Mokele

And with that, another thread on creationists and thier intellectually dishonest bullshit is closed.

Yes, that's because we found a particularly rich fossil bed with numerous bird and protobird fossils in it, and it dates to those times. Bullshit. It does *not* exhibit many characteristics of birds, including the deeply keeled sternum, prominent furcula, pygostyle, and lack of teeth. More creationist quoting out of context. Feduccia is arguing that Archaopteryx is a basal bird, and is, in effect, quibbling about precisely where on the evolutionary tree we draw the arbitrary line between "dinosaur" and "bird". Leave it to creationists to turn taxonomic quibbling into support for them via their usual intellectual dishonesty. Arguement from incredulity. They are not *totally* different, though they are very different. Numerous plausible routes for this have been elaborated over the years. More bullshit. Theropod dinosaurs and sauropods had hollow bones, and the trait arose indepentently in pterosaurs. The muscle design is only unique in one aspect, which *also* evolved twice, in birds and pterosaurs (bats have a different way of anchoring flight muslces). Keen vision actually typifies many reptile species. Neurological commands (aka behavior) are highly evolutionarily plastic, with closely related species sometimes exhibiting vastly different behaviors. Feathers were present in *most* theropod dinosaurs, albeit in a primitive form used for insulation. Evolution commonly adapts things evolved from one purpose to another, and has clearly done so here. See above. This is a taxonomic quibble, rooted in the controversy over cladistics. This is about the words we use, not the actual evolution of birds. False dilemma. Which is why there isn't a single creationist who deserves the title of 'honest scientist'. They didn't. The early ancestral theropod is Herrasaurus, which dates to 230 million years ago, almost 90 million years before Archeopteryx. Mokele

I'm not saying it never occurs, only that it's not a good thing and I don't think the role it plays in speciation is either good or significant. In fact, my position easily explains why the aversion to inbreeding is common: because lineages that lacked the aversion died. I didn't mean to be insulting, but I am getting rather frustrated, as the discussion seems to be going in circles. Mokele

Macroevolution is testable and verifiable, just look at the fossil record. Macroevolution predicts what we should and should not find, and it's right. For instance, I shouldn't find a chicken bone in a Cambrian sediment, and we haven't. I should find whales with hind limbs in the fossil record, and we do. It's more than testable and verifiable; we can actually engage in detailed analysis of long-term (100's of millions of years) evolutionary trends (like the trend towards more rock-boring species of clams as crab pinchers got stronger). The first part is a strawman. Evolution does *not* apply to abiogenesis. Normally we actually issue a warning for using that in an arguement, but I'll let it slide this time. Evolution only applies to life; where life came from is a totally different field and a totally different question (one I find terminally dull, but I'm not a big biochem fan). As for the rest, the fossil record *amply* details those transitions. Macroevolution *is* change between species. *Everything* above species if fiction; species is the only level of classification with something approaching biological reality. There is no such thing as a "genus" or "family", those are just words for groups of related species that we lump together in artificial boxes for ease of communication. And we have observed change between species (macroevolution) abundantly. 1) Are you basically saying that you believe what you believe and nothing will ever change it? If so, why even argue? 2) Who says evolution contradicts God? Just because we know the mechanism doesn't mean it wasn't guided somehow, from within the mechanism itself. Just because we know the physics governing the flight of a baseball does not mean that nobody threw it. Mokele

Formerly: Star Wars figures, computers & computer parts. Currently: Fossils, dinosaur/paleobiological figures/models, preserved specimens (in formalin), bones, assorted animal bits (insect exoskeletons, bird nests, turtle shells, etc). Star Wars figures: I was very big into Star Wars as a kid, and had a lot of it already from the original releases. Over time I just build up the collection for the sake of having stuff from a series of movies I loved. This all ended before the new trilogy. Computers & their parts: I liked tinkering with them, and went to a technology-oriented undergrad school. I enjoyed knowing stuff and being able to solve problems. However, eventually it became not worth the trouble. Fossils: I've always been fascinated with ancient life, particularly reptiles (dinosaurian and non), so aquiring bits of them was always a wonderful experience. As a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I grew up, and now, though I'm more focused on living animals, I do want to eventually do some work with fossil taxa. Plastic prehistoric stuff: See above, an extension of my dinosaur/dead reptile obsession. Preserved Specimens: I always loved snakes, and the company my father worked for at first (before a series of mergers) was very ecologically-minded, and would actually do environmental impact studies and the like. At one point, they had a bunch of old preserved specimens they were going to tossm and my dad scrounged them for me; I was about 8 at the time. Over the years, I've added to this collection (aiming at my own significant collection of specimens for study), and it's grown to about 50 jars or so. Bones: Relics of neat animals, from which you can learn things, plus just damn cool. I love looking all over them, for where the muscles attach, how the bones are connected, etc. My bone collection has really taken off recently, as I've become more focused on biomechanics. Assorted animal bits: Pretty much anything that makes me go "neat!", which is a sizable portion of nature, makes me want to keep it or a relic of it. I find such things fascinating. Which reminds me that I still need to varnish that hive I snagged. Well, as noted above, I stopped collecting Star Wars and computer stuff; I just got bored with both. As for everything else, the driving force is my fascination with the natural world, both modern and prehistoric. Mokele

Soem people like them, some don't. Also, having good players and good people running the game *really* helps. I've played some crappy games with bad GMs or bad players, and I've played some games that were nothing short of wonderful, to the point that the primary character I used in that game is easily the greatest creative feat I've made (one of the players even refered to that char as basically my muse). If it's not for you, fine. But to casually dismiss it and seek to piss in everyone's cornflakes is annoying and petty. Mokele

The physical evidence points to evolution. However, there is absolutely no reason one could not say that God is controlling evolution from behind the scenes, working within the laws of the universe and biology to guide things with a subtle nudge here and there. You don't need to erase the laws of nature to see God; in fact, many people claim that the way a simple process like evolution can produce such a myriad of forms is a face of God in itself. Personally, I don't see anything as 'proof' of the spiritual, but one can easily see God in nature, including in evolution, if one is so inclined. Mokele

I don't know about the other two (I can guess, but I think you want real facts/studies/references), but I do know that women do look at porn, just not as frequently. Annecdotally, I've noticed that of my women friends, the willingness to look at or read porn is inversely proportional to how straight they are. But that's just my experience. Mokele

Well, I wouldn't say it's mimicry in the sense of mullerian or batesian, since neither meme has any sort of "defense" against it's removal, nor anything that could be analogized to "warning colors". At best, I'd say it'd be memic co-evolution and symbiosis, though even that analogy falls a bit flat. Mokele

Actually, you're right about the advantages, and every time you see a bee hive, you see proof you're right. Most eusocial (hive) insects inbreed pretty badly, yet are very successful. However, they "cheat". They're haplodiploid, meaning that diploid, fertilized eggs are females and haploid, unfertilized eggs are males. Because males have only one set of chromosomes, they cannot conceal any damaging mutations in the recessive state: every allele they have is fully expressed. This lets the population weed deleterious mutations out much faster than one would ever find in an entirely diploid species. The advantages also apply to parthenogenic species too, but the catch this time is less fun: Most (possibly all) parthenogenic species are hybrids of two existing species. In spite of their advantages, they enjoy only modest success, and, importantly, most are only a few million years old. If you consider that inter-species hybirdization is probably not a new phenomenon, that brings up the question of where the older, probably similarly parthenogenic hybrid species are. The most probable answer is, of course, dead, and while this doesn't *prove* it's a Bad Thing, it does at least make it look very possible that it's not all it seems to be. The problem is that, unless you have haplodiploidy to purge recessive lethal mutations from the gene pool, they'll begin accumulating. Even if we start with a hypothetical inbred population that's all homozygous for all good stuff, mutations happen fairly frequently (4 that affect final protien structure per generation in humans). While in a non-inbred population, a new mutation would basically be stuck in heterozygous form for a *long* time (and would probably simply vanish by genetic drift more often than not before ever being expressed), it would quickly find itself expressed in an inbred line, and could very quickly rise in gene frequency. Evidently, since parthenogenic species *do* exist, the advantages of parthenogenesis can offset the detrimental effects for a while, but the question is, how long? Mokele

I would reply point by point, but I agree with so much of it that it'd be pointless. I think we both agree with the gene-centered model of evolution, and about organisms being put togehter by a collection of genes, as well as about evolution being most interpretable and measurable from a genetic standpoint. I even agree that natural selection acts on the genes (though not exclusively). Let me see if I can try to make my position more clear. "Selection" is really just a composite of individual "selective events" (my word, just pulled out of my cloaca), such as dying, getting laid, etc. Now, we have a zygote, containing a set of genes. These genes work together to make the best organism they can (as you describe), but they're stuck. They're stuck in the organism, and stuck together with their fellows. Nothing can happen, no selective event can work on just one gene; it's all or none (yes, technically only half, but that's random, so it all balances out in the end). It's the animal (and the genes trapped inside) that lives or dies, gets lucky or winds up playing D&D (j/k). In essence, the genes build the animal, but it's the animal that things happen to. That's what I mean by selection occuring at the organism level. Of course the affects the genes, as you describe, but it's an all or none deal for whoever is in that body. For analogy, imagine several groups of people driving through Miami, several to a car. While they each go their separate ways after they get out, and either profit or lose by the car being blown up in a gang war, it's all or none: either the whole car get's blown up and kills everyone, or they all escape. The way I see it, selection occurs at *many* levels. Sometimes you do have selective events at the genetic level, like transposons. Mostly, you have selective events at the organism level, namely sex and death. Sometimes you even have selection occuring at the species level (though not often). In the end, the output is in genes, but there are multiple levels on which selection can occur, the most prevalent being the organism. Mokele PS. I'd just like to add that I am greatly enjoying this debate, and it's really making me think hard.

That's precisely what I (and the book in the link) said. And you're certain based on what? I've already shown how your theory both has major weaknesses and would be difficult to test. Without empirical evidence, how can you be certain of anything? Plus, as I pointed out, I highly doubt that species for which inbreeding was a mjaor component of their early speciation would survive at all. Then how if inbreeding going to be significant? Seriously do the math and look at the inbreeding coefficents. They drop off *very* fast, so unless you have a *tiny* population, there will be no detectable effects. In fact, I'd estimate that any population of more than 100 would show *none*. If the colonizing population bred with the original inbred population *at all*, which is far from a given, since these inbred, sickly, weakened freaks will not make desirable mates. And even if they *do*, the offspring on an inbred and a normal will be weaker on average than normal + normal, so selection will eventually remove all traces of them from the gene pool. Only for certain species in certain situations. That's a pretty weak-ass mechanism if it can only apply in highly restricted scenarios. 1) evolution is not goal-directed. It just happens. If there aren't enough colonizations for your scenario, too bad, evolution will work with what it has. If the gene flow is too high for inbreeding to be detectable or significant, again, too bad. I'm not seeing any sort of broad applicability for this. 2) Your description of this scenario is, frankly, piss-poor. If you aren't a native english speaker, that might explain it, but as it stands, your poor grammar and wording are preventing me from forming any consistent picture of the scenario you envision (if there is such a consistent picture). 1) This does not in any way refute my point, so far as I can see, but... 2) It's so poorly written that I can barely make out what you're trying to say. Mokele

Add me to the list for this, my old off-topic warning has been coming up every day now for weeks.

Yes, yes it is a basal bird. Not a "perching bird" in the modern sense, but a primitive bird (and still a transition). Or did you know of any birds with teeth flying around today? Or long, bony tails? Or separate fingers? Yes, it's not *precisely* in the middle, but that doesn't make it any less transitional. But, let's humor you. Ok, one down, over 500 transitional vertebrate fossils to go. Then you can try to debunk the *thousands* of invertebrate transitional fossils. Seriously, go look at the fossil record of bivalve molluscs in detail. Every objection you have about transitional fossils being rare will vanish. They're uncommon in vertebrates because vertebrates are a) a tiny fraction of living things b)fossilize poorly compared to hard-shelled organisms and c) rarely live in environments conductive to fossilization. Arthropods and Molluscs are the exact opposite in all these traits, and have a *vast* fossil record, with more transitions than you can count. Mokele

Please show your math. Without that (and sources for the numbers used), it's just gibberish. Furthermore, the earth is very geologically active, in addition to having living things on it. Both of these processes can move the dust around, consume it (subduction into the mantle), etc. Seen the seafloor lately? Lots of silt. And let's not forget that this re-worked dust could simply be mixed into the soil you walk on. Wrong, can I can say that conclusively. How can you claim that, if the rate is constant, .125" to 3" give more or less the same number? The larger number is 24 times bigger than the smaller! On top of that, have you noticed the craters on the moon lately? The moon is small enough that, when craters throw up dust, it'll just drift off into space. I'm actually glad you ended on that note, because refuting it sums up what is wrong with every one of your points. What single problem is this? The assumption of constant rate, which in all 3 cases is unfounded. Let's take the orbit of the moon. Now, I'm no physics guru, but I did take enough mechanics and dynamics classes getting my engineering degree to know that there is no way in *hell* that the rate of the moon's movement is constant. It may *look* constant now, but we're observing on a very short timescale, and slowly exponential functions can look "flat" if you only sample a small time interval. Ditto for the space dust. Sure, it's been deposited at a rate of X cm/yr for the past 50 years we've been keeping track, but can we *really* extrapolate that back billions of years? NO. That's like me saying "Today was cooler than yesterday, and yesterday was cooler than the day before, therefore in 2 years, all earth will be at -200 Celcius." These sorts of arguements are why nobody respects creationism; if I turned in such crappy results, I'd be out on the curb, and justifiably so. Mokele

Moreso. Many organisms engage in sexual reproduction but can satisfy their respiratory needs by simple diffusion of gasses across the body wall.

Well, the fieldwork report is finally up here , but be warned, it's *very* long, with lots of pictures. Mokele

I almost forgot to post this thing.... Anyhow, I went off on fieldwork for 3 weeks in Guam a few weeks ago, and this is the results. Ok, first, this is gleaned from the log I kept in the field, updated daily when I got back. As a result, it's somewhat journal styled, with some omissions on test data and the like. If a day was nothing but a long sequence of repeating the same test over and over for different individuals and variations, that'll be omitted, since I doubt you all want a copy of the notes. I'll intersperse photos where appropriate. Before I begin, I'll give some background. DARPA, the research arm of the Pentagon, decided they want a snake-robot for infiltration, and they want it to be able to do everything a snake can do: crawl through clutter, swim, climb poles, etc. Several companies competed for the contract, including Draper Labs, who won it. They had contacted my prof about being the token biologist, since he's an expert in snake locomotion. He'd perform experiments for them in return for funding, and one aspect was a trip to Guam. See, while we understand most snake locomotion to a limited extent, very little has been examined with respect to *arboreal* snake locomotion. That's what my cornsnake and boid project is on. My prof, Bruce, thinks most truly arboreal snakes can be lumped into two groups, the grippers and the gap-bridgers. The former are things like tree vipers, tree boas, etc, and support themselves and move by gripping the branch. The other group, the gap-bridgers, are things like vine snakes, twig snakes, and genus <i>Boiga</i>, who span long gaps and basically move by lateral undulation, which includes no gripping. An adaptation of this group is that the spinalis/semispinalis muscles (which are the most dorsal muscles with any appreciable cross-sectional area) have an extremely long tendon which stretches anteriorly up to 40 vertebrae. However, since tendons are rather stiff, this should result in tradeoffs or alteration of non-gap-bridging locomotion, if they even can do it. So where does Guam come into this? Guam is a small pacific island in the Marianas group, near the Marianas Trench, located about 2000 miles north of New Guinea and 2000 miles west of the Phillipines. Originally settled by the Polynesians about 2000 years ago (though the archeology is rather uncertain), it was colonized (brutally) by the Spanish in the 17th century, and became a US colony in the late 19th century, iirc. When WW2 broke out, the Japanese conquered it with ease, due to the tiny force we had left there, and they hung onto it until we took it back late in the war, with some difficulty. It immediately became a huge naval and air base, (which remain to this day, in the form of Andersen AFB and some Navy facilities). As a result, a *lot* of cargo began passing through it, mostly from various pacific islands. Stowing away on one or several of those shipments were Brown Tree Snakes (<i>Boiga irregularis</i>), a species widespread throughout the pacifc. Guam, at the time, was much like Hawaii, with a lot of unusual and rare endemic and indiginous birds, and no snakes (the only sizable reptilian predator was a 3-4 foot monitor lizard introduced by the natives for food, and which has never truly 'taken off' in numbers). Thus began one of the most dramatic ecological distasters in recent history. In the 60s and 70s, many ornithologists noticed that the bird population wasn't just dropping, it was plummeting in near free-fall. Many causes were kicked around, but finally, in 87, Julie Savidge published a paper that blamed the Brown Tree Snake. This species ranges from 40 cm (16 inch) hatchlings to adults of 3 meters (10 feet), is an excellent climber (a gap bridger with the long tendons noted above), can constrict prey as well as using a weak venom (delivered by grooved teeth in the back of the mouth, as is typical of "rear-fanged" snakes). Her conclusions were correct, and over the remaining part of the 20th century, the Brown Tree Snake spread across the entire island, eradicating from the wild over a dozen bird species and the only native mammal, a fruit-bat. It began to get onto power lines and into transformers, causing island-wide blackouts regularly. At the moment, densities of over 14,000 snakes per square mile are reported. Attempts to eradicate or control the snakes failed, and primary efforts shifted toward preventing the same disaster on other islands. Trapping, and hand collecting still go on, mostly around the airport and AFB. In addition, search dogs, akin to drug dogs, have been trained and are being used to find snakes in cargo. In one case, a cargo crate that had been on the ground for only 15 minutes already contained a snake. Additionally, USGS has trained "Rapid Response Teams" on other islands so that, should a snake be reported, they'll be able to find it and hopefully prevent a population from being established. So, we traveled to Guam begin there was a super-high abundance of a snake with a trait we wanted to study. The results might help in control, but further study is needed to evaluate this (Hint hint NSF funding committee). The group was Bruce (my prof), Me (MS student), Brian (new PHD student) and Steve (PHD student who got here last year). So, without further ado, I'll begin... Day 0: Arrived at night, and found we'd been moved from our original hotel to another. When we got to our room, we were absolutely blown away, it was incredible, bigger than my apartment and a lot nicer, with a great view. We collapsed into bed at 10 pm. Photos of the room and view below. Day 1: We woke up at about 8, with suprisingly little jetlag, had a leuisurely breakfast, and I got to email Gemma. While Bruce and Steve went to get a rental car, Brian and I went looking for useful stores on foot. In the process, we saw several small skinks of unknown taxa, probably <i>Carlia</i>, an <i>Anolis carolinensis</i> (aka green anole, introduced by the pet trade), and reptilian fecal material containing bone fragments and cockroach bits (probably from <i>Varanus indicus</i>, the mangrove monitor, introduced by the original natives). The beach shop next door had lots of snorkels and such (which we never used), too many jet skis (which have basically killed Alupang bay), and a captive mangrove monitor that was tame only on account of extreme obesity. The hotel, Alupang Beach Tower, overlooks Alupang bay, which has a lot of sandy shores, an island, some rock areas, and a barrier reef. We left for a 1pm appointment at the Guam National Wildlife Refuge, which is at the extreme northern point of the island, near a huge and beautiful cliff. We talked with Richard, the USGS guy in charge, and Gerry, the park ranger, about all sorts of stuff like permits, can we climb on the roof to film from it, the snakes, what they know, joining their collecting team, how efforts are going, how we could get some snakes and use lab areas, etc. Richard showed us the snakes and got a big male out (males are larger), about 6 foot, and let us hold it so we could feel what they're like. We were immediately shocked by how weak they were in dorso-ventral gripping (gripping with the belly) as opposed to lateral gripping. It was quite agressive, which they show by striking and inflating the neck dorso-ventrally. During our meeting with Gerry, someone called on the phone claiming they'd seen 6 Guam rails, which have been extinct in the wild for 20 years thanks to the snakes. After we finished, we went down to the beach on the NWR, where there were plentiful hermit crabs and ghost crabs, but also a vicious riptide that prevented swimming. Then we left, stopping by a grocery store on the way home (the hotel room has a kitchen). We ate out at a Thai place across the street, and went to bed at 9:30, thanks to some dishes heavy in coconut milk. Below are some pics of the cliff and one of snakes, both resting and in their agressive pose. Day 2: We woke up at 6:30 with the sunrise, and I had cereal for breakfast, admiring the sunny day. On our way to the fieldstation, we stopped at a hardware store and bought several plastic pipes for our experiments (which include how diameter affects movement on pipes), along with t-joints and scrap pipe to make stands. We had to put the seats down and endure a rather uncomfortable ride, but it was only once, and we needed the pipes at their full 10 foot length. We ate lunch, and monkeyed about with the perches and some snakes we were given in this octagonal concrete enclosure with 5' high walls. The snakes did some interesting things, mostly moving by lateral undulation without gripping, in contrast to the corn snakes and tree boas, who grip and use concertina locomotion (a method by which the body is extended while the posterior is anchored, then the anterior is anchored and the posterior drawn forwards, where it anchors and the process repeats). We had to leave at 4 (the refuge closes at 4), and we hung out and had Phillipino food, which was delicious, especially my pepper-squid. Often, squid feels like eating an innertube, but this was just wonderfully tender. Day 3: We got up early again, and set out after some brief trips to Kmart and Guam Hardwood (the hardware store) for supplies. We set up the self-standing perches next to the back of the building, then had lunch. The prior night's field collection was donated to us, about 8 snake, including a dead baby about 40 cm long. We painted up snakes (crosses at 1/8 SVL intervals, so we'd have points to track for digitizing), which was suprisingly easy given their nasty dispostions. We used gape gages to measure the dead baby's gape (since nobody has ever actually quantified gape in snakes before), then we went outside to do testing. Bruce was on the roof with one camera for an overhead view, Brian had another camera for an end-on view, Steve took notes, and I handled the snakes. We got in a good 2 hours or so before we had to go. We dashed off and had some good indian food, including these shake-like things called Mango Lassais, then came right back to the refuge to do night collection with a Rapid Response Team that we being trained. Bruce and Steve went with one group and Brian and I with another. Brian and I split off from the group, and walked for about 2-3 miles. Brian saw the first snake, but once I knew what to look for, I spotted 5 more. We ended up at a memorial thingy on the side of the road, where we found a 1.1m snake on the ground (all the others had been in trees, mostly tanguntangun, a mimosa-like introduced tree). After that, we found a few more and went roading (driving slowly along the road at night looking for snakes either crossing or basking), which netted two more, also about a meter long. Then we went back to the hotel room and crashed at 1 am. Below are pics of the perch setup, the dead baby snake being gaped, and the snakes in ziplock bags prior to being sorted. The ziplocks contain *more* than enough air for the snakes to last over 24 hours (due to their low metabolism) and their transparency makes for great ease of handling. Below are pics of the perch, the gape measurement, and snakes in bags. Day 4: We woke up around 8, and took our time since we can't do tests until 1pm, when the shadow of the building covers the perch so it won't cook the snakes. It was rainy, and when we got to the fieldstation it was crawling with officials of dozens of agencies. Turns out a boatful of illegal immigrants from China landed last night, and they'd caught some but were looking for the others. Bruce and Steve said they'd seen a pair of people walk past them while night-collecting last night, without any headlamps or anything, just walking down the road from the refuge in the near-total darkness. Because of the rain and the officals, we couldn't test, so we painted up more snakes, futzed with the cameras, and started setting up a version of the gap-bridging test (to see how far they can stretch between branches as a consequence of the elongate tendons mentioned earlier). I got bitten by a 80cm one on the right thumb, and it hung on, quickly moving it's jaws in the same "jaw walk" they use to swallow prey to ram my thumb into the back of it's mouth, where the fangs are. The bite was suprisingly strong, since most snakes have rather weak jaw muscles. We got it off me, and I never developed any envenomation symptoms (which would have been patheticly mild anyway due to the weakness and the fact it's mostly evolved to work on lizards). After that, we went to the Guam mall for lunch and tried two collecting sites in the city. Because of the rats there, the snakes apparently get bigger in the city, we didn't find any ourselves, since the heavy rain rather interfered with covering ground well. Below is a skink, probably of genus Carlia, that Steve caught. Day 5: We got up at 6:30 am and went to the field station. It was raining heavily again, so we did more setup work and painted more snakes, during which time a 1.2m snake bit me on the right index finger through a cloth bag while I was returning it to said bag (snake bags are the usual method of storing snakes when they aren't in cages, since the darkness and closeness of the fabric keeps them calm). Again, it bit hard but I prevent it from pulling my finger into the fangs, so it wasn't any worse than any of the countless other snakebites I've had. We ate some PBJ, which was our lunch every day for the rest of the trip, and then gave up because of the rain and went to do touristy stuff. Apparently, there was a cluster of vendors called "Chamorro village", so we went there and shopped a bit. I bought a few gifts for Gemma and some shells. Then we found a place selling mounted Coconut crabs, covered in resin. For those that don't know what these are, imagine a hermit crab without a shell, but a moderately hard abdomen. Now feed that little crab about 2 lbs of anabolic steroids every day, until you have a monster with a 14" leg span and claws that can rip open a coconut. The largest ever found had a leg span of over 3 feet, and they are the largest terrestrial crustracean in the world. I've always thought crustaceans look cool, and this thing looked like something out of Starship Troopers. Bruce liked them too, so we haggled them down to $250 for the pair (Guam uses the US dollar since it's a territory). Then we visited an art store run by the artist himself, and spent a long while talking. I was futzing with some stuff on the desk, and he asked me to pass him a pair of blocks that were there. As I did, I put them together to form a tetrahedron (3-sided pyramid, all sides equal), since that just seemed to work, and he was dumbfounded. Apparently most people can't solve it, and nobody had ever solved it that fast before. Major ego boost. Afterwards, we had Chamorro BBQ, and lounged in the hotel room. Below is a pic of the coconut crab, with a standard Pilot pen for scale. Day 6: It was a gloomy day, and reports said there'd be lots of thunderstorms due to a tropical storm parked over Guam, so we played tourist again. First, we went shopping for groceries, then Bruce and Brian bought stuff for their daughters. Then we went back to Chamorro village, where I had some lovely chocolate with a spicy filling (Pica filling, iirc), which, despite what you'd expect, tasted very good. Then, at the gold store, the lady behind the counter told us there was a guy who comes on wednesdays (when there's a huge vendor fair with outdoor BBQ and music) who sells jewlery made from brown tree snake vertebrae. Obviously, we were quite enthused, and she called him to be sure he'd be there for the fair. After that, we visited the artist shop again, where Bruce gave him a shirt he'd gotten of petroglyphs in CA, since the guy liked petroglyphs. Bruce bought some art, and I did too (albeit a small piece) and a carved coconut crab keychain. We returned to the hotel and had a walk on the beach, during which I found some nifty shells and a dog skull (there are a *lot* of strays in Guam). Brian cooked yellowfin tuna steaks for dinner (he's an excellent cook), and we returned to the refuge (since now we have a key to get in whenever we want) so we could walk the road at night again, this time with more emphasis on videotaping movement in natural vegetation than on capture for experiments. We saw a LOT of <i>Bufo marinus</i> (the cane toad, an invasive pest that's been introduced all over the world), most about 7 inches body length. The males made a deep trill when picked up, probably a release call (which communicates "get off me and stop trying to mate, I'm a male too!"). We found 10 snakes, filmed all of them, and captured 5. All 5 had stomach contents (retrieved by palpation, aka squeezing the snake behind the stomach and moving your hand forard until the contents pop out), and 3 were fresh (probably from tonight), 2 geckoes and a skink, all very small relative to the snake. This corresponds with the idea that the snakes are getting smaller and hungrier now that all the plentiful birds are gone. We got to observe two feeding attempts, both on geckos, one which failed and one which succeeded. In the later, I noticed that a snake we'd stopped taping because it stopped moving was actually very near a 2 inch SVL gecko. It's head was positioned about 120 degrees around the branch (which was about 1/2" diam) from the gecko, and actually very close to the tip of the gecko's tail. The gecko was resting head-down on a near-vertical branch, and after a moment's wait, the snake struck and caught it. The gecko bit the snake on the head near the back, around the quadrate (the articulated upper-jaw bone that helps snakes expand their jaws so wide, and gives vipers their characteristic head shape), but the snake quickly jaw-walked the gecko's torso to the back of the mouth and chewed in the venom. After a while (maybe 3 minutes) the gecko went limp, and even though the long axis of the gecko was perpendicular to that of the snake, the snake swallowed it sideways easily. In fact, most of the gut contents that were intacts were "folded" like that, indicating similar consumption and that the snake is eating prey nowhere near the maximum size. During the rest of the night, we killed 3 others we caught (by decap, since it's the only way out there) because they are, after all, an invasive species. In the process of trying to catch another, we nearly tore down a tanguntangun tree, the recoil of which sent the snake rocketing through the night. I also waded through a lot of plants with a LOT of thorns. Since I was the the carrier or the stomach contents we retrieved (at least the fresh ones), my line for the night was "I've walked a mile with partially-digested lizards in my pocket". We got to bed around midnight. Day 7: We woke up at 8, got ready, and went to the refuge. We noticed the waves were really high on our way in, so we stopped to take pics, and a group pic. Since it was Sunday, we had to get Emily, a ranger, to let us into the building. We euthanized 5 snakes immediately, got gape measurements on two of them, and cut up others for determining center of mass and muscle cross-sectional area. After lunch, we went outside to start testing, which Brian and I doing most of the handling. We got video of all the snakes (about 20 at this point) crawling on a 1 5/8" pipe both with and without duct-tape covering it, plus a snake Emily found that Brian caught, dubbed "Rocky" both because he seems to have brain damage (one pupil doesn't react to light) and because he was found in a rock crevase. On our way back, we dined at another Thai restaurant, which apparently didn't agree with me. Below are pics of the waves and our group pic (L to R:Me, Brian, Steve, Bruce). Day 8: We woke up, had breakfast, and got ready. We left early so Bruce could prepare for a seminar he was giving that day, a sort of return favor for everyone helping us out. While he was doing so, Steve and Brian did more work cutting up snakes for Center-of-mass, while I gave the live ones drinks of water and then assisted Bruce. The presentation was at one and lasted until 2:40, after which we ate lunch and the USGS guys donated a snake they'd been hanging onto for no clear reason, a HUGE male, 1.8 meters long, and a total length of 2.2 m (7.5 feet), who we called "jumbo" or "collosus". We painted it up, tested it, then took some shots of it and each of us standing behind it. We got Gerry (the head ranger) to do it too, and got a shot, but then he dropped his coffee mug, which startled the snake (this species is very visual) and it tried to bite him. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pic, because his expression was priceless. Then we packed up and went to the mall for food. I also bought some foamcore from an office-supply store in order to pack my giant crab. Below are pics of me with the giant male, and a size comparison between it and one of the hatchlings. The marks on the pole are at 20 cm increments for scale, and the pole is 1 5/8" diam. The baby snake is 40 cm SVl, and 10 grams, while the big male is 183 cm svl and 1 kg. Day 9: We got up early and raced out to Andersen AFB, b/c the USDA guys who work there said we could scavenge snakes from their trapping efforts, which include 1900 traps. We stopped to buy some odd fruit on the way, none of which was very good, and had to wait at the visitor's center for a bit while they got security stuff done for us. We saw several B-1 lancers and some fighters parked before we headed to the snake area, which also contained snakes used for Tim Mattheis' study. He's trying to control them using acetomenophine (tylenol) poisoning, since in snakes it converts hemoglobin to methhemoglobin, which can't carry oxygen, and the snake dies within 14 hours. Anyhow, the USDA guys gave us 10 snakes, plus one huge but very unhealthy and emaciated one. We raced back to the refuge, got a lot of measuring and snake-painting done, ate lunch, and launched into a 5-hour taping spree in which we polished off the current perch, the 3/4" perch and the 3.5" perch (all horizontal). As we were taking it down, we saw a frigate bird overhead. We returned to our hotel and ate a buffet dinner (which included sushi) in the restaurant in the lobby, which had a huge art print by the artist in Chamorro village. After that, we moved our room to a different one (I dunno why they wanted us to move, but I didn't care that much). Brian gave me a 9-piece mix-and-match frog puzzle to solve, which I did in 4 tries over about 5 minutes. Day 10: Typhoon Nabi is over the island and, though weak, it's effectively shut us down for the day. We did a quick errand run to buy a firewire cable, a wireless card (which never worked and nearly destroyed Bruce's computer), and to visit a carving store. When we came back, we noticed the deadline for abstract submissions for the annual SICB (Society of Integrative and Comparative Biologists) meeting was soon, so we quickly banged out an abstract for a presentation I'll be doing there. Because of all the weather trouble, we decided to extend our stay to the 10th (6 extra days), but Brian and Steve had obligations and couldn't stay, so it'd just be Bruce and me. We had dinner at Carl's Jr (which Bruce practically lived off when he was post-docing in california), and I called Gemma. Day 11: We woke up, got ready, and went to the refuge. We painted snakes and euthanized some, and set up the 6 inch horizontal perch. I forgot the bread for making sandwiches for lunch, so we improvised as best possible. We did some testing on the perch, and none except the smallest snakes would cooperate. Then a hard rain from the typhoon rolled in and soaked us, forcing us to abandon taping for the rest of the day. We went to that nice Phillipino restaurant again, and I had the same pepper squid. Apparantly they like us, as they gave us free desserts. When we got back, we found there were only parking spaces on the top level, and since we'd been forced to bring the snakes with us when we abandoned the refuge for the day, we had to smuggle them upstairs and leave them in the bathtubs overnight. Day 12: We got up early and snuck the snakes out of the hotel. When we got to the refuge, we immediately started testing, in spite of the lack of shade and fierce sun. We had to constantly spray down the perch to keep it cool, and keep the snakes under shade. By lunch, we were already exhausted. After lunch we just did some runs through grass to show terrestrial lateral undulation for comparison, and practically collapsed afterwards. We went back to the hotel and just had dinner at the Thai place across the street. Day 13: We got up and went to the refuge, where we found out that the generator had broken, and the entire place was running on solar only. We did some more preservation work, and then began messing with the gap-bridging setup. Suprisingly, the snakes eagerly performed for us, and we were able to start testing right away. We got good data for most of the snakes, and when put into the spreadsheet, the r-squared for SVL vs gap is .88 (meaning that there's a very strong correlation, and that 88% of the variation is accounted for). Steve will probably present a poster at the SICB meeting along with my presentation. Unfortunately, we forgot to charge our camera batteries, and those ran down at the very end, but it didn't hurt us too badly as we were losing daylight then anyway. We took the snakes back to the hotel again, and went out for some nice Korean BBQ of sorts. Afterwards, we sorted and packed stuff, since Brian and Steve left the next day. Below is a photo of the setup for gap bridging and a snake doing so. Day 14: Brian and Steve left before dawn, since the flight was at 6:30 am and they needed to be there 2 hours ahead of time. We had a bit of a slow morning, leaving at 11 and stopping in K-mart for supplies. We got to the refuge at about noon, when we set up the gap bridging test and tested Rocky, Collosus, and 3 others. Then we had lunch and euthanized all of them except one exceptional snake, 8-30.8, aka "Yellow brown". We measured maximum bending laterally, ventrally and dorsally, then measured gape and cut the snakes up for center of mass and future examination of muscle cross-sectional area. Because we expected to be locked out at any minute (and for over 24 hours, since the next day is labor day), we worked in a frenzy to get everything done and get the snakes outside. By that point, though, there was only an hour of daylight left, and we were so exhausted we called it a day. We went back and ate Indian, enjoying a lovely buffet and some Mango Lassais. Day 15: It's Labor day, and we're locked out of the refuge offices (though we can still test outside), so we're not leaving until noon, in order to guarantee some shade to retreat from the sun (for us and the snakes). However, it was a rainy day, and too cool to test the snakes, so instead we played around with the idea of getting them to climb ropes. In the wild, they often climb the guy wires on electricity poles, and cause blackouts when they get up there. We measured the angles of some of the guy wires on the way in, and apparently that attracted the attention of Andersen AFB security (the road to the refuge borders the base), so a pair of black vans drove by and scoped us out, but didn't stop. When we got to the refuge and started playing around with ropes, we hit upon an idea for the incline, namely making it adjustable, raised and lowered by a pulley and rope system. We figured that if we put the snakes on a horizontal pipe, then raised it, they might actually crawl, since they refuse to do so on any pipe that's already at an angle. Not only will this be great here, but can be replicated back home at lab to hopefully get data from the corn snakes faster. After our breakthrough, we ate dinner at the mall, and I did some quick trig when we got back for camera angles and such. We packed up our coconut crabs, which should be pretty well protected in our suitcases. Tommorrow, we have a big hit of snakes at Andersen, as well as a lot of testing and preservation to do, but after that, things should slow down. Day 16: We got up extra-early and euthanized most of our snakes in the room before leaving. When we got to the refuge, we found out that due to the cloudiness, the solar panels hadn't been generating enough power and the batteries were down to 40%, so all power had to be shut off. However, we couldn't stop work, so we did curvature photos outside, and put on headlamps and did sectioning and preservation in the dark. When we finished, we called Andersen and found out they had checked 75 traps and gotten 50 snakes, some of which were large, but that we couldn't come get them until tommorrow morning. After that it just rained continuously, and eventually we gave up and went back to the hotel. Day 17: Today, we got up early and drove right to Andersen to pick up the snakes. We got 6 that were over 1.2 meters, plus 3 small ones that a USGS biologist needed for her experiments. When we got to the refuge, we went right out back and took advantage of the overcast conditions to shoot incline footage of yellow-brown. Then we euthanized some more snakes and did more sectioning and preservation. We painted up 4 of the new snakes, ranging from 1.29 to 1.6 meters, and did gap bridging until the sunlight was too low. After that, we went to the Wednesday festival at Chamorro village, where we bought jewlery made from brown tree snake vertebrae and ate some delicious BBQ squid. Day 18: I had a very weird dream, in which I was in a 1/5th scale version of Chamorro village that was infested with green anoles with 10" SVLs. They were being preyed upon by normal-sized mangrove monitors, and there was a Fiji Island Iguana in the mix and a prehensile-tailed skink under the sheets of the bed. After I woke up, we went to the Guam Dept of Agriculture to get permits for the preserved specimens (all we needed was a certificate of origin). While we were there, we heard about some snakes in outdoor cages in the complex, so we went to take a look. There was an outdoor cage with 4 large snakes, 4 monitors, and a live coconut crab (very cool-looking). We went to ask about the snakes and just happened to bump into David G., who I contacted off LJ about the trip long before we actually got there in preparation. He said he'd ask Gil, who used the snakes for demos, if we could have the big ones, and in the meantime we ran some errands. When we got back, he had them already bagged for us. We then went to the field station, euthanized yellow-brown, and painted up these snakes, one of whom was even larger than Collosus (by only 6 cm, though: 188 cm SVL). We then put those two and two we borrowed from the USGS through the gap trials, one of whom looked like a taipan in coloration. As a mixed blessing, a backup generator arrived, which gave us power but was so unholy loud that we had to yell just to hear each other even when only 5 feet away. When we looked at some out our preserved material, we found that some had been rotted by a special fungus that has evolved to grow in formalin. We lost 2 body segments of the big skinny guy, but the rest looked fine, so we used isopropyl as a hopeful sterilizer and temporary holding solution. Then we tested more until the sun went down, in the process identifying another potential great climber like yellow-brown. We ate dinner at the Guam Premier Outlet, where I had ramen and then this *awesome* dessert which was bannanas, whipped cream, and chcocolate syrup wrapped in a crepe. We got back to the hotel, euthanized everyone except the potential star climber, and I talked to Gemma while they were going down. After that we worked until midnight getting everything sectioned and into formalin. Below is a shot of the sunset off Ritidian. Day 19: The last day. David G. came by in the morning, and we all had a long chat about the island, snakes, us, him, research, etc, which was very enlightening, especially on the concept of brown tree snake pheremones, which apparentlys have been isolated, but the snakes will only follow the trail if not presented with visual stimuli. Then we dashed off to the refuge, and went out back to test the last snake. The backup generator was loud as ever, but we got 7 angles done with the snake, then euthanized it. We bid everyone goodbye, and stopped on our way out for some scenery photos. There, a guy who'd been visiting Richard at the refuge caught up with us, and it turns out he's from a German nature film company (called "nano" or something) and was very interested in what we were doing. He and Bruce exchanged emails, and we went back to the hotel to prep this last specimen and pack. Gerry mentioned something about checking our bags the night before, and when we called to return our rental car, they *very* strongly recommended it (on account of swarms of Japanese tourists with souveniers checking them in the morning). So we had a frenzy of packing, and found out when we got there that not only was the check-in process on the day off worse than even the rental car people told us, but that our flight had been moved 30 minutes earlier (so it's a bloody good thing we went, or we'd've missed our plane). We stopped in Guam Outlet's foodcourt on the way back, and then crashed in preparation for our now 6 am flight. Below are pics of cool clouds at the place the documentary guy caught up with us, and the sunset from our balcony. Day 20: We got up, got ready and left at about 4 am. We returned the car, and then spent a little while waiting until we got on the flight from Guam to Honolulu. I read for most of the flight, and Bruce was feeling ill. Honolulu airport was nifty; it has an open-air design, so you get the fresh air, and we got to see a Hawaii sunset. Then we got on board for the trip from Hawaii to Los Angeles, during which I read the whole time except for sleeping the last hour. By this point we'd been traveling for about 18 hours. We waited anxiously at LAX and when we got on the flight I dropped right off to sleep. We got in at Cincinnati at 3:30 pm of the same day we left (saturday), in spite of having traveled over 24 hours. Bruce's wife picked us up, and we dropped stuff off at lab before they dropped me off at home. Oddly, because of the sleep on the plane, I couldn't get to sleep, so I futzed around online until midnight, then slept for 14 hours. Unfortunately, one of my coconut crab's legs broke off on the trip, but I fixed it so you can't even tell thanks to some epoxy. Mokele

Correct, and that's part of my point: learned behavior can affect fitness/selection, and yet it's not encoded by the genes. This supports my view that selection acts primarily at the organismal level, and that genes are like members of the team who're stuck for the long haul, no switching. I certainly do encounter them, lots and lots of them. But they're what I work on (as well as 2 of my pets), so I'm not typical in that regard. I recall someone here saying something a process by which learned behaviors become genetic, but I'm not super clear on that (nor do I recall the name, sorry). Nope, it's a single point mutation that alters the last amino acid of the beta-hemoglobin chain. No interactions with other genes, just nice straight Mendelian stuff. It does interact with environment (high altitude can cause heterozygotes to developed the same symptoms as homozygotes, at least temporarily), but it's just a simple system otherwise, and often used in teaching for just that reason. But my question is why should the timescale have anything to do with it? You said that the lives of organisms were too short to be meaningful to selection. Wouldn't short lives be good, though. A team can get more wins if it plays more often. True, but it comes down to what level selection acts on versus what level is affected. Genes, I agree, are the currency of evolution, the most affect, the best measure, etc. However, I hold that it's selection on the organism level that affects the genes. The genes are what we're counting and watching, but it's not the genes dying or screwing, but rather the organism. Essentially, I think a gene-based view of evolution does not necessarily have to be gene-only, and that selection occurs at the organism level, while pretty much everything else is at the gene level. Even if I take an organism-level view of selection, genetic drift is still just an accident because I'm counting the genes. To abuse the team analogy some more, I say the games are where the winning and losing occur, but the player's careers are the best measure and eventual result of the game series. Mokele

First, your link is froma disreputable source, and therefore invalid. Second, All of their objections are either mistaken or false dilemas. An excellent example is that "oh, we haven't found any gene incontrovertibly linked to it". No ****, we don't have genes for arms, either. We have massive complexes for genes that only produce anything in interaction. The idea of a genetic basis is *not* the same as pinning it down to one gene. Third, they focus on studies we know are wrong. Whoop de do, such things happen. That's what science runs into in complex problems. Crap, look at physics. You wouldn't dismiss it just because they used to believe in aether, right? Fourth, they outright dishonestly represent what things mean. They quote Hammer about the difficulty of analyzing the genetic source of complex traits, and dishonestly twist it from "It's hard to know how to statistically analyze this stuff" into "we can't know it and genetics should never study it". Pure Bullshit. Fifth, they totally dismiss twin studies simply because two people have a dissenting opinions (given without actual evidence backing it, but rather as a mere arguement via quoting). In fact, if you actually look at the damn quote, they never say that the twin studies *don't* provide evidence for genetic homosexuality, but rather that they re-enforce the idea of environment also making a substantial contribution. Just because they note one part does not mean the other part's results are incorrect. Sixth, they employ an analogy that's so wildly different as to be totally inapplicable, and deceptively pass it off as a valid critique. And last, but not least, they rattle off a list of people quoted as believe homosexuality comes from "psychological, social, and biological factors". Guess what? DNA is a biological factor. But the poor dupes reading the page miss that, and assume the quotes support the thesis that there is not genetic factor. In short, the source is worthless, the content is worthless, and the level of intellectual dishonesty made me feel ill. The authors of that site should feel ashamed, and I don't know how they live with themselves, having sold their integrity for the sake of perpetuating hate. ---------------- The *real* answer is that all research points to a *combination* of factors, but the identical twin study *does* show that there is a genetic element. After all, what's the difference between same-sex fraternal twins and identical twins? Not environment, not sex and not birth time, only genetics. Mokele

Yeah, thing is I was hoping to make derivations from theory, and get equations, rather than from results of computers and tests. I guess I still could, just with a *lot* more work. Oh, they're usually wiggled all which ways, and the arms do taper at the tips. Yep, I'm pretty sure they do. In fact, in some species, if a portion of the body comes with the arm, it can grow into a whole new starfish/brittlestar. Mokele

Inbreeding means mating with one's self (selfing, usually restricted to plants and some inverts) or close relatives. As for homozygosity at all loci, this is simply what inbreeding does. Because you are breeding with individuals who are more likely than usual to share your alleles at any given locus, you are more likely to get homozygotes (including for rare alleles). Because all loci (or at the least all chromosomes) segreate independently, this applies to all of them. For a better explanation than I can give, go here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1405103450/qid=1127342680/sr=8-5/ref=pd_bbs_5/103-0010775-6196666?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 and search inside the book for "inbreeding". He certainly explains it better than I could. Perhaps I should rephrase. Because natural selection is involved, as well as some form of genetic bottleneck, it would be very difficult to discern after the fact (in established species) to what degree any inbreeding happened. You'd basically have to "catch it in the act" so to speak. On top of that, I'm not sure it would work at all. Because you have a population suffering from the "double-whammy" of a genetic bottleneck, then inbreeding, genetic variability will be very low. Even though the inbreeding intensity would decrease over time, it would be a *long* time before any population could recover, geneticly, from that, and in the meantime they'd be at high risk of extinction. The parasites and pathogens would have a field day on/in the species. As for your proposed mechanism to avoid this, a second group later for outcrossing, I suspect the second group would simply outcompete and replace the inbred group. Even if the inbred individuals had some wonderful mutation, they'd also be chock-full of damaging mutations, more than enough of those to drag down the fitness value to well below the level that even that advantageous mutation can counteract. This has been verified experimentally: inbred individuals have lower average fitness. So basically, if totally isolated, they'd be a genetic leper colony and might drop dead from a light breeze. If more individuals arrive, the inbred animals would be outcompeted. I'm not really seeing it being a huge mechanism in either case. And my point is that the process is so damaging that any beneficial traits brought to the forefront will be massively outweighed by deleterious traits also brought to the forefront, resulting in *lower* fitness, not higher. It'd be a fast ride down a dead end. Mokele

I used to play RPGs like D&D (and sometimes D&D itself), but those were days when I had free time....

The problem is that inbreeding caused homozygosity at *all* loci. Distant inbreeding does so more slowly, but eventually it will too. Even with selective pressures, the problem of damaging mutations becoming too frequent doesn't go away, because selection acts on the organism, not the gene, and all the genes are "in it together". For instance, say we have two individuals of a super-simplified hypothetical species with 4 genes, called 1, 2, 3, and 4. Individual A has a negative trait expressed at gene 1, and all others are good. Indivuidual B has a negative trait expressed at gene 3, but all others are good. Both have good and bad traits. Obviously, if selection weeds out both, it's moot because the imaginary species is extinct. If it weeds out neither, it's not really selecting anything. And if it weeds out one, the genetic flaws of the other will be propagated. Selection can mitigate the results on inbreeding, I agree, but not entirely. I'm not really sure I see much point in inbreeding as a significant mechanism. Chance alone means that any trait will eventually be expressed in homozygous form, and then selection can take it from there. Considering that you're including outcrossing, selection, and hybridization in your scenario, I'm not sure inbreeding would generate a detectable result. It might happen, but just be statistically insignificant. Mokele

So, do you think the problem might just be that I'm simplifying too much, and that I need to include more realistic stuff like masses, resistances to movement due to elastic and damping tissues, etc? I'm not sure. From quick inspection, it looks like the muscle cross-sectional areas are the same for every segment, but I don't know about muscle composition of neural control. Still, if both weren't generating equal forces, I'd expect the less-used muscle to be smaller via both atrophy from lack of use and selective pressures for less wasted muscle mass. Seems like I need to work on this some more... Bloody organism systems being so complicated... Thanks very much for your help and patience with me! Mokele