On 1/13/2011 5:00 AM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> Surprisingly enough, it really is trivial.
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation#Artificial_speciation
>
>    It talks about preference, not about capability. Just because some man will
> not mate with fat women doesn't make the man a different species.
>
But, by the same token, just because a species has developed to "prefer" 
their own species, doesn't mean its 100% impossible for an impregnation 
to happen, it just isn't too common. The question then is, are the rest 
of the genes compatible at all. The answer is, "Depends". For common 
things, like insulin, the genome doesn't much care, as long as its 
"close enough". Basically, you have these barriers:

1. Pheromone response.
2. Reproductive compatibility (fusion will happen).
3. Number of chromosomes, though a difference of 1-2 may *not* be a big 
deal, as long as there are parallels, or the two available fill in any gaps.
4. Immune response - does the host mother's immune system see the cell 
as a problem?
5. Hormonal issues - the wrong levels "may" effect development, if far 
enough off.

Most of these are not likely to be surmountable by species in nature, 
short of a lot of very unusual mutations all coinciding. In principle, 
we could take steps to eliminate most of them, but no one is likely to 
do that (at least not in legit labs, in first, or probably even second, 
world countries). However, that the odds of a pure chance combination of 
factors resulting in a combination working being low doesn't mean 
"impossible". That is the problem. Of course, one big difference also 
comes down to the fact that "preference" in this case is *not* the same 
thing at all. For a fruit fly, preference means, short of outside 
intervention, its almost 100% certain they will never mate with a 
different species. The more complex the organism, the greater the odds 
it will "override" that preference, by self choice. Which is why you 
don't see, say, birds trying to mate spiders, but its not unheard of for 
dogs to try to mate with sheep, etc., or apes to mate with everything 
from frogs, to anything else that can't get away, mostly purely to "got 
off", which most simpler species don't do at all either. But, at that 
level of complexity, the number of barriers in place to prevent cross 
over is *very* high, even if they develop some truly odd preferences.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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