do not in general contain these structures. Religious persons have argued that there is no way a bacterium can evolve into even a single amoeba or human like cell. However, Research biologist Lynn Margulis has finally won acceptance for the theory that eukaryotic cells formed by symbiosis among bacterial cells. Thus early evolution takes place by symbiosis as well as viral action. It is only when more complex multi-celled life forms emerge that viral action becomes the primary mechanism for further evolution. The cells of all other living things rely on organelles. Bacteria were thought to manage with a single open space devoid of partitions Now a team led by microbiologist Roberto Docampo at the University of Illinois in Urbana say they have found the first organelles in that have a direct counterpart in higher organisms. (M. Seufferheld et al. J. Biol. Chem.; 2003). Such bacteria are the precursors of single celled amoeba. Archea are not precursors to amoeba because the type of internal bonds between lipids in archea are based on ether rather than ester. The evolution of amoeba from bacteria is in fact only a small evolutionary step.

Amoebas are single-celled organisms. The inside of an amoeba is a jelly-like fluid called protoplasm. Bits of food and other materials float around in the protoplasm. Amoebas like bacteria reproduce by a process called binary fission. This means that one amoeba can split in half and make two identical new amoebas. Amoebas eat bacteria, Thus when amoeba emerge on a planet they already have a food source in the form of bacteria that precede them. Freshwater amoeba has crystals in them. These are a crystalline form of urea, a waste product that they eject along with the water their bodies absorb from the surrounding –The birth of pissing.

A report, which appears in the February 24 issue of Nature, presents the first genome-wide study of an amoeba. The genome sequence of the parasitic amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, a leading cause of severe diarrhea disease in developing countries, includes an unexpectedly complex repertoire of sensory genes as well as a variety of bacterial-like genes that contribute to the organism's unique biology. The presence of bacterial genes is expected since amoebas develop from bacteria. Detailing the study scientists incorrectly concluded that E. histolytica likely picked up a significant number of its metabolic genes from bacterial co-inhabitants of the human gut. The fact is that this amoeba developed from the corresponding bacteria. Identification of these genes sheds new light on the unusual shared biology between the parasitic amoeba and anaerobic gut bacteria. The sequencing of E. histolytica was a collaborative effort led by The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, MD, and by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the U.K.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/from-single-to-multiple-cells.html

Microbes – Beginning of Life

The simplest form of life and yet the most important is bacteria. It consists of a single cell. The most important component of bacteria is its DNA. It is wrapped up like a ball of string and floats in a watery fluid contained in an outer wrapper called the cell membrane. The fluid inside the membrane called the cytoplasm is mostly water and a mix of organic chemicals such as enzymes that the cell has manufactured along with amino acids, glucose etc. At the center of the cell is the ball of DNA that carries the genetic code of the bacteria.

Some bacteria have limb like structures attached to their membrane called the flagellum that help propel bacteria. Different bacteria have different number of flagellum. Some have none. The shape of different bacteria too differs. Some are shaped like an ellipse, others may be squeezed in the middle or sides etc. Human cells have the same basic features as bacterial cells along with additional advanced features.

The cytoplasm of bacteria contains numerous chemicals such as enzymes. A simple bacterium contains numerous different enzymes manufactured by instructions provided by the bacterial DNA. Each enzyme helps to manufacture proteins required by bacteria to grow and multiply. Some bacteria are photosynthetic. They can make their own food from sunlight, just like plants and produce oxygen. These are some of the first life forms that must appear on any planet where life has to emerge since they have not much else in terms of food to consume. Some bacteria can live off unusual "foods" such as iron or sulfur whereas other help to convert nitrogen compounds of the atmosphere into a food suitable for plants to come later in the evolution of life on a planet. The variety of foods, bacteria can consume is truly amazing. They are not at all choosy like higher life forms about what they consume. Bacteria are all around us. Animal and human bodies carry billions of these little organisms along with viruses. These microbes live on your skin, under your fingernails, in your hair and inside your bodies and it has nothing to do with cleanliness. They are a part of us. Some of us view bacteria as disease causing agents. A few do cause disease but the vast majorities do not. Many are even essential for digestion of food.

Since bacteria are the first life forms, they have been around much longer than other animals and have even become a part of their bodies. A single human body carries more microbes than all the humans that live on earth. Humans depend on bacteria for digestion. Besides breaking down tough cellulose, the bacteria that live in the intestine also produce essential vitamins that humans could not make themselves. Without them a person would have a whole host of problems. Without vitamin K, which is necessary in the clotting process of blood, a person would be prone to uncontrolled bleeding. Without vitamin B12, a person would suffer from anemia. Bacteria are the reason people develop digestive problems when taking an antibiotic. The drug kills the useful bacteria along with undesirable ones.

Animals like cattle, sheep, goats, giraffes, and camels are incapable of digesting cellulose, a tough, protective structural substance that forms plant cell walls. Yet leafy greens and grass are their prime food source. The only creatures known to digest cellulose are microbes, so the only way grazing animals can get any nutrition from plants is with the help of bacteria. The bacteria in a cow’s stomach break it down into glucose that the cow can then use.

Bacteria are found everywhere on earth, high up in the atmosphere, in the arctic region and in hibernation inside ancient glaciers. They live deep inside the earth too. They have been found at depths of more than a thousand feet. One teaspoon of soil may contain 10 million bacteria. The oceans are full of bacteria. It is estimated that the total mass of microbes on your planet may be more than twenty five times the total mass of all animals and humans put together.

Like all living things it grows, reproduces, produces waste, moves around, and communicates with other microbes, and all this with just its one single cell. As already mentioned, bacteria have a wide range of choice for their food. Some depend on photosynthesis for their food just like plants and they give out oxygen as a waste product. Bacteria are the ancestors not only of animal and human life but also that of plants. Bacteria can feed off other bacteria, wood, dead animals, glue, and a wide range of minerals that cannot be digested by higher life forms.

Bacteria can reproduce by doubling their cells rapidly. One cell divides into two and so on. Some can do it as frequently as once in twenty minutes. A single bacterium can grow into millions in a matter of hours provided their food supply is maintained. Yet unlike higher life forms they have the capacity to hibernate as well. They do this when no food is available or if frozen. Indeed they can survive forever if not destroyed by heat or some other agent that kills them. Bacteria do not have a limited life span like animals and humans. Besides being the carriers of genetic codes, bacteria carry on a number of other processes necessary for life. Bacteria keep the planet's life cycles turning. Animals breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide (CO2). Plants breathe in CO2 and release oxygen. Microbes beneath the sea pump out about 150 billion kilograms of oxygen every year, producing the oxygen we breathe. If that system were to stop, all the oxygen in the air would be exhausted within decades. Cyanobacteria are aquatic and photosynthetic, that is, they live in the water, and can manufacture their own food. They are one of the largest and most important groups of bacteria on any habitable planet. The other contribution of the cyanobacteria is the origin of plants. The chloroplast with which plants make food for themselves is actually a cyanobacterium living within the plant's cells.

The nitrogen cycle is a similar story. Nitrogen exists in every living cell and is necessary for building proteins. Although nitrogen is the most common gas in atmosphere, animals cannot use it in that form. Animals get their nitrogen from eating plants or eating plant eaters. Most plants are unable to take nitrogen from air; they get their nitrogen from the soil. They cannot get the nitrogen they need without the help of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These bacteria modify nitrogen by combining nitrogen in atmosphere with other elements to form organic compounds. The nitrogen, now in a modified form is available to the plants through their root systems with the help of other bacteria in the soil. In return, the plant supplies the microbes with nutrients for their growth. Some bacteria simply live in the soil surrounding the roots, but other kinds of bacteria actually live inside the roots of plants.

Viruses unlike bacteria are not living organisms and are generally smaller. They may be visualized as a part of a bacteria, a part consisting of a set of genetic material that is transferable to other cells. Viruses are not fully life forms because they cannot consume food, grow and reproduce on their own. In order to reproduce viruses need the help of other living cells. They can get inside the membrane shell of bacteria and then multiply with the help of the bacteria. A cell so hijacked by a virus may start to make hundreds of copies of the virus instead of reproducing itself. Even though some viruses cause disease they are as essential for life as bacteria are. Viruses like bacteria contain DNA (and sometimes RNA instead) in a protective shell.

The essence of the evolutionary model here is that life arrives on a planet from the cosmos in a bacterial form. It develops further by evolution, primarily assisted by viruses that carry genetic information back and forth between species and bacteria. Bacteria return the new evolutionary information generated in the planet to the cosmos from time to time.

Viruses are the workers that carry genes not only to higher organisms but also other bacteria. In the early 1950s it was observed in Japan that multiple antibiotic resistance was developing in a single step in patients with enteric infections. In 1960 T. Akiba, T. Koyama, Y. Isshiki, S. Kimura, and T. Fukushima (Jap. med Wochschr. 1866:45) described these phenomena. In 1961 T. Watanabe and T. Fukasawa reported that this multiple drug resistance was being transferred by a plasmid. Bacteria because of their simple structure can modify, mutate and evolve much more rapidly than higher life forms.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/from-bacteria-to-amoeba.html

Life Everywhere

The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter. The universe as we know contains about a 1000 billion galaxies. From time to time large objects from space hit all planets as well as the Earth. Small objects fall to Earth quite often, we call then shooting stars or meteorites, and they are just tiny asteroids. Some are made of rock and others are lumps of iron. Comets come from deep space and are frozen lumps of rock and ice. They have cool cores of ice and it is these that bring new genetic codes to earth from the cosmos on a regular basis, just as they do to other planets. When large comets hit a planet some material splashes out to create new objects in the heaven. Some of these carry away genetic codes to the cosmos. Thus we end up with a universe that has the code of life everywhere in the cosmos, ready to spring to life with the scent of moisture.

How can you prove that the universe is filled with this code of life? One may deduce that easily from the spectrum of light absorbed and scattered by interstellar dust. One can prove this from the fossils of comets too. Amino acids were found in samples returned by every one of the Apollo missions that landed on the moon. Elaborate precautions taken on one mission enabled NASA to rule out contamination. A number of balloon flights were made in the US during the middle-1960s, extending up to 25 miles, not to the top of the stratosphere but well up into it. In all cases, to the surprise of the experimenters themselves, living bacteria were found.

When life comes from space, it has to travel over distances measured in light-years. This travel could take millions of years, even billions of years. For this to be possible, the traveling cells would have to be able to survive for that long. They would have to be immortal and bacteria are immortal. Even 600-million-year-old halophiles locked in salt crystals remain viable. In fact, the apparent immortality of bacteria, even without freezing, is widely known. And with freezing, as occurs in space, the immortality of bacteria is ensured.Genes needed for evolutionary progress are imported to planets in bacterial spores. After arrival, these genes reside in bacteria, as silent DNA, before installation into the species where they will ultimately become useful. That is, bacteria contain silent genes that they do not need, but that higher forms of life do need. Are there any examples of this on earth?

In August 1996, Science carried a write-up by the group of scientists who had just obtained the complete sequence of the genome of the archaebacterium. Among the surprises contained in the genome of M. jannaschii were five genes for histones. Histones are essential proteins used by eukaryotic cells to help form their complex chromosomal structure. Neither eubacteria nor archaebacteria are known to use histones. Two of the five histone genes are not part of the main circular chromosome, but are carried on a much smaller "extra chromosomal element, because viral genomes must temporarily become a kind of extra chromosomal element before the process of transduction from one cell to another. Two of the histone genes in this archaebacterium are ready to be transducted to a higher form of life where they can be useful.

To quote Chandra Wickramasinghe from a trial in Arkansas,

“In studying the spectral behavior of micro-organisms in the laboratory we next noted that a diagnostic thumbprint of biology existed over the 3.4 micrometer waveband as shown in Exhibit 2. We then compared laboratory data with the observed behavior of infrared absorption for a star at the center of our galaxy and found the remarkably close correspondence between microbiology and astronomy. Bacteria seemed therefore to be present on a galaxy-wide scale. These identifications are, in the view of Sir Fred Hoyle and myself, as decisive as any that could be obtained from a comparison between laboratory data and astronomical observations. The failure on the part of most scientists today to recognize such obvious facts owes in large measure to the early indoctrination in Darwinism.”

Thus it is that life arrives on planets from space in genetic codes carried by bacteria. These are transferred to life forms through viruses that emerge from these bacteria. It is the reason that insects respond to ultraviolet light of wavelengths too short to be found on our planet, now or at any time in the past when life was possible. They carry genes useful on other planets.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/microbes-beginning-of-life.html

The Big Bang

Humans love things that have a beginning. Therefore they have come up with the Big Bang theory of the universe on earth. The alternative theory of a universe that always was, is a bit too formidable for many to handle. However, humans know that there is infinity in space. The dimensions of space go on and on without limit in either direction so why not time? In fact, the infinity of time is just like the infinity of space. The standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm that is inconsistent with the empirical data. Other dissenters on your planet include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfvén, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term "the Big Bang" during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950. These latter are on the right track. The universe has no beginning

The universe is an oscillating universe, it expands to a certain extent and then shrinks, but it doesn’t shrink all the way. In an oscillatory universe, time extends infinitely far into both past and future. An oscillating Universe is possible when the Cosmological Constant of Earth theories is variable and fluctuates. The Cosmos first expands outward at an accelerated rate, and then slows to an eventual halt followed by an inward collapse. During this inward collapse, the Universe shrinks down eventually to a relatively small size of a single galaxy. The Universe then begins re-expanding again, outward in a kind of new Big Bang. This present cycle of our Universe is a reoccurrence of the previous cycle and recurs over and over without end. Space expands when there is more and more light. Photons (accompanied by an equal number of anti-photons to keep everything conserved). When the Universe cools and the stars contained within the galaxies slowly burnout, the light they emit eventually fades. At this point, the balance of photon production becomes less and less leaning towards contraction. The nearer these galaxies come to each other, the more the matter that was cooled-down within the galaxies begins once again to heat-up. The force of compression within the galaxies causes friction and heating between the material molecules composing them. Hence, both friction and the Universe's compression lead to a new cycle of expansion. The Universe contracts to the separation of matter from radiation (the place and time also when matter again heats-up and begins to emit photons creating new space). This is the reason that we now measure the cosmic microwave background in the present-day Universe, an ancient relic of this radiation from the separation era.

Galaxy clusters are large collections of tens to thousands of galaxies, bound together by their mutual gravitational force and extended over several millions of light years. Our own galaxy the Milky Way is a galaxy that contains more than 200 billion stars. It is an average-size galaxy of the barred spiral class. The Milky Way belongs to a group of galaxies that contains 39 galaxies, two of which are the Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy. This Group is about 6 million light-years (3.5x1019 miles) in diameter. In turn, this group belongs to a much larger group of galaxies known as the Virgo Super cluster. The Milky Way lies on the outer edge of the super cluster. The Virgo Super cluster is about 100 million light-years in diameter. Not all the stars in a galaxy cluster are found in galaxies, but many of them just float in the intergalactic space, being unbound to any particular galaxy.

UPDATE APRIL 2. 2015

Latest scientific evidence is indicating that the Big Bang did not take place but the universe has always been around. Read here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/physics/lhc-accidental-rainbow-universe/

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/life-everywhere.html

The Code for Life

Some readers who do not have much interest in the science of genes can skip most of this post and move on to newer one, although it is not really difficult for the keen reader

 

The blue prints for all known life forms are contained within a single cell. After all, all life including human one starts from a single cell. Modern genetic science does not fully understand the workings of this single cell yet. At the core of a cell lies the genetic code that is the blue print for a life form. To gain an elementary knowledge of what this genetic code is, consider two single rungs of a ladder as shown in figure 1 with one of the four alphabets A, T, C or G sitting on the rungs. These two rungs are the only two basic elements that can now be joined up in various manners to construct the entire ladder or ladders that forms the basic code of all life forms. In the genetic code the rungs are made off a certain chemical compound and the four alphabets four different chemical compounds found in nature. It is not necessary to know what these compounds are exactly at the moment in order to gain an understanding of the genetic code.

____________________________________________________________
A------T C------G

Figure1: The beginning of the code of life
____________________________________________________________


Imagine that you have an unlimited number of such rung bits as shown in figure 1 to play with. The first step in constructing the genetic code is to join the two rungs in various ways so as to form a three-rung ladder. Three of these are shown in figure 2.

---------------------------------------------------------------
A------T A------T A------T
T------A C------G A------T
A------T G------C C------G

Figure 2: Some three-rung ladders
----------------------------------------------------------------

The three rung ladders of figure 2 have been constructed by joining the two single rungs of figure 1 in different ways. In one an identical rung is stacked upon another. In another the rung has been turned around before joining. Several other types of three rungs can be constructed similarly. If you attempt that, then you will find that 64 different types of ladders may be constructed in this manner. Now let us try and make your ladder longer by joining up several such ladders together. One is shown in figure 3.

Figure three is a sample of a snippet from a DNA. An infinite number of such chains of varying length can be built up by combining the three ladder rungs of the type shown in figure 2. If the sixty-four three ladder rungs are regarded as alphabets, then their joining up in various ways may be regarded as words and sentences. If there are enough words you have a book. Just as any language has punctuation marks and certain rules as to how words may be joined, there are certain rules that have to be obeyed before we can get a real life code. Since real DNA is made up of flexible material it can be twisted and folded. Different types carry the code for different species of life including bacteria, animals and humans but all across the spectrum of life the coding language is the same except for some rare exceptions only. Two DNA strands form a helical spiral, winding around a helix axis in a right-handed spiral. The sugar-phosphate backbones of the two DNA strands wind around the helix axis like the railing of a spiral staircase. The bases of the individual nucleotides (A, T, C or G) are on the inside of the helix, stacked on top of each other like the steps of a spiral staircase.

-------------------------------------------
A------T
C------G
A------T
G------C
T------A
G------C
G------C
A------T
T------A
Figure 3: A longer ladder
------------------------------------------------

A dotted line is shown passing through the middle of the DNA strand in figure 3. The rungs of the ladder can break right down the middle to create two bits of single stranded DNA. Since we know that A and T come in Pairs as well as C and G it is possible to reconstruct the ladders with new material so that we have two identical ladders instead of one. This is how individual cells divide and multiply all the while preserving the original code. Each new cell is an exact copy of the parent cell.

Just as books have chapters, the DNA codebook of different species of life divides the full DNA into chapters too. These chapters are analogous to chromosomes. Human DNA is divided up into forty-six chromosomes, twenty-three provided by the father and twenty-three by the mother. Each chromosome is like an immense ladder that may have a length larger than ten centimeters when stretched out. The forty-six chromosomes (forty six ladders) however fit into a cell that is about 0.000002 meters wide only. Each pair of chapters are on the same topic so to speak, one written by the mother and another by the father, so that when a real human is constructed on the basis of the instructions in the code one may choose the instructions from either chapter in a pair. One can mix matters in different ways here. That is why new babies are not precisely like their fathers or mothers but somewhere in between. There is a special chapter though, the one containing instructions on male sexual characteristics. Only the father provides this. Mothers can provide instructions for producing female babies and not males. A father may provide instructions for either. Thus we see how a combination of a few chemical components can be combined in various ways to encode instructions for the innumerable different type of life forms that can exist on your planet and beyond in the universe.

Genes that decide heredity consist of DNA base pairs of the type just described. Genes vary in size from a few hundred base pairs (A rung of the ladder) to more than two million base pairs. The exact number of genes in humans is not yet known. The human Genome project estimates that humans have about 25000 genes. The total number of base pairs in a human cell is estimated to be in millions. Every cell of the human body contains the same genes and the human body is made up of some ten trillion cells. RNA is similar to DNA. Some of the chemical components of DNA when replaced by other similar ones produce RNA. However the genetic code of most organisms is stored as DNA because the latter is more robust. However RNA is required for growth and cell production and it is produced in the cells by using the DNA as a template.

Life arrives on a planet from the cosmos in a bacterial form. It develops further by evolution, primarily assisted by viruses and plasmids. Bacteria return the new evolutionary information generated in the planet to the cosmos from time to time. Your own genetic code is nothing more than inumerable such bits of code added by viruses to the genetic code of an amoeba in small gradual steps, so as not to shock your mummy, in a manner of speaking. In each step a new life form is created, many different kinds, one of which shall go on transforming to eventually become a human.

NEXT: https://alienaccount.blogspot.com/2006/09/big-bang.html

The Universe we Live in

15th of September 2006

As spoken in the voice of an Alien from a more advanced planet in a galaxy far far away:

At one time you thought that of your world as stationary and at the center of the universe. The stars were thought of as lights for the night sky. We now know that stars are similar to your sun and appear small only because of their great distance from your planet and not because of their size. Stars vary in size. Some may be a thousand times smaller than your own, whereas others may be a thousand times larger. Stars vary in color too, because they are not all equally hot. They may be red, orange, yellow, white or blue depending upon how hot they are. Some stars are younger and have come into being much more recently than your own sun. Others are older and some have even come to the end of their lifecycles. Novas and Supernovas are dying stars that have come to their end in a final grand explosion.

Different portions of the celestial sphere i.e. the sky surrounding your planet are called constellations. The stars of different constellations form different patterns in the night sky. As the earth rotates and orbits around the sun, different constellations become visible. Besides stars some of the objects visible in the sky are planets, whereas some are distant clusters of stars in another galaxy. Galaxies are collections of stars in space made up of millions of stars and intervening matter- gas, dust, planets etc. Stars in our universe tend to cluster together to form little island universes known as galaxies. Galaxies come in different shapes. The Andromeda galaxy that is 2.4 million light years away from us appears to have the shape of a disc when viewed through a telescope. A light year is the distance light can travel in a year and we know that nothing can travel faster than that, therefore one can imagine the vast distances that are involved here. Our own galaxy, called the Milky Way, is shaped like a spiral and your sun is about two thirds of the way out from the center on one of the arms of the galaxies.

There are millions and millions of galaxies in our universe and each has millions and millions of stars, and orbiting these stars are billions and billions of planets, just as the planets of your own solar system do. For most practical purposes we may regard our universe as infinite. Until recently it was thought by some on your planet that the only star in the universe that could have an orbiting planet around it is your sun. This is because planets around stars had not been seen. Planets around other stars are too small to be seen even with telescopes, but how incredibly narrow minded such a view must have been – a view that only that which can be seen can exist. Further, in such a large universe it would be incredibly naïve or narrow minded to think that yours is the only planet that can sustain life. Even if one in a thousand planets or even one in a million has the capacity to sustain life, there must be million upon millions of such planets in our vast universe. Yours and mine are only two of these.  As we shall see later life is not such a rare phenomenon in the universe. The very mechanisms that bring it about ensure that it is rather widespread. Why is that we do not have physical evidence of life on other planets? The physical evidence is minimal or lacking simply because of the great distances involved. Until a few centuries ago, you in the old world had little evidence of life in the Americas or on far flung Pacific Islands. But this did not mean that life did no exist in such places. The knowledge of it was lacking simply because of the distances involved and the intervening ocean barriers. Similarly, if actual knowledge of life in other parts of the universe is scant, it does not imply that such life cannot or does not exist. Here the distances involved are far greater than distances between continents, and the intervening barrier of space far more formidable. If some seemingly intelligent and rational humans vehemently resist the idea of life in other parts of the universe, it is not because of the logical impossibility of the same but perhaps because of a misplaced and too literal a belief in the interpretations of religious texts they have come to believe in.

It is natural for an enquiring and intelligent mind to wonder how our universe came about and more specifically how life came to inhabit this universe. We will attempt to address the second question in the light of recent discoveries even on your planet that have shed new light on the topic. A religious person is satisfied with the explanation that all this is Gods doing. However a rational mind is not satisfied merely with such an explanation. It would like to know more precisely what the possible mechanisms for creation of life might be. There are already many profound theories on your planet about this fundamental question. It is the opinion of this author that none is a full picture. Whereas, many existing theories appear to have elements of truth, none gives the full picture. As more and more new scientific information becomes available at the microbiological level as well as in the understanding of your universe, it is possible to improve upon existing hypothesis. For a hypothesis to be a scientifically valid one, it must be such that it is feasible as per the existing scientific principles and information. Anything else would fall in the category of mere speculation, perhaps even fiction. An attempt will be made to adhere to this principle in the presently described hypothesis of the origin of life and species not just on your planet but in the universe as a whole. However, in presenting the hypothesis care will be taken that complexity, scientific jargon, scholarly referencing and notes are avoided to the extent possible. The idea being that, then the ideas proposed herein will be understood by a wide cross-section of the public. After all, the fundamentals of life interest all.

DARWIN AND PANSPERMIA

The most widely discussed theory of evolution on earth is the theory of the origin of species due to Darwin a British Naturalist. He set forth his theory in 1859 in his book entitled, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. His study was based upon a study of species. He concluded that various life forms emerged through a gradual evolution beginning from a single simple original life form. He surmised that evolutionary change was gradual lasting millions of years and the primary mechanism for evolution was a process of natural selection that favored the fittest out of a variation that took place randomly. Whereas many have found Darwin’s theory reasonable and logical many others have opposed it. Opponents fall in two categories. First are those who oppose it on religious grounds because Darwin’s idea of the origins of life does not agree with what has is written in scriptures. The second category of opponents is those who oppose Darwinism based on scientific logic and anomalies that have been discovered at the microbiological level. Not all who oppose Darwin are irreligious. Some scientifically inclined religious persons regard the will of God as expressed in the fundamental scientific laws that hold our universe together and make evolution possible. Such persons regard much that happens in the universe as the doings of God and for them Darwin’s theory is a fair and logical attempt to explain how God went about bringing forth life. The knowledge of genes and Genetics had not emerged at the time of Darwin. Since then modern Genetic Theory has emerged that attempts to explain evolution on the basis of Genes. Neo-Darwinism is the modern version of Darwin’s evolutionary theory that synthesizes Darwin’s ideas with modern genetic science.

A scientific opposition of Darwin’s theory comes from a calculation of the probability of the simplest ingredients of life emerging from a primordial broth of the elements as well as the probability of it developing into more complicated forms of life as next to impossible. An alternative theory called Panspermia has attracted much attention in recent years on earth. It is due to Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. They argue that the origins of life on earth are due to the arrival of microbes from space in the form of cosmic dust, particles and comets. The problem is that although this latter theory may explain life on earth it does not explain sufficiently how life emerged elsewhere in the cosmos. A second difficulty is the extreme unlikelihood of microbes surviving through space travel in cosmic dust although such a survival is possible in the cooler interiors of comets and asteroids. Further, Panspermia does not explain much as to how life develops into plants, animals and humans beginning from microbes. It is also suggested that viruses may be instrumental in bringing about change but we know that viruses are not good survivors outside their hosts, and their survival through a galactic journey is a near impossibility. Frozen bacteria however may survive indefinitely. The  genetic code of bacteria is not vastly different from that of higher life forms.  Most human and other animal genes have been found in bacteria . Here we will elaborate a variation of the Panspermia theory and term it as Pansmeria in honour of one of the leading and early human civilisation on earth - sumeria or smeria. We shall conclude this discussion by throwing some new light on the Sumerian civilisation.

It appears that various theories of evolution on earth have elements of truth but are as yet far from complete. Even the staunchest opponent of Darwin’s theory would have to admit that some genetic evolution at least within a species can and does take place. One can observe this even within one’s own lifetime. What the contribution of this evolution to overall development of life on earth and on any other planet that can sustain life is something that cannot be said with similar surety. Further, if there is life on earth it may be argued on the basis of probability alone that it must be there elsewhere in the universe too and therefore one cannot rule out the possibility that life on earth has a cosmic origin. What needs to be explored in greater detail is the mechanisms that make it possible

AN EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISM

One serious limitation of Darwin’s hypothesis regarding the low probability of life emerging by chance can be overcome if an indefinitely long period of time can be provided for it to occur in an infinitely large universe i.e. on a cosmic scale rather than a planetary scale. This is like saying that although it is very difficult to hit the jackpot in the lotto; it becomes easy if one buys all the lotto tickets.

Based on the progress of available evolutionary models as well as recent scientific progress one may propose a new mechanism for evolution known as Cosmic Darwinism that prevails on my planet. It involves the following steps to the evolution of species on a cosmic scale. Some scientific terms have been employed in stating these steps; these shall be explained in greater detail later if opportunity permits. For the moment it may be mentioned that Eukaryotic cells are the type of living cells possessed by bacteria, whereas Prokaryotic cells are the type common to higher organisms. An essential difference between the two types of cells is that the latter carry their genetic information in a membrane-protected nucleus inside a cell. This latter genetic information cannot be altered with the same ease as the genetic information carried by bacteria that do not have this protective nucleus. Bacterial cells are life forms because they reproduce and multiply. Viruses on the other hand are not fully life because they cannot multiply on their own. However Viruses too carry genetic information in protective protein cells. Plasmids may be regarded as still simpler versions of viruses that do not have this protective cell. Thus using this minimum terminology from microbiology it may be stated that

Life begins in the cosmos from a chance combination of elements leading to a simple single celled bacterial life form

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Further evolution and diversification begins by random mutations and natural selection. The evolutionary information of any one planet is stored in bacterial life forms and shared across the cosmos by natural cosmic interactions.

The single celled eukaryotic bacterial forms develop into plant cells and prokaryotic (human-like) amoeba life forms through symbiosis and from there on to multicelled prokaryotic life forms through a further symbiosis. The genetic information so generated is broken up into smaller units and stored on a continuous basis in bacterial life forms through the action of viruses and plasmids. It is shared across the cosmos from time to time through the transfer of matter across heavenly bodies.

On any given planet where life can be sustained, evolution is an ongoing process, taking place through Darwinian evolution, intelligent design and cosmic interactions with the largest contribution coming from cosmic interactions. Genetic information brought to a planet from the cosmos is transferred to existing species from bacteria, by viruses and plasmids in small gradual steps from time to time. The information so transferred is suitably modified and adjusted by bacteria to the precise conditions of any given planet before the transfer takes place. Bacteria do much more than simply store and carry genetic information across the cosmos. They also correct the stored information to suit planetary conditions as well as prepare and maintain the planet and evolved life forms for sustenance of life. We shall elaborate and discuss the five steps to evolution stated here in the light of available scientific evidence at a later stage.

WHAT ABOUT GOD?

Science may explain how physical aspects of life are created yet there is another aspect of life that goes beyond the physical. Desire and aversion is one; and we know that life has consciousness and intelligence feelings and emotions; ego and free will; joy and sorrow etc. These latter features appear to fall outside the physical realm. It is because of these that some have been lead to the conclusion that life forms must be imbibed with something more than physical i.e. they have a spiritual component called the spirit or soul and that this latter is the essential force that sustains life. Certainly without sexual attraction between opposite sexes there would be no procreation and without the sacrifice and love with which even birds and animals nurture their young, higher forms of life would be difficult if not impossible to perpetuate. Further, just as individual life forms have a spirit, intelligence and consciousness that sustains life, the universe too must have a consciousness and intelligence i.e. God who makes the creation of life possible with utmost ease, against seemingly impossible odds.

Seeking for and exploring the physical mechanisms for the creation of life forms therefore does not negate God or make Him redundant. It may be regarded as merely explaining how God went about doing it. We know that if God created life bacteria must have been created first because without that there would be no oxygen to breathe and that plants and animals must have come before humans because without it there would be no food. There would be no water too. Gases such as methane, hydrogen and carbon dioxide are more basic to the universe than water and oxygen. The oxygen is produced by cyno-bacteria and when this oxygen combines with hydrogen water is produced.

Some persons who believe firmly in God are disturbed when purely material arguments are advanced for a matter as fundamental as the creation of life. However, scientific mechanisms for creation of life depend upon the fundamental structure and governing fundamental laws of the universe. Therefore they do not imply that God does not exist. Certainly problems occur if existing religious scriptures are interpreted too literally. It is the belief of this author that the scriptures contain truths in a symbolic language. How else could ancient seers write it for a public that had no understanding of Genetic language? Thus when a day is mentioned with reference to God it cannot be equal to a human day but more realistically specifies a day in a cosmic cycle that can span billions of years. In fact such a definition of a day does exist for God in a well-known ancient eastern scripture on earth (The Bhagavad-Gita). Further when it is described that Eve was created from a portion of Adam that makes eminent genetic sense. A female may be created from a male and not vice versa because the male genome carries the codes for both males and females whereas the female only carries the genetic code for females. The apple of the Garden of Eden is sexual desire and the tower of Babel the human ego that divides and creates differences in human communities.

Some believe that even the simplest of creatures i.e. the single celled bacterium, necessary to initiate the creation of life, is far too complex too have emerged by chance from a broth of elements. Indeed if one were to scientifically calculate the probability of such an event happening, then, the odds of that would be next to impossible. Therefore, it does seem that the first creation of life, the bacterium is a creation of God and that its further development into multifarious life forms is also closely supervised by divine will. However, the precise role and interaction, the spiritual component has in directing evolution cannot be a matter of enquiry here in an evolutionary model that deals with the material or physical side of life.

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