tristynalxander

How different are AMELX & AMELY and what specifically are they testing for? Is it possible a species mutation in the Y variant made it look more like the X variant in the tests? Can they do whole protein mass spec to verify the protein identity?

Okay, I found the paper, they did test by mass spec though it’s complicated by degradation. Still, they say there are 23 diagnostic amino acid substitutions, and of the 18 residue polymorphisms the species only has two, so probably not a back mutation misinterpretation. I agree with their conclusions.

Yeah, I don’t know. That’s the extent of my expertise. If the archaeology people say it’s the woman-cave, they probably know best.

Must just be the algorithms deciding it’s the new thing I’m interested in.

Is it just me / my-algorithm or is there a ton being done on exoplanets recently?

That’s way smaller than I thought – or perhaps space is just way bigger than I thought.

I’m biased as a biologist, but I don’t think extraterrestrials will reach out to humanity until we’ve solved both global peace and biological immortality (the second being much easier and closer than scifi makes it seem and likely a prerequisite for the first). Until we have a population that’s basically capable of responsibly managing themselves, I think humanity looks like infants or maybe teens throwing tantrums. Unstable, unreliable, and in need of the time to work itself out.

That’s assuming of-course that they’re near by in the first place, which is unknown.

Unfortunately, I think this is kinda predictable. You can’t control your genetics, but I think that’s the point of these judgements. I don’t like it or agree with it, but people are almost always judging people based on sexual selection criteria. There isn’t a rational mechanistic logic there. It’s just being attractive vaguely correlates with other positive traits (implied genes). Maybe you’re attractive because you just don’t get fat, those are good genes. Maybe you’re attractive because you have great self control, those are good genes* (that’s questionable, but that’s the “logic”). People aren’t judging you based on what you did with the hand you were dealt they’re judging you based on the hand you were dealt. It’s like when guys dislike knowing girls wear make-up, despite being attracted almost exclusively to make-up wearing girls. Make-up is “cheating” their evolutionary intuition, so they dislike it. GLP-1 drugs similarly cheat people’s evolutionary intuition. It’s shallow and stupid, but I think that’s the ultimate basis of the judgement.