h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I already tried twice to find the correct words for putting this in an entry before. But I just couldn't keep from ranting to calm down. Looking at it made me sick though. Spewing bile at other people doesn't help for when you yourself are upset about something nasty or messed up in your life. There shouldn't be an excuse for it. I'm not going to make any more. The actual kernel that is the main point to this entry, in a nutshell, is:

I get upset that my mother turns into a verbally abusive alcoholic at night

, more often than not. Whenever I find myself starting to act controlling in a similar way, it sickens me. I never want to get drunk, for fear or sad realization that that is how I will behave. Or at least am likely to. Did you know that it is not uncommon for most or many of the somatic genes a person has to be similar to his or her mother in some cases?

Gender selection is carried on the Y chromosome. They are not sure so much about what the rest of the things are that it carries; the information that it encodes.

Now, a person is more than just the lump sum of their father and mother's genes. Environmental factors (including certain important situations) as well as I suspect to be a vague and empirically tricky to define spiritual aspect I'm wiling to guess have a role too.

But I am afraid of acting out the bad habits of my predecessors. Yes, there are the bad habits that I possess of my own. Human beings are far from perfect. If they were perfect, then they probably would not be human, yes?

Animals are not perfect. Rocks and minerals contain imperfections. Sometimes plants get tumors and diseases too. Or do things that are dastardly for the other plants nearby and around them. Fungi are very strange if you look at the whole haploidy-diploidy ways of reproduction they do. Yeah, and bacteria steal things off eachother sometimes. Look at viruses. They are plenty crazy to try to explain specifically and "messed up." People say they ... "Nah, aren't living" and yet they contain DNA and RNA, proteins and other structural building blocks necessary to pirate and takeover the functions of cells so that the cells manufacture more viruses. Is it because they need other things to be present in order to reproduce, other organisms?

Hmm. This journal entry has turned much more biological than I had originally intended, however, that is alright. As long as you also do not mind. If you do mind you can unsubscribe from it and probably are just going to say how you don't like it in a discussion of it, no?

However, if you are willing to say some of the what and the how, to the what it is and why you do not like parts of it, that is better. Or at least, is more helpful to me as a writer.

Make what you will of it or do what you will with it. *Shrug*

Thorn sweetheart - you're correct that a lot of information is stored genetically, and there are some traits we will inherit such as facial features etc.

As for bad habits - it's a tricky one. But the truth of the matter is, once you know what habits to look for and what you're having of developing you know what behaviour to avoid. It's tricky. For instance, I know that sometimes I get addicted to stuff - because of that I'm afraid to drink as I'm terrified I'll get addicted to alcohol. I know my personality, so I work around it to ensure that I dont' fall into dangerous behaviour.

As for inheriting bad behaviour - again once you know what behaviour you're afraid of you're more careful. I doubt that you will inhert bad habits from your predocessors. You're too aware of what not to do and why it's wrong.

I know it's hard sometimes, but you're going to be ok Thorn. You're a good guy.

Traveller in Time rarely using alcohol
"You do not have to inherit drinking habits. What you should do is be aware that there is somewhere in your genes a potential to get hooked.

And depending on the situation, I take it you got an argue last night, can you get help if required ? "

You can inherit certain pre-dispositions, but you don't inherit bad habits: they come with repetition of acts and are personal. Maybe you have to be careful, but even if so, your honesty and openness are going to help you a lot.

first, it's controversial and the reason they aren't considered living is 'cause right now one of the characteristics is that living things are made out of cells, and viruses don't have cells, ergo "ain't living"

second, definitions: words: empty signifiers: meaning?

for example in biology the phylogenic trees define/group the relationships right? alligators are closer to birds than they are to lizards in general, so the term reptiles is wrong (sort of like saying "worms" when they can be nematodes etc) but in slang, reptiles imply that alligators are closer to your average lizards than to birds; and we will use slang even if it's not PC or utterly correct. Is anything ever? same goes for archae and eubacteria... the term prokaryotes gives the false impression they're closer related to each other when actually one is closer to us eukaryotes, and science texts should have in the future archaebacterial structure, eubacterial structure instead of lumping them both into the generic high school "prokaryote". But can you imagine trying to explain this to 15 year old sophomores? It'd be like saying grammatically starting a sentence with "And..." is correct, but properly you don't want to read "and... and... and..." by a grade school student... or college for that matter!

so yes, I just want to point out in as many unnecessary words as possible, viruses depending on your definition of living things can either be living or dead. the point being - let the academics argue over it, and you find your own definition .

*hugs*