AzurePhoenix

Aaaaannnnd your point is... (?)

That guy in the tractor tank was so awesome, but i keep thinking, how would i have done it to increase the chaos and destruction? How can i improve upon his idea? That's what gets me up and going in the mornings. That, and three of those newfangled, half-sized cans of coke. They are soooooo cuuuuuuuute!

Slip, or whatever your name is, not all cicadas have thirteen year cycles. some species have five year cycles, or cycles of a different amount. And i'm not going to comment on the sheer and utter stupidity of this thread.

Cool link. Thanx

is it really so much that evolution is unproven, as it is that the mechanisms that spur evolution are unproven? I mean, if you look at fossil records and genetic lines and such, it seems to me that anyone with brains would see that evolution is a historical fact. What we don't know is how it progresses, what started it up, etc, etc. The main point is, no matter how well we prove it, declare it fact and so on, even if we find the key to evolution and come up with a perfect and glorious understanding of it, some bible-pusher is going to guffaw and condemn the whole thing anyway. That's just how religion works. I mean, there are people out there who deny dinosaurs ever existed simply because they throw creationists' philosophy so far out of wack. And also, this might sound wierd, this small time church in the area i used to live at took it upon itself to tell the younger kids that dinosaurs were remnants of demons and devils that fought beside lucifer in his war against god eons before adam and eve were cooked up. I guess my overall point is, evolutionists should just give up arguing with creationists, and let them think what they will. otherwise, we're just wasting time bickering with blind zealots when we could be devoting our energies to figuring out what we really want to know, not what we want them to know. They're never going to give up their petty ideals, so why waste energy trying to get them to.

Crap

For example, my interests run the gamut of paleontology, hypothetical exo, crypto and the future of theoretical evolutionary biologies, evolutionary zoology, and good ol' fashioned zoology. But my main driving passion is behavioral studies of the more inteligent animal species, from wolves, rats, felines and canines to dolphins, chimps and mutant killer penguin-squirrel hybrids . As a result, i'm probably going to go into basic animal care and research in a major zoo or animal park, hopefully with some field work mixed in somewhere along the line. Of course, such jobs aren't great payoffs, so in addition to smart investments and my hypothetical husband's enormous seven-digit salary i'm gonna have to write some books of some sort ("Encyclopedia of Cats" type thing) to keep the farm-raised 100% organic bacon on the table. See, just narrow down what you really, really like !

Navajo buddy, what about it do you enjoy, going out and studing life and comparing it to extinct forms, or vice-versa, doing lab research in tracing genetic lines? To pick a career you've got to narrow down your own goals and interests. Then maybe we'll be able to figure somethin' better for ya.

Thanx. All i really wanted to know

Oh yeah. That frog is so cuuuuuuuuuute!!!! I could just cuddle it and stroke it and blow it kisses from a foot or two away.

Ummm, Dougy-baby, that's not the olldest living cockroach, mostly cuz' it ain't livin' no more. It is the largest cockroach ever, just not anymore. Also, the site you linked us to says it was one of the oldest ever discovered, not the oldest ever uncovered. Dead, fossilized, kaput.

Bonobos ar the ultimate love monkeys (I know, not monkeys) everyone screws everyone else! No Taboos!!

Has fossil evidence of ancient giant squids ever been found?

Let's take it up a notch and say they made a dna cocktail of owl/hawk/mantis shrimp vision. Now, let's pretend our society has advanced to the point of general equality of wealth across the planet with a joint government and a safely controlled, stable population. In such a scenario, would it be feasible or plausible to make such drastic changes to large portions of the human race? Or should it be limited to military-type people, explorers, and scientists? (This also applies to other genetic advancements in the sensory realm)

That's my thought. Maybe not now, but in several decades i don't doubt we'll be able to fuse human dna with that of other animals to create fuctional advancements. Of course, the proper changes would have to be made to the brain to interpret the information. I guess that's where the problem comes in. Or maybe not. That's my problem. I just don't know!!!! IS IT POSSIBLE???? AAHHHHHHHHH!! (Twitch, Twitch )

The water bear rules!! Most durable creature we've ever encountered, can even survive in an outer space vacuum, while dormant of course. theoretically. Oh yeah, and early on you said somethin', and I'd like to say, most species of both frogs and toads have tadpoles, no one else fully answered that. Not all, but most. Also, it might not be important, but toads are evolutionarily derived from frogs, showing up later on the fossil record, making them an offshoot group of terrestrially evolved frogs.

Sure, that's how it works with someone who went blind, but how could a brain, cut off from post birth, develop such a reality without any input with which to base a reality? Without any sensory input whatsoever, nil, nada, nothin', wouldn't it be more likely that the brain would fail to develop at all, and eventually atrophy? Humans demand input to develope at all. The more input, the better developed the kid (or so it is theorized.) All of our memory is based on past experience of input, and all of our thoughts are born of memory to most of its extent. Locked away within itself, I have no doubt the undeveloped human mind would wither to the point that if eventually released, let's say thirty years later, there wouldn't be anything to show for it, because the conscious entity of the body would have died long before.

Oh, is this thread posted under the right topic, or should it have been posted under general biology? Nevermind. (Sniff, Sniff )

Apparently, the various species of mantis shrimp have the most fully developed eyes on the planet, with ten to twelve types of visual cones, maybe as many as sixteen (we only have three), and trinocular vision (for each eye!!!) What of this is true? Are there any further details that might be interesting? Where can I find more info that I can trust? And, also, what applications may this tidbit of evolutionary extremism have regarding the genetic enhancement of future generations of humans?

I new what they are, otherwise i wouldn't have given the statementy a second glance. I guess i was just stupid to assume that, wtih all the new-fangled bio-sciences in medicine and even modern art that someone might actually mess around with the things. You know, the way horticulturists ca control the growth and spiraling of a trunk, or use hormones to induce drastic, sometimes really cool changes. And yes, they are very pretty, but some of them (i don't know the species names) can be quite large, large enough to see with the naked eye (not very well though). Either way, I like nudibranches better

I too, like tacos. And Everclear, how the hell does one design diatoms? Also, sexual addiction usually is born from some separate psycological funk, or was brought upon a person by abuse. Unless you're just really horny.

Does anyone else like Deep Thoughts, by jack Handy? I think they're awsome. I can read them for hours on end, over and over, and still bust a gut every time. Even if some of them do have alot to do with substance abuse (my version of a guilty indulgence in alcohol)

Lastly, i never said people who do drugs are innately bad. The habit is. But they still made the choice to take up the habit, despite their knowledge of its effects. And so what if safe users outnumber bad users. does that still erase all the harm done by them? Isn't that almost kinda sorta saying that bad things should be ignored if neutral versions of the same thing outnumber the abusive ones?

Besides, sex sharpens the senses, it's like fight or flight

agreed on that last statement. Of course, all the real sex-addicts i knew were depressed stoners anyway, which really didn't make the softcore users all that commendable