Why do we pee?

[shkrobius]

The textbook answer is that animals need to urinate in order to excrete extra salts and nitrogen metabolites from their blood. The ammonia in aquatic animals, insoluble uric acid in birds, diapsid reptiles, and insects, and soluble urea in amphibians and mammals are the means of disposing the N generated by transdeamination of unwanted amino acids

Comments

[eta_ta]

Heh. Is all I'll say.

[eta_ta]

No time this evening but I hope to return to this fascinating conversation tomorrow.

Eta_ta: "Heh"? I wish all women could be as brief as that! :)

David

[eta_ta]

shshsh! You're lucky that Memsahib isn't listening.

[eta_ta]

Sorry for the delay

[eta_ta]

Sorry, that was from me, if you hadn't guessed!

David Duff http://duffandnonsense.typepad.com/

[shkrobius]

Here is your problem: you start from the assumption that altruism, chastity, and homosexualism cannot be compatible with fitness and reproductive success of individuals. If you measure this success in the fraction of the genome that is passed to the progeny and the quantity of offspring, it begins to make much sense. We've discussed altruism already; in a group that practices reciprocal altruism, being altrustic makes perfect sense in terms of fitness and reproductive success of each individual