Are our genes still being shaped by natural selection.?

Are genes are absolutely being shaped by natural selection. As people become more reliant on drugs and technology to fix them, we lose our skills to adapt to the environment, and eventually the traits that enable these skills become lost or diluted. There are also super-bugs developing because of our over-population and reliance on antibiotics. The changes of natural selection happen to gradually for us to see immediate results, but it's safe to assume that modern technology has not saved us from natural selection...it's just procrastinating the inevitable.

Distinguishing between living/ non-living

This is a tough one. To me fire even seems like it could be alive, or the wind and water. Every part of this planet and the cosmos could be seen as living, as it's all part of the cycle that is life. On a more biological level...I would think that anything that eats, breathes and has a balance of the earth and the heavens is alive.

Language and tools used by chimps...

It's very significant that chimps use language to communicate with each other, and tools to help them function. It shows to me that they care about their quality of life, and even their free time or social standing. I know that my cat uses very specific words and tones to communicate with us as well...I think it may be some ancient Gaelic dialect...or possibly Sanskrit... she also uses the electric blanket to stay warm, so she uses tools too!

Chinese Medicine gaining respectability in the west...

For any of us hoping to be acupuncturists/ herbalists this is very important. With that said, part of Chinese Medicine becoming more accepted and respected in the west is going to have to come from a shift toward a more open viewpoint for people of the west. Aren't scientists and M.D's required to take basic cultural anthropology classes.?.. It seems like many people in the United States are very unclear on the concepts of ethnocentrism and and cultural relativism. As people open up and realize that there is more than one way to see reality, there will be more awareness of how stuck we have been on one eurocentric viewpoint.
It is nice to see some western clinical 'proof' that Chinese Medicine works, or that Qi ( or an element of Qi) is actually measurable. I think that these studies do help many people to respect Chinese Medicine more.

I always eat my broccoli!

I ate two meals with broccoli today! I'm pretty psyched! There were all kinds of different colored veggies too(wait...that was chemistry class...). I've been getting pretty into brussel sprouts lately. They taste great, and have many of the healthful benefits of broccoli such as cancer fighting phytochemicals, which have been proven to reverse and prevent DNA damage. Brussel sprouts are also best in the late fall through early spring, which means NOW! It can be difficult to eat veggies this time of year, at least if you want local and/ or organic, so brussel sprouts are a nice option. Spring is coming around the corner though...plenty of fresh veggies and farmers markets!

I vote for BOTH! (the chicken and the egg)

As much as I like the cleverness of determining that it was the egg that came before the chicken, and it does make sense in the context of biologically classifying critters, It's merely a matter of names and categories. The creature that layed the egg which would become the 'first chicken' was a creature very much like a chicken. It would be very difficult to determine exactly when the evolving creature finally fit the specifications of a chicken. It's not like a dog layed an egg which hatched a chicken... It seems quite likely to me that the egg evolved as a way for creatures to safely give birth to there young, so there were probably creatures before there were eggs!

Can diversification save species?

Diversification is the natural order of things, so I would tend to think that LACK of diversity will kill species. I suppose that in terms of starting to bring back diversification, it could save us from the complete extinction of a species. I think that through evolution, diversity is part of how a species adapts over time to the constantly changing environment.