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Poems and Thoughts by Frank Maurer

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Genetics

Evolution opus 21

Mutation.
Recombination.
Genetic Drift.
These are the genetic strategies of life,
Allowing us to cling to our very earthly existence.

Virus, one of the ubiquitous forms of life
Which constantly remind us of their existence--
Tenaciously meddling in our lives.

Vaccination-----Immunization.
Our way of guiding evolution,
Preventing new viral forms
Which ravage our human population.

Is it faith in a god which will save us
Or a greater common understanding of our methods of science;
The latter leading us to rational knowledge
Of our ever-present fellow forms of life,
Which use us as a medium for their ceaseless subsistence?

Oh, deliver us from so unsavory a plight!

Hidden Libraries opus 50

Each of us holds volumes of memories
Which are either lost in death
Or, perhaps, could be preserved through various recording methods
So that an enhanced life is held for others.

Likewise, there exists another library held immobile in each of our cells,
Revealing a deeper and faraway past
Which expounds itself through our DNA,
Manifesting our juxtaposition with perhaps great historical events!

To Ingegerd opus 100

How often Sweden pulses through my mind--
Both genetically and experientially.
The plunder, but wisdom and ability
Of those who founded the government of Rusland.
(The Land of the Redheads!)
And trade routes from the North to the land of Egypt.

Perhaps a small amount of what I consider my wisdom
May have come from those forebears. . . .
But of course there is always mixed in,
My Celtic, Armenian, and the clever others
Who formed my phylogeny,
Passing on to me (among others)
My haplogroup g on the Y chromosome,
Manifested now in my ontogeny!

I do miss you, dear Swede.

F.

I. Human-caused Evolutionary Changes - Tuskless Female Elephants in Mozambique opus 138

Wars cause many changes, but tuskless elephants?
The 15 year war in Mozambique, caused culling for ivory.
Almost all (90%) of the elephant population was destroyed in
Gorongosa Park, just to finance senseless human warfare.
Half of the surviving females were tuskless;
Before the war, fewer than a fifth lacked tusks.
The tusks are used to dig for water, strip bark, and joust.
Now tuskless individuals feed mostly on grasses,
Whereas those remaining with tusks eat legumes and tough woody plants.
This is a major change in food preference!

The dominant gene for tusklessness is carried on the X chromosome,
So only one X chromosome needs to carry the gene--
And remember that female mammals have two X's.
But when the affected X is passed to a male with one X and one Y,
That single X is basically lethal and may be the one
To affect male development and thus early embryonic death.
The general thought is that evolution takes a long time,
But here we see major relative change within a 15 year time span!
The tuskless surviving females gave birth to daughters, about half being tuskless.
And because of the lethal gene on the X, two-thirds of their offspring were female!

These results show how human activity
Can have a major influence on the evolution of other life forms.

Evolution Doesn't Exist! (Dogs must have come from an Omniscient Puff!) opus 147

The origin of dogs was, until recently, not perfectly understood.
Now it is basic knowledge that dogs, with human selection,
Evolved from Eurasian and Asian Gray wolves.
But the history of Native American dogs has a more complex saga.
Dogs probably entered North America from Siberia 4500 years after humans did,
And were isolated for the next 9000 years.
After contact with Europeans, these dogs no longer existed,
Because they were replaced by Eurasian dogs.
The pre-contact dogs showed a unique genetic signature, now gone.
The DNA indicated that their nearest genetic relatives today
Are the Arctic breed dogs such as Malamutes, Greenland dogs,
And Alaskan and Siberian Huskies.

The replacement by Eurasian dogs may have been caused by
Diseases introduced by Europeans, or persecution of native dogs by European colonists.
Also European dogs could have been favored, possibly because of better training.
So, the domestication of American wolves did not really occur,
But rather domesticated dogs came over with the First Peoples from Siberia.
These dogs existed in North America for about 5000 years
And remained until 15th century settlers arrived with their dogs.
The Siberian Huskies and other similar breeds likely came over about 1000 years ago--
Roughly 500 years before European settlers arrived.

When I was in graduate school at Cornell University,
No one was ever really sure just what the origin of our dogs was today.
Wolves, coyotes, foxes, dingoes--just what?
DNA studies have been so helpful with so many knowledge bases
And I am thankful I have lived to be able to see these results!

Emmett Till opus 152

Emmett Till was born a black child on 25 July 1941.
Next month I will, from 25 August 1941, be 82.
Listening to a program about Till, it struck me hard,
That he and I were companions in time--
He, an exact month older than I.
But he lasted only, through terrible tragedy, to the age of 14.
I, at 14, was in junior high school, absorbing a Shakespeare play,
Never being moved to whistle at a woman (if that ever occurred),
But I certainly thought women were something special.

Emmett took a trip from Chicago to visit family in the South.
I took a Mohawk Airlines flight from Boston
To my grandparents' farm in Watkins Glen, NY.
But how each voyage ended was--well, black and white.
I am so sad my divided country treated him with such violence.
I was fortunate that chromosomes
Assorted themselves as they did to create me.
But my trial--though I lived through it all,
Was my ostracism when I opposed the Vietnam war--
Uncles and aunts wanted nothing to do with me as an 'unpatriot'.

Much culminated for Emmett and me when I taught for three years in Africa
To see the source-land of all Homo sapiens,
And walk in the dust of Oldovai with the Leakeys.
The plunder of Africans for basically free labor--
1609 became as important for me as 1066.
My aura drifts into that open casket with Emmett's mangled body.
The Holocaust and the Scottish Clearances and 1609. ...
Somehow all of us have shared that casket with Emmett.

Ahmen.

The Menstruating Man opus 165

An incision was made in my rear
To reach a gut emergency, resulting from aging!
After two colostomies and the passing of much time,
I have survived! Actually am alive!

The remnants of that mad escapade
Is an unhealed fissure, oozing fluid--
Sometimes with blood and sometimes clear.
After deciding it was best to let it ooze
And not, at my age of 81, to operate once again,
I have a pad with a careful change when needed.

I now see what my human female counterparts endure,
The only female primate who bleeds when not potentially pregnant.
I just bleed or ooze whenever, with never a pregnancy in sight!
But finally, as a feminist, I must now consciously endure
My perennial menstruation and be reminded
That all mammals are basically, genetically female!
(Don't forget those two X's!)

Blacks and Country Music opus 169

I have heard several stories about Black singers getting into today's Country music.
(Remember Elvis and how he got into originally Black Rock and Roll.)
It seems to be more difficult for Blacks, being a minority, to 'quietly' be Country today.
Those Blacks who have done so and spoken out,
Tell of the hardships and negativity towards them,
For venturing into a genre which, on its facade, should be white.
(To go back again, remember that there were in real life--not movies--
Many Black cowboys.)

Humans are all the same species--Homo sapiens--with superficial variations.
All humans are imitators--from childhood, we take on behaviors of all sorts:
Our voices, our language, our behaviourisms, even our hand movements!
But humans are also gregarious joiners.
We must-- at least most of us--must be in some sort of group,
Which gives us identity to be part, with others, of some identifying category.
(Consider religion, politics, sports, caste, musical genres,
Racism, gender, educational level, profession, etc.)
This is just normal human, primate behavior.

Humans exhibiting differing polymorphisms, when entering a 'fixed stereotype' group,
Can ruffle feathers and cause anxiety and the blood pressure to rise:
Consider skin color, eye shape, various behaviors, accents, or hair morphology.
'They just don't belong here; they don't 'fit in' '
What is to be remembered is that we are basically all one species
With a few polymorphisms sprinkled in!

Trees and Turkeys opus 217

Displaying a DC Christmas tree each year from a different state,
Is far superior than pardoning an innocent turkey at Thanksgiving--
One, the death of a tree in its prime,
The other, life for a domesticated totally innocent bird,
Which is a genetic corruption of a magnificent wild creature.

(Remember the feud between Jefferson and Franklin
to name the national bird--the eagle vs the turkey!
I guess it is best we are not mass slaughtering
our national bird for human consumption,
celebrating a mythical (?) dinner with those whom
we would soon annihilate.)

Dog Walking opus 227

So many dog walking accidents have been reported--
Dragged by dog and leash to injury and broken bones,
Resulting from a canine rival or just a passing squirrel.
Do we forget that even though domesticated for perhaps 30,000 years,
These genetically captured, leashed creatures still maintain,
At least some of their original, primordial instincts?

Nature AND Nurture opus 229

We receive our ontology,
Phylogenetically, through our parents.

We are what we eat.

We become what we behold.

So much to learn, so little time.

Awake, Neanderthal You have migrated to a new time zone opus 255

Our genome is shared with cousins Neanderthal and Denisovan.
Neanderthals migrated out of Africa to the north,
Then splitting into Denisovans moving east.
By going north, the Neanderthal genome mutated to cope with new conditions,
Including viruses and disease challenges in their new environment.
Before the Neanderthal disappeared 40,000 years ago,
They encountered a cousin species,
Homo sapiens--us, also moving out of Africa.
Some of each group took a liking to each other and created a Homo mix!
Neanderthals infected sapiens with some viruses.
Both Neanderthals and Denisovans passed on genes
Which influenced appetite and metabolism,
But they also shared genetic defenses
And genetic variants which affected sleep--
This, because of new varying day and seasonal times in the north.

Proteins in our cells rise and fall in a 24 hour cycle,
Controlling both slumbering times and when one wakes.
It appears that those of us who have inherited a certain array,
Seem to wake up earlier than those who comfortably snooze later.

So much to contemplate when we start to consider
Just exactly from where we come and who we really are!

What Would Jesus Do? opus 274

"A group of any ilk of people, reclaim 'their' land
From many eons in the past":
Humans are genetically territorial,
So why would one not expect
Some reaction from such an invasion?--
Conflict between 'historical reclamation'
vs 'present inhabitation'?

Which brings up an interesting question:
Did the 'invading'--migrating--Homo sapiens
Rape the Neanderthal or simply,
Now and then, fall in love?
Even today, various Caucasians and Blacks
And Asians are enchanted with 'something different'.

(It is common scientific DNA knowledge that Europeans
and groups from the Northern Hemisphere incorporate
Neanderthal and Denisovan genes, resulting from the
'new wave', northward migration of Homo sapiens.)

My Haplogroup G on the Y Chromosome opus 293

DNA family ancestry became popular in the '80's and '90's.
I was very intrigued and sent in my saliva sample
To the 'pioneer' National Geographic laboratory, now gone,
Which yielded to '23 and Me' and other commercial groups.
My mother's X results showed my European and Scottish/Viking side,
While my father's Y yielded an exciting, unexpected history.
Instead of depicting a European story,
My Y chromosome showed a haplogroup G,
Found in the Turkiye, Armenia, Iraq, and Iran area--
The Fertile Crescent, origin of agriculture from 9 thousand years ago!
The haplogroup G was basically rare in Europe which demonstrated
That the practice of agriculture was not spread through warfare and plundering,
But rather through more gentle, cultural exchange.
Having applied to be a Pacifist, Non-combatant in 1966,
I was pleased that my biological background
Led me to a farming existence in Davis, California, my now home.
My maternal grandfather and Bill, his son, were also farmers.
It just took me 40 years to recapitulate my genetic beginnings!

Intraspecific Conflict opus 298

Charles Darwin in his 'On the Origin of Species' (1859),
Observed that speciation and subspeciation result from geographic isolation.
All organisms on earth appear to follow this hypothesis.
Of course this mainly pertains to adaptation to a varying environment
And reduction of competition for food and needed territory.
With humans, we have varied superficial morphology,
Resulting in varying skin color, nose shape, eye color, height, etc.
But humans, more than other species, have culture and religion,
Which results, to the human mind, in a huge differentiation of the 'other'.
As a result, the human intraspecific or population competition
And conflict forms a new dimension,
Compared to other specific life on our planet.
Evaluating these differences, humans have a more complex level
Of Darwin's concept of isolation and adaptation to a new environment.
Culture, ideology, and religion result in greater potential 'intraspecific' conflict,
Which we are all observing and living through every single day!
With humans, geographic isolation seems not to reduce competition,
But because of other factors mentioned, may increase that population conflict.
Might our wonderful minds actually lead us to our own
Potentially peaceable intraspecific downfall?

Our Diastemas opus 387

When I mention to most people, asking what a diastema is,
The majority do not know--even if they exhibit one!
Of course, it is the space between front upper and/or lower incisors.
I lived with a diastema most of my life,
Until I needed to have partials (deciding that implants were too expensive).
As they were molded, I failed to mention I had a--now non-existent--diastema.
As a result the teeth in my upper jaw are all shifted to the left!
I am beyond vanity at nearly 83, and find it just one more fun talking point.

Having had this condition, I always noticed, especially in black Americans,
That many singers, speakers, politicians who sported a diastema.
My wondering came to an end, after a bit of research.
First, it is an African trait, whites exhibiting one because we are
all basically African!
In Africa (eg Ghana and Nigeria) with European prejudice,
Africans there were not valuing nor enjoying their diastemas,
But with independence, the whole concept flipped into a positive trend.
Today, 95 percent in Africa find MMD's (Maxillary Midline Diastemas)
very beautiful.
Moreover, 95 percent of the diastemaless population wish and actually
want to create one!
Genetically, developmental causes affect as many as 36 percent of black people,
While affecting as few as 3.5 percent in the caucasian population.
We in this country and possibly in Europe
Do not even think about a diastema and its influence on attractiveness,
But now-a-days in Africa and perhaps those in the western world,
Black people are very aware of the little space between their teeth!

An Old Biologist's Plea opus 417

It is August 2024, with now enough evidence accrued, to realize
What our children and grandchildren will face
Living on an ever-challenging planet,
Due to the accelerated human pollution of our air and seas.
Climate changes have occurred many times on our dynamic home--
Sea temperatures and the rise and demise of trilobites and their cousins;
The change of African forests to grasslands,
Giving rise to bipedalism in human evolution;
The mini ice ages of Europe, affecting crops and survival;
But none of these changes equal the accelerated transformation
Of what we have caused and will be living through while alive on our earth.

It is just plain happening so comparably fast,
That many will not admit we are slowly cooking like the proverbial frog.
When will we, as a world population, realize this
And reduce the many frivolous 'fun' trips and activities,
Motivating ourselves into a greater group
To slow down and perhaps reverse the ever-violent storms;
The methane-melting tundra with sinking villages and roads;
The rapidly incinerating forests consumed by fire;
And the warming, carbon-acid seas with all those implications?

Let us now reduce our activities of play and amusement,
Going into action to organize and educate and vote,
Perhaps preserving at least some of our known way of life.

The Longevity Bottleneck Hypothesis opus 447

For a long time now, humans have sought a longer life span.
Some slow progress has been accomplished.
There may be, however, something in our deeper past
That has caused our lack of accumulated years.
The name for this has been dubbed the 'Longevity Bottleneck Hypothesis'.
Because dinosaurs found the newly evolved mammals to be quite tasty,
The predation on these small, fuzzy creatures gradually increased.
For more than 100 million years dinosaurs were the dominant predator,
While mammals were usually small, nocturnal, and short-lived.
Thus dinosaurs 'forced' mammals through predation to lose or inactivate
Genes and pathways associated with long life.
In other words, rapid reproduction was more adaptive for survival!
Remember, this is an hypothesis,
(A scientific theory has to be proven from many valid hypotheses),
So it is not accepted by all, but just like the efforts to reactivate the dinosaur tail
In a chicken, reactivation of our 'longevity genes' might result in a similar consequence:
Are we really accomplishing beneficial outcomes--creating little 'chicken dinosaurs',
Or perhaps worse, thousands of really old people who may lack productivity?

Yet Another Plight of Women opus 455

'We' retreated from Afghanistan
To the detriment of its women.
Now we have chosen a leader
(Once again!)
To the detriment of our own women.

Having two 'X' chromosomes,
Women are genetically powerful,
But when will their societal power
Be rightfully honored?

My Neanderthal Kindred opus 464

While reading 'Kindred' by R. Sykes,
I felt very close to my Neanderthal cousins.
She relates the anthropologic reality of our past fellow Homos.
I began to fantasize what I, as an early hominid,
Would feel upon meeting my first Neanderthal people,
As I, much later in time, migrated out of Africa.
These were heavy-boned beings, hirsute, but upright as I.
My relative hirsutelessness and lighter skin, contrasted me
From these other fellow hominins.
Would I have been afraid, alarmed, or felt a curiosity in a similar creature?
Our communication or language would have undoubtedly been 'foreign'.
But our stone abilities and methods would have been similar--
Both of us have learned 'developed' stone knapping over many eons.
Both of us hunted and chewed the skins for softening in a similar manner.
Both of us had art and perhaps felt the same about caves.
Would we have been attracted sexually
To someone who was exotically different?
We know now from the DNA evidence
That there were a few who overlooked the differences
And left the fascinating DNA trail we witness today.
All I know is that 4 percent of my ancestral past
Overcame prejudice and dislike to form a 'romantic?' bond.

How to be Bailed Out with Half a Turkey opus 489

As I have said before, I raised ground-raised turkeys for three decades.
I always ordered my day-old poults through the mail.
(I believe Benjamin Franklin started this system to aid beginning farmers.)
One year I received my batch of 600 poults and started yet another year.
Part way through the season, the young birds seemed unusually large,
And indeed, by autumn, they were double the normal size.
I had inadvertently received some sort of super breed!
What on earth to do--much too large for most of my customers.
So, as usual, I fresh froze them but cut and wrapped
The exceptionally large ones in half!
Then I explained to each customer what had occurred
And 'sold them' on how unique a half turkey would appear,
Lying on a silver platter at the Thanksgiving repast!
It worked and I sold every one--and I was VERY thankful
There were no complaints, but I made certain with the breeder,
That would never happen again!

Origins of Spoken Language opus 533

The first spoken languages probably developed
50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Some hypotheses claim early forms in primal Homo species
May go back as far as 2 million years ago.
Prehistoric languages evolved from
Simple vocalizations to ever-greater complexity.
Modern humans have developed advanced linguistic skills.
This is most likely due to a genetic mutation,
Playing a vital role in the emergence of human speech.
There is a human-specific variant of the NOVA 1 gene,
Absent in Neanderthals and Denisovans,
Leading to spoken language.
All this advance results from a single amino acid change
In the NOVA 1 gene.
As we speak to each other, think now and then,
That this ability may be due to that small amino acid change.

Our Attraction to Flowers opus 536

Why is it that flowers are so important for humans?
The desire to have flowers in our lives
For ceremonies--both secular and religious--, love gifts,
Or simply because one wishes to gift something
To another for no reason at all!
To think this through, what stage in a plant's life
Comes following the beautiful, scentful floral sequence?
Well, korms, bulbs, nuts, fruits are the most usual result.
An hypothesis put forward is very logical--
If the genome of a human programs memory
Where it sees flowers and takes note of their location,
The human will return to that spot later,
When the edible harvest has developed.
This behavioral trait may have been innate for survival,
As much as our 'natural' fear of snakes
May also be beneficial for survival.

Our Human Family Tree opus 544

The human family tree now seems
To be not a single line of ancestors,
But it appears there was a population split
1.5 million years ago and a reuniting 300,000 years ago.
Analyzing modern human DNA shows that one
Of these isolated populations was genetically dominant.
Along the way, humans shared genes
With Denisovans and Neanderthals.
The ancient mixing event 300,000 years ago
Resulted in only about 20 percent of modern human genes
Coming from a minority population.
The larger (80 percent) ancestral population
Contributing to modern humans,
Also appears to have been ancestral
To Denisovans and Neanderthals.
Some of the genes from the ancient minority (20%) population,
Importantly, contributed brain function and neural processing,
Playing a crucial role in human evolution.
Was one of these ancient populations possibly
Homo erectus and as yet an unknown Homo?

Why the Difference in Human and Neanderthal Faces? opus 549

Neanderthals had stout jaws, broad noses, with features jutting forward.
Modern humans have modest and meek faces--flat and delicate.
The human face stops growing during adolescence (neoteny),
While the chimp and Neanderthal faces grow periodically longer,
Thus resulting in elongated, more 'robust' features.
Bone formation and bone resorption sculpt the facial bones
The Neanderthal face demonstrated 'restructuring' for a longer period,
The growth projecting forward, especially around the nose and cheeks.
This facial form may have aided their breathing and chewing.
In humans the early slowing of growth in adolescence,
Also showed less bone resorption, thus less cellular activity.
This gracilization as for humans, becomes more delicate in form,
Yields thinner bones, smaller muscles, and flatter faces.
Some reasons why are hypothesized: cooking and eating softer food;
Brain size, evolving larger, pushed the face down and in;
Or possibly the 'self-domestication' hypothesis,
Stating the selection resulted in more sociable,
Less aggressive appearing individuals.
Compare this to the domestication of dogs
Yielding floppy ears, curved tails, and shorter snouts.
The 'how' we now know, but the 'why' is yet to be discovered!

Why do Female Mammals Live Longer than Males? opus 656

It is well known that women usually live longer than men.
But more than that, female mammals in general also do so.
The answer lies in deeply rooted evolutionary history.
Research has revealed that in mammals, 72% of females
Live on average 13% longer that males,
While studies on birds show the opposite;
That 68% of male birds outlive females by about 5 %.
Mammalian males are the heterogametic sex,
Having an X and Y chromosome,
While females have two X chromosomes,
Making females more protected from lethal mutations
And thus a survival advantage.
In birds the female is the heterogametic sex
And thus the male lives longer.
However, there are exceptions such as with birds of prey.
Females are larger and longer-lived than males,
Rendering chromosomes as only one factor.
Following from the facts above, polygamous,
Competing male mammals generally die earlier as well.
Monogamous male birds with lower competitive pressure
Often live longer.
Parental care by female mammals, raising young, tend to live longer.
Long-lived species such as primates see the female living longer.
These are adaptive for survival of those species.
Should male humans start thinking about marrying older women?
This would even out the widows who sit alone--unless they wish to!

The Frightening New Adolescent Brain opus 721

The human brain silently rewires itself 
At ages 9, 32, 66, and 83, as seen from MRI data.
The first stage of early brain development
Is as one would think, the childhood stage, coming first,
And which transitions to the adolescent phase,
Lasting until the age of about 32 (not 20!).
This age shows neural efficiency rising and peaking at 32.
This age also marks the strongest rewiring shift of a lifespan.
The brain, then, does not change steadily over time,
But shifts through distinct eras, 
Which influence learning, vulnerability and resilience.
It is adulthood from 32, (becoming a 'true adult'),
To 66 that is the long period of structural stability.
At 66, early aging starts, with the weakening of white matter.
The changes in 'white matter' (nerve fiber bundles),
Are the communication network.
Late aging occurs at 83, 
When long-distance neural connections weaken.
The startling point here, at least for me is, are we marrying,
Starting our professions, making career decisions and so on,
While we are still in the newly defined adolescent stage?
Does this imply that criminal prosecutions, for instance, must be modified,
To consider the still-maturing brain, later than we suspected at 20?
As this knowledge becomes more commonly understood,
Our society might view criminal punishment in a whole new light--
As well, perhaps, of other implications for our maturing and aging brain.