Tiny Evolution, the motoped/tractor trailer model

[cdowis]

Another insane model from cdowis == "tiny evolution"   (thank you Trump for suggesting the name).

I introduced his model way back sometime in the past where the evolution has been proven as scientific fact -- nothing shocking there -- but I injected a small wrinkle.  The factual evolution model has a tiny problem ==>>

It can explain TINY issues but gets beat up on the BIG ones.  It can carry very small loads as a motoped, such as packages, letters, small stuff but give it a load that requires a sixteen wheel tractor trailer??  In my previous introduction to this model, I gave a few specific examples.  A new model is necessary to carry train loads.

Recent research into neuroscience has now introduced a tractor trailer problem beyond any hope for tiny evolution ==>>  wireless almost psychic  communication by the brain

Quote

 

What they found was that slow periodic activity can generate electric fields which in turn activate neighbouring cells, constituting a form of neural communication without chemical synaptic transmission or gap junctions.

"We've known about these waves for a long time, but no one knows their exact function and no one believed they could spontaneously propagate," Durand says.

"I've been studying the hippocampus, itself just one small part of the brain, for 40 years and it keeps surprising me."

This neural activity can actually be modulated - strengthened or blocked - by applying weak electrical fields and could be an analogue form of another cell communication method, called ephaptic coupling.

The team's most radical finding was that these electrical fields can activate neurons through a complete gap in severed brain tissue, when the two pieces remain in close physical proximity.

https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-say-they-ve-found-an-entirely-new-form-of-neural-communication

 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by cdowis

[cdowis]

Look, I had my 72 year  birthday recently, so I have only a limited number of ideas left in me. 
So pay attention.  👀

[Physics Guy]

If it's true that nerve cells can stimulate each other at a distance with electric fields, then that's surprising and interesting. Why would it pose a problem for evolution?

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

If it's true that nerve cells can stimulate each other at a distance with electric fields, then that's surprising and interesting. Why would it pose a problem for evolution?

Sigh.

How did nerve cells evolve the ability to communicate when physically isolated?  What was the mechanism.

Edited February 19, 2019 by cdowis

[Physics Guy]

Nerve cells didn't evolve the ability to communicate when physically isolated. They evolved the ability to affect each other with electric fields.

Affecting each other with electric fields is what nerve cells naturally do when they're connected in the brain. All that stuff about ion flows and action potentials is happening through electric fields. Neural activity is all about electric charges. Electric charges make electric fields. The electrical interactions among nerve cells are just normally at short range.

Electric fields naturally extend over distance, however. You can rub a balloon on some fuzzy stuff, to charge it up, and then see how the charged balloon can attract hair or bits of fluff from a distance.

If you separate two nerve cells by an air gap, then the electric fields they feel from each other will be weaker than they would feel if they were directly connected. That's why it's surprising if there's still an effect. Lots of things in biology are over-engineered, though, being stronger than they would need to be in order to work as they usually do. The hallmark of evolution is clumsiness and inefficiency. Nothing has to be perfect. It just has to be competitive with other organisms that have also evolved inefficiently.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Physics Guy

[Bernard Gui]

14 hours ago, cdowis said:

Look, I had my 72 year  birthday recently, so I have only a limited number of ideas left in me. 
So pay attention.  👀

Me too. Last week. GGAGCB - GGAGDC - GGG’E”cdowis”- FFECDC.

[Bernard Gui]

 

1 hour ago, Physics Guy said:

If you separate two nerve cells by an air gap, then the electric fields they feel from each other will be weaker than they would feel if they were directly connected. That's why it's surprising if there's still an effect.

Are you saying that before developing this ability they could not communicate with the brain? How did the organism function without this ability? How much separation before the charge is too weak to be felt?

Edited February 20, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[cdowis]

4 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Nerve cells didn't evolve the ability to communicate when physically isolated. They evolved the ability to affect each other with electric fields.

Affecting each other with electric fields is what nerve cells naturally do when they're connected in the brain. 

So this whole  thing about a "new" way of communication is just a nothing burger.  Rubbing a  balloon.

Edited February 20, 2019 by cdowis

[Physics Guy]

Ions generate and respond to electric fields. That's not an ability that any organism had to develop. It's basic physics. Nerve cells have evolved some complicated patterns of ion motion—and as a physicist that's about all I know about nerve cells.

The point is that for nerve cells to respond to each other's electric fields across an air gap is not really a different ability from what nerve cells do when they're connected in the brain. It just shows that the cells can respond to weaker fields than one might have expected. Perhaps it even has big implications for how the brain works—perhaps cells in the brain influence other cells around themselves to a further range than we've suspected.

If this finding is true, it's interesting, but it's not any kind of new wrinkle for evolution.

[Gray]

On 2/19/2019 at 12:28 PM, cdowis said:

Look, I had my 72 year  birthday recently, so I have only a limited number of ideas left in me. 
So pay attention.  👀

Hope you had a happy birthday! Bernard Gui too!

Edited February 21, 2019 by Gray

[mfbukowski]

On 2/19/2019 at 5:04 PM, cdowis said:

Sigh.

How did nerve cells evolve the ability to communicate when physically isolated?  What was the mechanism.

Cell phones. Where do you think they got that name?

[mfbukowski]

On 2/20/2019 at 5:32 AM, Physics Guy said:

Ions generate and respond to electric fields. That's not an ability that any organism had to develop. It's basic physics. Nerve cells have evolved some complicated patterns of ion motion—and as a physicist that's about all I know about nerve cells.

The point is that for nerve cells to respond to each other's electric fields across an air gap is not really a different ability from what nerve cells do when they're connected in the brain. It just shows that the cells can respond to weaker fields than one might have expected. Perhaps it even has big implications for how the brain works—perhaps cells in the brain influence other cells around themselves to a further range than we've suspected.

If this finding is true, it's interesting, but it's not any kind of new wrinkle for evolution.

Agreed.

I don't see how it has been shown that there is a progression or difference of any kind between the way this may work in say a crocodile or bird's brain and ours.

[cdowis]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Cell phones. Where do you think they got that name?

Evolved cell towers?

Edited February 24, 2019 by cdowis