Evolution Since Human Intervention

[austintorn@aol.com]

Then your serotonin level may have been fine.

Did a low sodium level bring you to near death?

[Mikal]

It was doctors who said I was going to die. As you can see I lived and to understand what happened to me, I had to read a manuscript from the 12th century on Alchemy. I was just passing through a biological mystery not so much known now but quite well known to our ancestors...


Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

So, then, you weren't near death at all and the low sodium was no problem; that's good. You missed an NDE, but, then again, who wants that.

[Mikal]

You have the details confused...I had an NDE in mid 1984, I lost my sodium content in my blood in 1994...two different experiences involved in one long process....


Mikal

[austintorn@aol.com]

I'm not confused. You are, for I said you had no NDE from the sodium.

[austintorn@aol.com]

So, anyway, any ill effects from your sodium being too low?

[labelwench]

Much of our food does far more than just supply energy to our body. The process of digestion is one of many chemical reactions, and with much of our food being processed and having numerous additives to enhance flavor and maintain freshness and palatability, our bodies are exposed to a much greater potential for imbalance.

This is likely one of the venues where human intervention has had profound impact on our evolution.

There has been considerable research to date on which foods may act as carcinogens and conversely, which foods seem to possess interventive or preventative capacity.

There is also the observation that micronutrients, in too low or too high proportion, have detrimental effect on our overall state of physical and mental well-being.

Labelwench

[labelwench]

The latest find of an earlier human skeleton seems a good fit for this thread, so I have dug it back out of the archives.

I would suggest that humans have long been involved in shaping their own evolution, as well as that of many other species, which have had no recourse but to adapt or become extinct, not that I blame all extinctions on our species,as such seems tobe par for the course, with or without us.

Interesting, that for all of our mucking about, advanced technology, and journeys to the moon, we have still not unravelled our own origins.

Rather ironic, at least to me....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33110809...ience-science/

[sillysally]

So, anyway, any ill effects from your sodium being too low?

I have low sodium and I always thought it was my ticket to eat as much salt as I like, which is a lot. I just avoid garlic coz my blood pressure will drop so low that I fall over.

[labelwench]

Yes. We have been mucking about in our own evolution, and that of our environment for some time now. Here are a few of the ways that leap to mind.

1. Chemical pest control, for food plants, weed control and human comfort.

2. Splicing genes of animal species into plants.

3. Selective breeding of plants and animals, selecting for subjective qualities, often to the detriment of viability. (If a palomino horse occurs at a low percentage in the natural state, there is a reason for this. To select for palomino is skewing against possible survival traits.)

4. Artificial insemination and embryo transfer.

5. Cloning.

We seek immediate results.

We do not give sufficient consideration to the ramification of the cumulative effect of these outcomes.

Every action begets an equal reaction.

Not always immediately.

Yet, eventually, 'the chickens will come home to roost......'