A case study: Homo floresiensis.
Perhaps you may know the above species better as a "hobbit" - a part of the genus homo and a not too distant relation of us. Remains of this species were found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003. An interesting question is simply "why are they so ruddy small?". The answer is simple - evolution is the mutation of genes and the subsequent passing on of the new genes to the next generation, and the next, and so on. When this occurs on islands, the changes become exaggerated, and evolution occurs much more quickly than before due to inbreeding. On the same island in fact, the same effect occured in reverse for rats - they became much bigger and produced Flores Giant Rats. These processes are known as Island Dwarfism and Island Gigantism.
Remember that part - it's going to come in useful in a second. But first, do you remember that brilliant rock Lodestone from my last post? If not, I suggest you go quickly back Part 1 of "What is the island?". If so, please continue. Lodestone is a variety of
Magnetite rock, crystals of which have been found in the brains of humans - they act as a sort of inner compass in your head and help you with navigation. I'm not quite sure how they get into your brain, as rock doesn't exactly seem like the kind of organic material that could be constructed by proteins in your body. I'll have to ask my Biology teacher about that one as soon as I can (I'll get back to you when I've found out). But the important thing is that they are there and are presumably biologically produced and therefore part of the genetic code of humans. Now, I know what you're thinking if you're analysing this at all critically - "how come I don't know which way is North then?". That's because this magnetite deposit, hidden in the ethmoid bone behind your nose, is vesitigial - that is, it has lost its previous function in our species, similar to your appendix. However, in some birds (specifically pigeons), the magnetite has a huge effect on migration and magnetoreceptory detection of North and South.
Now come back to the idea of island gigantism/dwarfism and apply the same theory with this magnetite deposit in your brain. If there was an isolated island community, ancestors of which had, by accident of mutation, particularly large amounts of this magnetite, the effect of gene-exaggeration would occur. Perhaps, even, this island community also evolved to have just four toes...
Now remember Lost is, real as it may sometimes seem, still a fictional show, as I am about to dive head-first into something a bit ridiculous, with room for inaccuracy. Remember me speculating that the island was made of a magnetic rock - like Lodestone? Imagine for a second a polar effect occuring between magnetite in this new species' brains (henceforth, we'll call them Homo Abramiens) and the rock of the island. Could the Homo Abramiens exert a control over the rock? Could they manipulate it with their minds? Could they, oh I don't know, construct a large statue using this, or move around a large dust cloud of rock as if it were a living column of smoke? Maybe they could go as far as to be able to make projections of themselves, or others, appear. Or maybe they could use the magnetite almost as an extension of their own mind, and scan the minds of others with it. Hopefully you can draw your own conclusion about where I'm going from here.
Not exactly perfectly scientific, but since when was Lost supposed to be pefectly accurate?
Here ends part 2 of my "What is the island?" series.
