Mokele

Well, my favorite pet by far is my Blue Tegu, a species a 4-foot lizard from South America. He's friendly, fascinating, and quite intelligent (I've house-trained him, in a way), but he's also rather expensive to house. But there's plenty of other reptiles that're small, cheap, easy to care for, and fun. Corn snakes, leopard geckos, bearded dragons, kingsnakes...just no boas or pythons except a ball python. Tarantullas and scorpions are quite cool as well, but I dunno that much about keeping them. Or, if you wanted to be boring, you could have one of those over-evolved rat-things, a mammal. Bleh. Good eating, though. Mokele

Yes, but this is the government we're talking about, so that pretty much rules out 'smart'. Read and ignored, because without what's going on inside being a factor, the entire topic is totally useless. Whether what *actually* goes on in Area 51 is weather-baloon stuff, secret airplanes, or little green men makes a *huge* diffence in whether or not those activities should be revealed. "Is the secrecy vital to the security of the nation?" depends *entirely* upon what goes on inside. No other factor is truly relevant, other than vague ehtical ramblings about honesty which can *clearly* be overruled by security concerns. In short, the biggest and, IMHO, *only* relevant question about the continuation of secrecy in Area 51 depends *directly* on the activities within that base. To remove that from consideration in debate on this topic effectively reduces it to nothing but trite fluff to inflate post-counts. Mokele

You know what they've tested there? The U2, the SR-71, both Stealths, and a host of other secret aircraft (some undoubtedly still classified). None of those have been made with the help of little green men. That's the "fiction" part: the idea that we need little green men to produce nifty machines, as opposed to simple engineering know-how. IMHO, these things are a secret for a *reason*. You don't hand your enemies details of your battle-plan the day before battle. Mokele

Depends on the plant. Some plants require a narrow range of pH, or they die. Others can tolerate a much broader range. Some like neutral soils, some (like my carnivorous plants) like acid soils. Maybe some like alkaline soils, but I'm not botanist. From the grower-perspective, exposure to pH outside their tolerance causes wilting, blackening, and eventually death. I dunno about the more in-depth reasons, though. Mokele

On the other hand, look at monogenan flukes. Formerly a complex multicellular animal, they've become nothing but parasitic sacks of gonads. Mokele

Not to be overly cynical, but doesn't Monsanto have a history of this sort of stuff? A quick look on Wikipedia shows they've been sued over Agent Orange (their product) and poisoning an Alabama town with PCBs, and have sued farmers of inadvertent gene flow from Monsanto GE crops into their fields. They've also sued farmers in Maine for advertising that they don't used Monsanto's Bovine Growth Hormone, because it hurt their business. Don't they sound nice? Mokele

Tell that to male spiders. Survival is certainly important, but most important is reproduction. After all, think of how many species will self-sacrifice is it means more representation in the next generation's gene pool. I've actually noticed as much myself. In fact, even more than Lamarkian, since a Lamarkian giraffe could only transmit the stretched neck to its offspring, and thus there is still only "vertical transmission", while humans also have "horizontal transmission" in that, if I learn to do something, I can pass it on to my friends, not just my kids. In a way, one could almost say we evolved into a new paradigm of evolution, based on cultural inheritance and technology rather than genetic inheritance and protiens. Mokele

Sexual selection (which could be considered a sub-set of natural selection) Migration, new genes entering the gene pool from other populations.

To provide an example of the opposite of Phi's, I have a better appartment, more savings, nicer stuff, andcan afford more pets than my friends who have the same income, simply because I budget well and restrain myself. I deal with lack of time for cooking via 83 cent-per-can microwavable ravioli, for instance, rather than $5-per-meal fast food. But most people don't get this, and just spend like mad. Budgeting is lost on most people. Gee, why can I afford good stuff? Maybe because I'm the only grad student without a cell phone and an iPod? Mokele

Skye is right, reptiles have color vision, and many can see into the UV spectrum. Snakes are a bit more complex, because they have very peculiar rods and cones (possibly due to burrowing ancestry for snakes as a whole), but they can still see colors, even if they see them differently than us. On top of that, in those species with heat-sensitive pits (pythons, boas, and pit-vipers), the nerves from ther pits feed into the visual center of their brains, meaning they can effectively see in IR as well. Cottonmouths are territorial (several other species are as well), and are also, well, ballsy. They're suprisingly smart animals when in captivity, and I suspect they're just used to things backing down from their threat displays (not many things wouldn't) and assume that includes humans. Mokele

Well, most brightly colored snakes (like coral snakes) typically spend their time burrowing in the leaf-litter, are nocturnal, or both. Even crypticly colored snakes usually hunt in the dark, in enclosed areas (they *love* rodent burrows, yummy baby rodents). In fact, a suprising number of such brightly-colored snakes are snake-eaters, and prey on slow-moving species, so avoidance isn't an option for their prey. There is also the confusion factor. South American coral snakes (which are substantially larger than their northern cousins, often over 6 feet) will form a ball of coils when threatened, and then "writhe". This creates a confusing panoply of colors, along with a difficulty in keeping track of the highly venomous head. They can actually move while doing this, eventually escaping from their assailant. Oh, as for the lethality, venomous snakes *can* refrain from injecting venom, and often will in the case of attackers. It'll usually kill the attacker too late for the snake, so why waste the metabolicly expensive venom? In fact, up to 40% of bites are "dry bites" (though I'd advise against playing those odds). But, even with a dry bite, snakebites hurt. Elapids (corals, cobras and the like) have short, fixed fangs that will increase the pain somewhat, but vipers...well, how many predators will mess with something after they've been stabbed with a pair of 1-inch needles repeatedly? And some of the larger vipers of genus Bitis can have 2-inch fangs. Mokele

Actually, it's not mutations. Mutations occur no more rapidly in incestuous populations than normal ones. The problem is lack of heterozygosity. There are *lots* of mutations in any gene pool, but most are safely hidden in heterozygous form. Imagine a parent is heterozygous for a trait. She has a 50% chance of passing on that allele to each of here 2 offspring. Now, say those two mate. Each of them have a 50% chance of passing that allele on to *their* offspring. The result is that there's a 1/16th chance that the offspring will be homozygous for that allele. That may not sound like much (and it goes down as the inbreeding pairs become more distantly related), but most mutations exist at such low frequencies that a 1/16th probability is a *huge* increase. Now apply that to *every* mating in a population. The result is that individuals become more and more likely to be homozygous at any given locus of their genome. Eventually, there's only 1 allele of any given gene in the population, and that allele became fixed by chance, not selection, so it's usually bad. Controlled studies on birds and insects have shown that mean fitness declines in even slightly inbred population. So it's not that the mutations happen more often, but that they are homozygous more often, so you notice them more. Mokele

The Annals of Improbable Research, proving that there's *nothing* people won't write a paper on: Kansas is flatter than a pancake Mokele

In Animal Physiology class today, we were discussing thyroxine, iodine, and how lack of iodine causes goiter, and how goiter used to be common in some areas until we supplemented salt. But that got me thinking: Why don't we hear of animals getting goiter, or suffering from iodine deficiency? I mean, we're eating more or less the same things (plants and other animals), so if the local human food doesn't contain enough iodine (due to soil deficiency or whatever) why wouldn't we see the same in native wildlife? Is it some aspect of biology that's peculiar to our brand of neotenic apes? Or is it something to do with diet, like the parts of the animal we eat, or how we grow our plants? In short, what makes us different in this respect? Or are we just noticing because it's humans, and it truly does occur in animals in the same areas? Thoughts? Mokele

Quite a lot of things could be explained like that, along with many of our psychological tendencies. There's actually a field that does so, called Evolutionary Psychology. However, such things *do* fall into the old evolutionary trap of "adaptive just-so stories", in which seemingly plausible hypotheses are simply accepted at face value, rather than tested. After all, just because we *can* explain it via adaptation (or a particular adaptive scenario) doesn't mean we got it right, and testing these things is hard. Mokele

Yes, your "facts" and ideas are boring, useless, and otherwise a waste of space. It should be obvious to you by now that nobody cares. There are as many posts in this thread discussing the existence of vampires as discussing your ideas. That should tell you something. Why do you keep resurrecting this thread? Out of hope we've all suddenly become gullible and vapid enough to wade through your gibberish and then fawn all over you to praise your supposed insight? Please. Nobody cares about your little philosophy. Has it sunken in yet? Mokele

Those are your beliefs. My beliefs are different. To each their own. Nobody is asking you to conform to my morals, so why should you ask me to conform to yours? AFAIK, there have been a total of 3 cases in the last 20 years, and this is a *huge* university, with a very large attached medical school. Most of the citations are for BS beurocratic nonsense. Or metabolism, or any form of behavior. Dead animals *are* used when they can be. That's why most places have such huge stocks of animals in jars. But they cannot be used for all things. Back up your claim. Show me a statistical study that shows over 50% of scientists do animal-studies (and put themselves through the utter *hell* of IACUC) just because they feel like it. Until you produce such a source, I will dismiss your claim as exactly what it truly is: an unsubstantiated waste of space. Humans have legs. Humans do not have 220 body vertebrae. Humans do not have axial muscles that (with tendon) span 30 vertebrae. Humans cannot coil themselves 360 degrees 7 times over without discomfort. The purpose of the studies to help a robotics company, which is under contract from DARPA, produce a robot snake for infiltration purposes. However, the data is of more general use in helping to understand the biomechanics of multi-jointed systems which have muscles spanning variable numbers of joints. Why would I even do anything with humans? They're boring. Snakes, on the other hand, are much more interesting. Of course, but many have. How can it *not*? Everything here is about personal beliefs and philosophies. There's no emprical basis for claiming something is moral or ethical. You cannot build an instrument to detect and quantify the morality of actions. It's *all* beliefs. The only empirical facts are the position we are in. What we *should* do is nothing but beliefs. All I ask is not to have others beliefs imposed on me for the cause of "morality". And this is our way of living and surviving. How is it any different? Ok, so we may hurt or kill animals to help ourselves survive. So do tapeworms. So do lions. Death and suffering are part of life. You kill other things in order to live. Thems the breaks. Sure, we have "intelligence" but what does that make us beyond a smarter predator? Neither is contradictory. "Rights" and "morals" are illusions, nothing more. We are just another animal; a big, bald ape, acting primarily on instincts and primal drives. Those with power have the freedom to do what they want (the "right" if you will) simply because nobody can stop them. Any limits on their powers are self-imposed (likely for social reasons), and any rights given to others are similarly given merely on the "good will" of the strong. Morality is nothing more than our attempts to rationalize the way things are, or to rationalize our views of the way things should be (views which are driven by deeper motives in reality). So, you have not shown even remotely where I contradict myself. I contradict *your* view of morality and rights, but since I have dismissed both of these as fictions, there is no internal contradiction in my own views. Seriously, if morals and rights were some real, effective part of the universe, why can those rights be violated and morals disregarded? All I see is self-imposed limits of behavior based on purely abstract rules. And all are equally fictitious, as described above. I can say the exact same thing, and you know what? I have just as much basis. It's all a bunch of philosophical abstraction. All I have done is point that out. Nothing stops me from killing, except society and the social acceptance of certain rights. Nothing stops me from doing anything else to violate anyone's 'rights', except society. Clearly, then, rights are nothing but a product of society. The fact that different societies have different concepts of rights and accord different ones is evidence of this; if there was some sort of true, underlying code, then why is that code not universal across societies. If something does not exist, except in the form of nearly-arbitrary rules imposed by a society, I feel fully justified in calling it a figment of society. Mokele

Sounds like a great idea to me! I've always wanted to be part of a vast secret society with goals of global domination! C'mon, it'd be fun!

Actually, they were 'made' to be skinned and eaten. They're a domesticated species that was produced by the South American indians as a food source. Wrong. EVERY university that does *any* vertebrate research *must* have an IACUC committee, which oversees all animal welfare and makes sure humane procedures are used. And what if you don't give a crap about humans, and are just studying the animals themselves? Which is precisely what it evolved for. Bullshit. I do animal testing myself, and it's most certainly not because I don't have anything to do on Friday nights. Corpses don't locomote, and that's what I'm studying. Termination and dissection is necessary to ascertain the location of the electrodes that measure muscle activation. Except that it's the search for pure knowledge, with associated sacrifices, that has lead to *every* major advance in science. Or did you not want penecillin and pacemakers? ------------- Here's a tip: Do you know where rights come from? They don't come from any mythical god or any such thing. They come from *force*, from *power*. The only people that truly have any rights are those able and willing to rise up and fight for those rights. Those that cannot and or will not are merely living on the graces of the strong. Sorry, but that's how nature works, including humans. "Morals" are something we talk about to make ourselves feel good about and justify our instinctive reactions. Humans are animals, and we're doing what animals do. Compared to most animals, we're angels. Or did you not know that over 50% of species are parasites? Mokele

You know, I've always wondered why the government doesn't do this. Especially since my parents harped on about me 'setting aside something for a rainy day' ever since I started getting an allowance. It's sad that I demonstrated more fiscal responsibility when I was 8 than all of Congress today. You can't buy plastic dinosaurs if you don't have enough money saved up. Mokele

Several humans have myostatin mutations that disable that protien. One of them is a 10 year old girl who can bench 420lbs. Another is a german toddler who already has the muscles of Schwarzeneger. That toddlers big brother can toss 500 lb stones around (he works some sort of job involving that) as if they were paper machie'. Kenyans posses and unknown genetic mutation that makes them 10% more efficient that normal humans. Sickle cell is merely the side-effect of a mutation that, in heterozygote form, renders the human immune to malaria. The same for Cystic Fibrosis and typhoid, iirc. Both are preserved by heterozygote advantage. There is a human cell-surface receptor called CCR5 on the immune cells. This is the receptor that Yersinia pestis binds to, producing the wonderful little disease known to Europeans as the Black Death. People born without the receptor were resistant (heterozygote) or immune (homozygote). As a result, the loss-of-function allele for this gene is *still* at over 10% frequency in some parts of Europe, even centuries after the plague. And now it renders those lucky few immune to HIV, since that also binds to the CCR5 receptor. No good mutations? I call simultaneous immunity to the greatest plague we ever had *and* to the current plague to be pretty damn good, don't you? The idea that mutations are only detrimental is nonsense, caused by improper sampling. You notice when a person has a bad mutation, but when they have a good one, you chalk it up to luck, talent, practice, whatever. Nobody tests these things. Nobody looks at why, in a family of people who have no atheltic skill or potential, one kid suddenly is stronger and faster than all his or her siblings; don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It's all sample bias. You only notice when something goes wrong, and don't question when it goes right. When full genetic test Of course, the fact is that *most* mutations are neutral or nearly so. They happen in unused sections of DNA, or change a base pair in a way that doesn't alter the amino acid coded for, or even alter it, but in a way that preserves the structure and function of the protien. Mokele

Imagine a population of apes. A small group of that population somehow crosses a barrier, such as a river (most apes don't like swimming). As time goes on, conditions on one side of the river remain the same, while conditions on the other side change. The apes living in the same conditions will be subject to stabilizing selection, in which evolution pretty much keeps them as they are. In contrast, the apes living under now-different conditions are under selective pressure to evolve to suit their new habitat. Unlike the other population, evolution changes the gene frequencies, fixes mutations, etc. Because of it's smaller size, this population can evolve more rapidly. After a while, that population has adapted to the new evnironment, but, as a consequence, cannot breed with the original population. They are a new species. But both species still exist, and neither wipes the other out, because they are each adapted to their own particular environment. Apes from location A are apated to location A, and vice versa. Apes from location A would fare poorly in location B, and vice versa. Thus, with allopatric speciation, you can get a species living alongside it's ancestor. (However, in all reality, there would be some changes in the ancestor population too, just probably not as many since the environment has remained the same for them). See? Mokele

Mice are for snake food.

Every human culture on earth also has a concept of vampires. That doesn't mean they actually exist. Mokele

Neural network computers might be able to do something interesting, since they "learn" on their own. It'd be interesting to see what such a "learning" computer would do if hooked up to sound recorders and synthesizers, and allowed to interact with dolphins. Mokele