General Chat

This thread reminded of an article I read in our national paper this week

Male stick insects may not be good stick men, as research shows New Zealand's female stick insects don't actually need them to get on with a brood.

Not only that, the females capable of reproducing without male help always produce female offspring, according to the research, by Massey University's Mary Morgan-Richards.

Southern females were more likely to go it alone.

(for complete article) http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10634413

I have put up some of my own shelves by the way, most things in my house get done by me as there is no one else to do it. I have my own toolbox too.

maybe :)))

Maybe he got a better offer? :-)

why has Steve deleted his offer to populate the world with Laura Croft ...lol

amandas comment, lol

where Eldrick ?

definite freudian slip there

I was reading tealeafs yesterday Amanda....lol

What do you mean, Hayley?

Oh dear Hayley.......you been gazing into balls again ?.......lol

I think that is the future Amanda Ive seen it ....lololol

Daff......." a small number of women and a sperm bank " !! but who I ask would put up the shelves and mow the lawn ? ........lol

Seriously though , I can't actually in visage the human race lasting another million years.......not if we carry on the way we are going . Far to self distructive in my opinion : (

'Risky behaviour developed by males' Rose? What can they mean??? :-)))

Daff - you've made me feel silly now with your intelligent post lol :-)

Ps.... will you clever lot please stop typing so quickly that by the time I have finished my essay..... you have all moved on!!

Mwah!!

Eldrick, I agree... this has been very thought provoking.... and enjoyable. Thank you

Love

Daff xxx

God, what a depressing thread! Just goes to show - we have to live for the moment, except for the little ones that have only recently come into the world - what about them? They're the ones I worry about - my children and their offspring. I'm past it - used to be told I looked like like Julie Christie, but old age has put paid to that - ha, ha! I could still try and do Omar Sharif a few favours though!! PS when he was younger - he's had his day now too, I think!!

just touching on immune systems...did you see there is such a thing as 'man-flu-? apparently men really are the weaker sex in terms of immunity,

"Earlier this week, scientists linked 'man flu' with the early development of humanity.
The risky behaviour developed by males who had to hunt for food weakened their immune systems, a team from Cambridge University concluded. "

*tuts* I thought my second bit was secular!

Ok, knuckles rapped... I was fairly serious, although the images on the link I put up were fairly gross, lol...


Homunculous man was partly an image put forward by those who were attempting to show how mankind would look if their evolution developed on the stimulation of nerves... and this is why the overlarge hands, tongue etc were depicted, this is where the nerves are concentrated, where we feel things... it's why we have sense of taste and smell, why a paper cut on the finger is so painful etc etc... so my thinking was that if we continue to live a life dedicated to those senses, then this would maybe how we would evolve.

However.... I think that nature has ways of culling us when we get too big for our boots, so to speak.... epidemics, diseases, and the like.

In poor countries, children don't survive childhood in the same numbers as in the more developed countries, but more children are born per couple....In the developed world, fewer babies are born, but more of them survive childhood. So a nebulous and precarious *balance* is created... I know that is a bad way of putting it, but my words aren't coming easily today, lol Sorry!

Adults in poorer countries die young, statistically, but the other side is that developed countries now have the obesity epidemic, which is shortening modern day lives in richer parts of the world.

Climate change is for real..... although I believe it to be more of a natural, cyclical phenomenum, rather than anything we are doing - that is not to say we are not contributing to an acceleration of that change, but it is fundamentally natural... exacerbated by us and our plunderings- so therefore, my inclination is to say a massive climatic event, involving much structural damage, re-formatting of the boundaries and shorelines of our world.... tectonic plates colliding, causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, icecaps being hurled like twiglets, massive storms, typhoons and hurricanes, tsunami by the dozen... flooding of reclaimed marshlands (like my little palace)... all in a short space of time. That is what will happen.... heaven knows what will cause it. Man or Nature?

I think people will survive that.... and would also survive a massive, manmade, nuclear strike..... but who knows in what guise?

I think mankind will survive, but will have to evolve in a way that we might not recognise at all..... and technically.... we would only need a small number women, and a sperm bank....

Not much fun.... and a long time to re-populate the world, I reckon. I like having men around....

Oh... and my SiL is Chinese (although Hong Kong born) and grieves so much.... she can't have children at all. She has family in China, her mother owns property there... but she is still unable to adopt a child from there... it breaks her heart to know that there have been people (two second cousins that she knows of) in her own family who have murdered their baby girls. And of course, there are now more boys than girls.......

Cruel world, isn't it?

Oh, 'ecky thump... my braincells are hurting now, lolol!!

Love

Daff xxxx

I must be off to start my day. Thank you for an interesting thread Eldrick and some thought provoking comments DL.

Sue xx