Comments on: Origin of intelligence and mental illness linked to ancient genetic accident

By: Jerry

Jerry — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 02:02:40 +0000

Great, now you made me want to re-watch the ‘Walking with …’ series!

By: David Nollmeyer

David Nollmeyer — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:48:59 +0000

Musing Overman. I believe the first land animal was a scorpion. Hence a shrimp that crawled on land. I run into one every few months here near the Salton Sea which is below sea level now.

By: Mr.X

Mr.X — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:36:56 +0000

@Jerry: Thanks for your link.

By: Mr.X

Mr.X — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:36:08 +0000

@Bri: He believed in things that are similiar to your beliefs:)

By: Jerry

Jerry — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 09:23:54 +0000

While there hasn’t been any extensive study done for intelligence that I’m aware of, creativity seems to have a link with mental illness. Here’s a new study http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/creativity-mental-illness-bipolar-disorder_n_1972391.html

By: Bri

Bri — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 04:41:45 +0000

What was the accident? Was it a two car pile up? I’ve heard rumors that sponges have protosynapsis, but don’t ask them about it. Jokes aside, I didn’t think that DNA was conserved for such a long time period. At 550 million years ago, that Chordate vertebrate was definitely qt the base of the tree. Now I can see a human kicking back with a touch screen, but I’d love to see the mouse reaching out to touch a choice. We’ll forget about the chordate vertebrate taking that test.

By: Bri

Bri — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 04:28:22 +0000

@Eldras: check out Steve Jobs biography.. Definitely a few loose screws!

By: Mr.X

Mr.X — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 21:43:08 +0000

“Anecdotally there has often said to be a link between mental illness and brilliance: many ‘geniuses’ have close relations with mental illness.”

Excuse me sir, but could you please define the term “urban legend” for me!?Or, more fittingly, the word “myth.” Thanks in advance.

“including producing by 3D print the one off gene therapy pill to cure any mutations.”

Not talking about the usefulness of such a pill, “curing” ANY mutations, this presupposes that such a thing can be brought into the physical form of a pill.Why not just building a pill that can do everything, instead!?

Have a nice day.

By: eldras

eldras — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 18:37:05 +0000

Ho! That’s well answered!
Anecdotally there has often said to be a link between mental illness and brilliance: many ‘geniuses’ have close relations with mental illness.

Until the great calculators arrive we cant do good enough brain simulations…which are vast…to know what;s going on from atoms up. It may be humanly impossible to – although it might be possible in abstractions, but coming machine intelligences could do it all quite quickly, including producing by 3D print the one off gene therapy pill to cure any mutations.

Definitely a case for the quantum archaeology grid!

By: Editor

Editor — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:51:32 +0000

Good question. It was a vertebrate at the base of the chordate evolutionary tree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chordate) 550 million years ago, per Ref. 1 (Jess Nithianantharajah et al., Synaptic scaffold evolution generated components of vertebrate cognitive complexity, Nature Neuroscience, 2012, DOI: 10.1038/nn.3276)

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:06:53 +0000

“…a simple invertebrate animal living in the sea 500 million years ago experienced a “genetic accident…”

I do wish that they were more specific in describing this animal. So was it a flatworm or a roundworm? Was it segmented? C’mon, inquiring minds want to know.