Unconcept said:
I haven't read anything that answers this question, What determines the traits we acquire, and the traits we lose?
The traits you acquire replace the traits you lose. The egg and sperm have each already sacrificed half of their family traits by the time they merge to form a new double set. The determination is strictly random. Let's talk abut your maternal grandparents. Their DNA was in every cell in your mother's body when she produced the egg of you. At the formation of the egg, a single strand from her mother and a single strand from her father twisted together like rope, and split longitudinally, creating two mixed sets. One of those became the nucleus of the egg. This process is called crossover, and it is strictly random. The same thing happened on your father's side. So when the single egg set merged with the single sperm set, a new hybrid (you) was formed by random combinations for each of the four grandparents, equally weighted between mother and father. However, for each pair of codes that describe the trait, there is also a randomizing that determines which one of the two will dominate. So it possible to receive more apparent traits from one ancestor than another, and then pass down the recessive genes, which may later crop up in one or more of your descendants.
Unconcept said:
If the species gain new traits and lose ones solely based on the adaptability to the environment,
Above I thought you were talking about individuals. Here you are asking about evolution, which is what happens when certain traits in a population are so adverse to survival that those traits get replaced by mutations.
In order to survive some changing stress in the environment, or to fill an environmental niche, that is, to exploit some open opportunity for surviving in a different way, a favorable mutation will provide an advantage for the individuals that carry it, namely, they will tend to survive in that niche. The ancestral line may remain stuck in the older niche, either on the verge of extinction, or else in maintaining the population, in which case the two species might branch and coexist. There are other variations on this idea, for example, the species might not evolve at all, but it might drift, such as the polar mammals who established a white coat.
I could dream up all kinds of traits off the top of my head that we could acquire.
But they can only crop up from crossover and mutation, which do no tend to invent large functional changes, since traits are not stored in the DNA in a linear one-to-one correspondence. Mutations normally will only persist in the species as a whole if they are useful toward survival of the species as a whole. They will also normally tend to involve changes that amount to acquiring more efficiency for a given set of characteristics needed to survive the pressures of the particular niche.
Why didn't any species develop a way to fall asleep fast since they've been used to sleep for a long time
?
Birds seem to fall asleep as soon as the sun sets. Other animals may not sleep at all. Others may need to sleep lightly, to listen for intruders and run from danger. It all depends on what the requirements of their niche calls for.
Also, as a passing comment to what Grumpy mentioned:
Survival to pass on those traits, mostly. Some traits(like blue eyes)have little effect on survival, but don't hurt it either, so some people have blue eyes, but not all. Upright walking, however, has great survival value, so every human has that trait.
The blue eyes came with the skin color change, because somewhere in the past those became genetically connected. The skin color needed to change to increase UV absorption, to increase Vitamin D production (from sunlight), which diminished at northern latitudes.
The point here is that some traits may stick because of an underlying cause, and many are tied into a long sequence of cause and effect that is woven over all of evolutionary history.
scheherazade said:
LOL....are you finding it difficult to sleep? For the record, I have developed that trait, mostly in response to my strange job hours.
I can lay down, turn off my mind and literally be asleep before the covers have settled on my person.
That's a good place to be. I have periods when I can do that, and then other times when it just doesn't work. In those cases it seems to have a lot to do with an urge to stay awake, like a feeling that I didn't finish something, and I don't want to put it off.
scheherazade said:
It's a rather necessary skill set but I would observe that it has been acquired through experience although I do think the ability to tolerate extended graveyard work may be an inherited trait and I also note from seven years of 'field research' that in these parts, those who seem the most successful on this schedule are of predominantly European origin.
I was just reading something that mentioned circadian rhythms in plants, so your comment made me wonder if something genetic like this could be at play, and if it might not show up in one lineage more than another, for some reason having to do with who knows what kind of stresses one ancestral group was dealing with, versus another.
Xotica said:
It’s all a bit odd. I have no set hourly work schedule. I have 24/7 physical access to the research facility, or I can connect with my colleague’s electronically via various avenues... cell phone, e-mail, dedicated chat, instant messaging, video conferencing, etc. For the most part, I’m a natural night owl.
Does anyone have a clue why some people - like me - are nocturnal oriented?
Here you speak of work, so maybe it's on your mind a lot? I also tend to set my own hours, so I can relate to what you are saying. I can just as easily be made sleepy by wrangling over something tedious as to be amped up and wide awake over something interesting or unfinished.
