Mokele

Then why can't we stop our hearts by thinking about it (aside from the stupidity of doing so)? If our diaphragm was innervated solely by the autonomic nervous system, like it is in many animals, then no amount of thinking or brilliance could change the rythm. But ours has different innervation, allowing us some conscious control. Not that I believe the AA hypothesis; such control over breathing is, IMHO, most likely to have come from the benefit it gives in speech, rather than diving. Plus, if human-ancestors were spending that much time in the water, why would we not develop webbed fingers? It's a common enough mutation, so the variation is there, and it would be an obvious benefit. Webbed-feet have evolved in *numerous* secondarily aquatic vertebrates, from crocodiles to otters. If water was a large part of our evolution, why would we lack webbed digits? While I like the idea of any theory that gives crocodiles credit for humanity's advancement, I'm unconvinced. Why would we evolve to swim, thereby putting ourselves directly into the environment of a 14 foot, 2000lb killing machine, instead of to climb (thereby crossing *over* the river). Or, why couldn't our ancestors simply figure out that if they crossed *immediately* after the herd, the crocodiles would be full and not interested in any extra food? Mokele

Actually, many vertebrates, including mammals, have similar reliance on spinal ganglia to coordinate movements. It was actually verified in some Russian experiments on cats a *long* time ago, before animal welfare laws. The connection between the brain and posterior spinal cord was cut, and stimulated with a simple, repeating electrical pulse. The result was perfectly identical to walking movement, in all ways. Increasing the frequency resulted in walking faster and eventually running. The only information being given to the legs was the frequency of the nerve impulses, everything else about how the leg moved, responded to local sense stimuli, etc, was governed by the spinal cord and ganglia. In fact, at a lecture I recently attended, I learned of experiments which showed that, at least in some circumstances, classical (Pavlovian) conditioning requires only a spinal cord, as demonstrated with spinalized rats (where the brain was disconnected from everything but vital functions). We tend to think of the spinal cord as just a cable, but it's actually far more complex. Mokele

An important thing to remember about animals and earthquakes is that just because we can't hear it, doesn't mean they can't. Many animal species can detect sound frequencies much lower than we can. AFAIK, the sound of the earthquake would precede the actual destructive waves or tsunami (though I'm not 100% sure of this). And it wouldn't take much natural selection to program in the instinct of "Sound X is a *very* bad sound, do Y" Mokele

To an extent, and that does underscore the importance of remembering what taxonomy truly is. But I'm not sure how 1800 species of rodents help us understand ourselves any better than if they're lumped into half that number. Mokele

You are, at least to the best of my knowledge, correct. I suspect that the problem with such phrases is simply the limitations of the English language; to say that a particular adaptation was 'designed' to do something is simply the most natural way to talk about it, from a grammatic and linguistic POV. Obviously, we know that it wasn't *consciously* designed, but that's just the word that fits. It's even more confusing when it's talking about species, rather than individuals, and as such almost personifying the entire group of organisms as a whole (rather than an aggregate of individuals). Mokele

Nothing is "important to taxonomy", per se. It exists merely to give us a linguistic and conceptual framework, not as an ends in and of itself. As for biodiversity, well, what is a species? At what point do they become a species? Nobody agrees on this, and our idealized definitions never hold up in reality. Reproductive isolation, but on what terms? I've seen cross-generic hybrids, albeit captively produced (by mistake). 230 million years, iirc. Snakes arose much later, and have 75% of the species numbers of mamals (and they're just a sub-order). Birds arose later, and flourished to a much greater degree. Plus, of the 4000 mammal species, 1800 are rodents and 1000 are bats. that leaves a meager 1200 for everything else. (Plus, mammal taxonomy is *notorious* for splitting species at the slightest difference.) Mokele

It'd be far more accurate to say that all animals descend from the common ancestor of sponges and, well, everything else. The question is "How derived are sponges?" Are they quite different from the first animal, a highly specialized descendant, or are they barely modified? While I don't know much of the details on the subject, the existence of the ampiblastula (sponge larval form, more or less) seems to indicate to me that there might well be more to the story than just "sponges have always been sponges". Mokele

Not even close, most are pretty much wild. Though, interestingly, animals bred in captivity seem to have a *lot* calmer dispositions towards humans than others, even ones hatched from wild-collected eggs. Nobody knows why, afaik. I still maintain that Chihuahuas are not dogs, but rather bug-eyed rats with Parkinson's disease. Exactly. My experiences have taught me my lizard is rather smart, but hard to train because I won't risk associating food rewards with my fingers (he's a rather larger, carnivorous lizard, a tegu to be precise). One of these days, I'll actually do proper tests on the learning abilities of reptiles and amphibians. Mokele

Personally, I'd argue that subspecies are more or less irrelevant fictions. They're geneticly distinct, but so are all allopatric populations. Should we classify the sunfish in each pond as distinct subspecies? It's hard enough to get a working definition of species that doesn't fall apart when applied to the complexity of real systems. Also, the cynical part of me says that sub-species is just something the mammalogists cling to in an effort to avoid the realization of just how species-poor and insignificant mammalia is. Not really, no. Sure, they look a bit different, but so do rat snakes from all over the US, and they're still all Elaphe obsoleta, and can all interbreed just fine. Well, given that the alternative is the very probable slow death via inbreeding of the Florida panther, I see no reason *not* to mix them. Many male florida panthers are infertile, or have only one testicle, thanks to the major population bottleneck caused by their endangered status. Unless new genetic material is brought in, they're pretty much screwed. Mokele

I'd be more specific, that neoteny in mammals probably improves trainability and other such things. Many, many salamenders exhibit neoteny (including one I have as a pet, the Greater Siren), but I doubt there'd be any noticable increase in intelligence, especially since they aren't the brightest animals to begin with. Then again, nobody has serious investigated their intelligence, to my knowledge. Mokele

You've never owned monitor lizards, have you? Mokele, who's never come close to losing fingers from a comment

Of course, the harshest. What I was getting at was that harsher penalties should deter the same crime more effectively (at least in rough theory). But due to the complexities (both legal and psychological) around the death penalty, I'm not sure if it truly falls on such a "continuum of harshness", at least in terms of effectiveness. Basically, my primary question on the death penalty is "Is it an effective deterrent?" (and I don't presume an answer; I really don't know and my mind isn't made up on the issue.) Mokele

I own the genes for happiness. I know this because you can only understand happiness once you get into my genes. (Sorry, I just *had* to) Mokele

I actually did some work with NASA on that project, back when I was an aerospace major. Very cool stuff. Except for the problems of breaking the sound barrier that close to the ground. I'm not an expert in that field, but I'm told the results are Not Good with capital letters. Plus, remember, drag force is dependent on air density and speed. Moving very, very fast though sea-level (or nearly so) air costs a *lot* more energy. In fact, so much that I suspect any benefits you'd get from your system would be lost. Best bet would be to calculate exactly what speed would be optimal for release and going to simple rocket propulsion. Free? Where does the power for the electromagnets come from? Oh, FYI, if you just make it a flat, outdoor track, not only will it be cheaper, but you can use Halbach arrays (permanent magnet arrays that require no outside power to produce lift, just velocity (trailing eddy currents)) to lift the ship and keep it on the track, reducing EMs to just propulsion. That's actually the part I was looking into. Mokele

The prof here that teaches Animal Physiology told us that all vertebrates have 4 chambered hearts. You could see *everyone* in the class looking at each other like "WTF?". That's not the first thing she's screwed up, but it's the biggest. Sad thing is, this is an upper level biology course in college. But the prof is widely regarded as both inaccurate on anything outside of protozoa and more than a little bit crazy. Mokele

IMHO, the purpose of the justice system it deterence. Killing or jailing a murderer will never bring back their victim, but harsh penalties may make people less likely to comit murder in the future, thereby saving other lives. Given that, the main point to consider is "Is it effective as a deterent?" The bad news is that, so far as I know, there isn't a simple, clear-cut answer to that question. Mokele

Most grad schools will give you a tuition waiver and also a stipend to live on (usually with a TAship as a condition for that, though). I know mine has a stipend that, while not exactly rich, provides enough for me to live on with more than adequate comfort. Mokele

IMHO, the prime determining factor is "Will I be happy doing this job? Does the job itself make me happy?" I know it sounds cliched, but it really is easy to wind up doing other things for "good reasons". I went into the wrong major in college, and wasted a lot of time on it for those "good reasons". Eventually I got sick of it, and switched to what truly made me happy: Biology. And I've never regretted it, even though I won't be making your salaray even after 10 years. Money, difficulty, all of that can be managed if you're doing a job you truly love. If your heart is really in Chemistry, then go for it. You might not ever have a 30-room mansion, but if it's the field you love, you'll die with a smile on your face. Or in a collossal explosion. But focus on the former. Mokele

An article on the project in question Website of the project itself I happened across this on another forum, and for the life of me, I can't tell if it's legit, a mistake, or just very, very crafty psuedoscience. My immediate reaction was that it's BS, but I don't want to be closed-minded about it, so I dug into it. The first thing that comes to mind is that their random numbers were from a psuedo-random number generation algorithm, but the site actually lists the devices they use, which are apparently based on quantum principles. Then again, they could just be detecting patterns in what quantum assumes is patternless. But why would multiple machines simultaneously deviate? I'm also suspicious because of the rather artistic flourish of the site and presumptive names of the project and the URL, but then again, they wouldn't be the first to "put the theoretical cart before the empirical horse". We all cen get carried away and overenthusiastic about our pet theories. The last thing that comes to mind, and the biggest, given their list of "predictions" is that it's merely random fluctuations in the random numbers (as would be expected), which they then explain post hoc with the biggest news story from that time period. That they don't have any list of the total number of "peaks" (or whatever) makes me suspicious they're just only counting the hits, not the misses. Thing is, quantum stuff and the math of random numbers aren't fields I have any degree of strong background in, so I'd appreciate any input from people with more knowledge than me on this subject. So, am I right to be skeptical of this, or are my innate biases clouding my thinking on what might be interesting and worthwhile science? Mokele

Do kids technically *have to* recite that part of the pledge, or the pledge at all? No. Are there social and possible physical consequences for not doing so? Hell yes. Story time: Once upon a time, I went to HS in an inner-city school in Lousiana, bussed there as part of the gifted program. Nothing special there. But one day, there was an assembly for a purpose I've since forgotten. Something like a pep rally for homecomming, I think. Anyhow, I was sitting with several of my friends, looking about as unethusiastic as your typical nerds at an event dedicated to sports. Then, the principal asks us all to stand, and begins a prayer. Me and my friends, being atheists, sit down and don't pray. Not being disruptive or anything, just not praying. Cue about a dozen rough-looking guys, most of which were about 2-3 times the size of your average silverback gorilla, *demanding* we stand and pray, with the obvious threat of physical violence as a consequence of failure to comply. Now, we didn't comply and we managed to escape the incident without harm at that point or in the future (though I can't recall just how we did). But the point remains that we're talking about more than just peer-pressure here. We were ballsy, but who *really* thinks that our defiance will happen every time, and that there will be a similar lack of consequences for defiance? It's easy to dismiss social pressure on kids to conform, but it's not so easy when the agent of such pressure has biceps muscles the size of your head. Mokele

coquina's right, in order to prevent algal growth, you'd need to basically turn your pool into a giant aquarium with a complete nitrogen balance, which is a huge pain in the backside. I'm managed to do that for my aquarium, so you'd need: A gravel bottom for the pool, fish, plants, an undergravel filter the size of God's left nut, and nitrogen-fixing aquarium bacteria by the gallon. If you don't include all of that, the amonia that the fish excrete will toxify the pool for them and possibly encourage a little algal growth. If you have everything but the plants, the algae will bloom. Basically, you want a nitrogen cycle that ensures all the nitrogen goes into tank denizens that you *want*, like plants, rather than ones you don't, like algae. Mokele

Do you have a URL to reference for this? What's the source? -edit: found it myself, the official press release: Here Mokele

Shouldn't you "strobilate" at Tapeworm U? (Yay for bad parasitology jokes!) You assertion is not basis. Show me justification for this assertion. Mokele

I disagree; surface area only matters for *some* problems, like erosion of outdoor statues and such and how likely we are to inhale it. However, that rain tends to accumulate in ponds and streams (while fog may just settle to the ground and evaporate) makes it *more* problematic from the perspective of the massive extinctions and depopulations going on in the world's amphibian population. Mokele

Yay for baseless claims that paint entire groups of people with the same broad brush-strokes. Mokele