Mokele

Unfortunately, we don't really know how well they fit in, since reconstructing extinct ecosystems is problematic at best. We know how it is now, and in the historical past when we have direct records, but fossils are harder to deal with, especially since, for instance, we can't tell if those predators were nocturnal or diurnal. If they were nocturnal, it would mean they weren't competing with herps. Maybe they occupied a marginal niche, or occupied one that was left vacant by an extinction. It's hard to tell. Um, not exactly. Megalinia priscis (sp?), the 10 meter monitor lizard, did indeed die out about 10k years ago, so far as we know (I doubt something like that could survive unseen). However, modern monitor lizards are plentiful. You call them goannas, I believe. Everything from the Komodo dragon to those little spiny-tailed ones you have in rocks in the outback (Varanus acanthurus, a popular pet over here) is a monitor. IIRC, there are currently 50-odd species (but the taxonomy is a nightmare, and changes every time someone sneezes), all in one genus, Varanus. Some modern monitors make good pets, too. Since you're in Australia, I'd reccommend the spiny-tails. I've not worked with my myself, but everyone says they're great animlas. Firstly, they'd have to evolve into an aquatic niche from purely terrestrial. Technically, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, pliosaurs and the like weren't dinosaurs. Nor were the flying reptiles, pterosaurs. They were reptiles, but not dinosaurs. The sea-dwellers were diapsids that either diverged at the same time as archosaurs (crocs, dinos and birds) and lepidosaurs (modern snakes and lizards), or very shortly thereafter (but which they came from, if that's the case, is hotly debated). Archosaurs, in turn, had numerous subsequent diversions (including crocs and pterosaurs), and didn't produce the clade of dinosaurs until about 30+ million years after the sea-dwellers split off. So, technically, even if someone found a living plesiosaur, there would still be no living non-avian dinosaurs. Oh, of course. The oceans have who knows what in there. What I'm saying is that Ness is an unlikely spot for an animal that a) is probably extinct, b) was probably cold-blooded c) breathed oxygen and thus would have to surface frequently (even once a day would result in a lot more sightings). Well, two of the more recent theories I've found have been that a) dinosaurs were highly diverse, so expecting them to all use the same thermal strategy is a bit silly and b) if you extrapolate avian metabolism to something the size of a sauropod, you still get only 2x reptile metabolism at that size. On top of that, even living systems have more gradation than we think. Large rattlesnakes can become endotherms with the metabolic heat generated from digestions of a large food item. Marsupial body temps fluctuate with temps, to a limited extent, and monotremes even moreso. Leatherback sea turtles are homeothermic. Even the modern world has a huge range of thermal systems in animals, so why should we expect less of the dinos. Possibly the large ones had lower metabolisms than the small, or maybe it fell out along phylogeny. Of course, the image that pops into my mind is that Far Side cartoon of the prof with a huge thermometer approaching the rear of a dinosaur with the caption "Moments later, the doctor and his time machine were obliterated, once again denying an answer to the question of warm blooded dinosaurs." Of course, but I don't agree that a strong circulatory system necessitates a high metabolism. In raw volume, yes, but with a reptilian level or near-reptilian (even 2x reptilian) metabolism, the oxygen demands and food demands would be suprisingly low on a per kg basis. Many even unspecialized (like not evolved for diving) large reptiles can go for hours on a single lungful of air. I should note that the inefficiency of the 3 chambered heart is an oversimplification that does not reflect reality. In actuality, there is very little mixing of blood in a reptile heart, due the the fluid dynamics of the system. But, given that crocodiles and birds, the sister taxon and descendants respectively, both have the 4 chambered heart, it's pretty likely dinos did too. But, note that crocs have it, so endothermy isn't required. yes, but of course, that doesn't mean they had it. They may have had the precursors, though, like a sort of half-@$$ed intermediate. I know theropods and sauropods had air sac systems, but it's impossibile to tell if or how they were connected to the respiratory system. Except for one problem: "Run" wasn't going to happen for a sauropod. Their bones just plain could not take it. They could walk fast, like a modern elephant, but, like an elephant, an actual "run" was out of the question. In fact, I've heard that a recent kinematic study showed the even T. rex was too large and heavy to perform what is kinematicly classed as a run. Of course, with such a huge stride length, it probably didn't have to in order to move fast. Also, a large part of the reptilian endurance problem is the issue of lung function: lizards that wiggle from side to side can't breathe as they do so, because the lungs are being alternately compressed and expanded as the body bends, forcing air from one to the other rather than in or out. For a biped like a dinosaur, or even something with an erect gait, that ceases to be a constraint. Those modern reptiles with semi-erect gaits (monitors, crocodilians) show improved endurance, and snakes also show remarkable endurance due to the lack of any limb-constraints at all. Of course, you are right that their endurance would have been lower, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were screwed. Standing and fighting was still a viable option, and from the fossils it seems like, with the exception of hadrosaurs, it was a very popular option. Not necessarily. Most migration, at least as far as I know, is at walking pace. Such a pace is within the aerobic scope of reptiles and mammals. While it's true that the only migratory reptiles are sea turtles, I suspect this has less to do with endurance than size: reptiles in areas where the climate varies enough to make migration a viable option are too small to make it viable (just as you'll notice that many small mammals don't migrate). After all, a mile is a lot longer to an anole than to a deer. Those that are big enough are usually in areas where climate doesn't fluctuate enough to make it worthwhile. Again, not necessarily. Even the poles had summers that were moderately warm in those days, and some could have avoided the cold by migrating. Others could have hibernated (in fact, there's evidence one of the small fabrosaurs did so). Their existence in such locales does not necessarily require endothermy: another polar denizen of those days was Koolasuchus, one of the last of the temnospondyl amphibians, existing in a niche similar to a crocodile. Also, organisms exposed to cooler temperatures even within their own lifetime (including cold-blooded organisms like frogs) will increase their metabolism in response over the course of a few hours. For large animals like most dinosaurs, that individual environmental acclimation would have helped immensely, maybe enough to make permanent high metabolism moot. While many mammals have brown fat (the type you indicate), in most cases endothermy is simply the product of two things: a metabolism that simply runs faster than ectotherms, and a sort of internl, hormonal thermostat to finely tune it and keep it close to a pre-set core temp (I think it's the hypothalamus). ----- I think my prof summarized the situation best: Nothing that is casually linked to endothermy fossilizes. Lots of things that are *correlated* do, but as we all know, correlation doesn't prove causation. The clues we *really* need rotted away long ago, leaving us to guess. You are misquoting me. I can argue, from evidence and thermodynamics, that it's less probable than some think, and that there is evidence against endothermy. In short, I contend that the debate over it is not as settled as many think, that there are legitimate arguements on both sides, and that the blanket assertion of the same metabolism for all dinosaurs is unlikely. You think this is bad? Look into snake evolution. There's about 8 different theories, all based on the same evidence, both fossil and modern. Paleontology rarely has neat, simple, clear answers. That's what makes it both so frustrating and so fun. Actually, no, my position is much more nuanced than that. Endothermy simply means internally generated heat. But several organisms, like monotremes, have that but have body temps that vary (heterothermy). By contrast, ectotherms get most of their heat from the environment, but many have no significant variation in body temp (homeothermy; think of a tropical fish that's in perpetually warm waters). To further complicate matters, *all* living things generate heat internally, so the distinction is really about precisely how much they generate and where it goes. And, as if that wasn't enough, as organisms increase in size, their surface area to volume ratio decreases, meaning they need less heat generation (lower metabolism) to sustain a high interior body temp than a smaller organism. When you scale this up to the truly collossal sizes of sauropods, for example, you find that a metabolism running at reptilian or only slightly higher provides sufficient internal heat. So, what I'm actually saying is that, when an animal gets as big as a sauropod, a reptilian level metabolism is sufficient to maintain a mammal-level core temperature, just due to the extremely low surface/volume ratio. Is that endothermy? Well, it is internal heat generation. But it's also at a reptilian level metabolism, relying on sheer thermodynamic bulk, so is it mass homeothermy? At extremely large scales, these distinctions we have break down. It's possible, yes, but possible does not equal probable. Mostly because we know that endothermy had to evolve in the lineage *somewhere* between where crocodiles (cold bloods) split and birds split. Somewhere in there, warm-blood evolved. The proble with this for Nessie is that plesiosaurs branched off *before* then. Plesiosaurs were not dinosaurs, but a totally separate evolutionary line that's actually closer to snakes and lizards (in my opinion, though even if I'm wrong, the closeness isn't much reduced, as they diverged either at or shortly after lepidosaurs (snakes and lizards) split from archosaurs (crocs, dinos, birds)). This means that if plesiosaurs *were* warm blooded, they would have had to evolve it in parrallel with the dinosaurs (if they were warm blooded). That's certainly possible, I agree, but I don't see any reason to suspect they would, either from theory or from the fossil evidence of them. So, in my eyes, it's *possible* that plesiosaurs were endothermic, but not very likely. Of course, not, neither is anyone here. This whole thing is intended to be a sort of "what if" game. Mokele

Why? It'd be a continuation of the same crap as this thread, in which I explain something, and Arty doesn't listen, instead taking me to task for things I never said or he has misinterpreted. This, coupled with his ignorance of the subject matter, makes a debate both pointless and frustrating. You'll note I likened him to a creationist earlier, and frankly, the likeness is disturbingly accurate, at least in style of debate, if not in substance. The perpetual refusal to listen, the tactic of dismissing any evidence out of hand or conveniently forgetting it was brought up, the misrepresentation of my perspective, and the blind, dogged failure to even consider the possibility that I might actually have a point are all familar to me from my debates with creationists, and I see them in this debate as well. And, just as in debates with creationists, it's futile. There are none so blind as those who will not see. I do apologize to the administration for some of my invectives (though I stand by them), but I am sure that the moderators and admins can fully understand the level of frustration at attempting to explain to someone who not only doesn't "get it", but stubbornly refuses to do so. However, I will restate what I have said earlier: everything needed to defend my viewpoint has already been posted, and all of Arty's questions and objections have already been answered. His failure to observe these answers in spite of my attempts to present them as clearly as possibly is not my problem, nor will I waste more of my time repeating myself. I have read his 2 posts after my last one, and found not a single point I have not already addressed. If you want my answer to any of those questions, simply read my prior posts. To continue this debate would be a pointless exercise in repetition. All that needs to be said by me has been said. It is no longer worth my time or effort. Mokele

Say what? Vestigial organs are perfectly valid in evolutionary theory. Or perhaps you'd care to explain why my snakes have hip bones? I hate to break it to you, but evolution needs no defense from creationism. Your suggestion ammounts to "You can't dispute a minor technical detail of planet formation, of the flat-earth people will gain a foothold!" Creationism is of no concern. No individual worth the meat they're made of believes it. They're called vestiges, idiot. Evolution is an ongoing process, and has it's limits. Has it occured to you that those toes *are* useless, and only exist because a mutant allele that removes them simply hasn't occured yet? See above. Evolution is not without limits. Secondly, how is it poorly made? Fully digesting plant material requires a long digestive tract. Long digestive tract means larger body. Larger body means slowers running speed to escape predators. I suggest you view the coprophagy of rabbits not as a failure, but a unique solution that appeases two conflicting selective pressures at once. Cecum does not indicate coprophagy. Iguanas have a cecum, they aren't coprophagus. Birds have a cecum, they aren't coprophagus. Cows have a huge cecum, they aren't coprophagus. On the other end, lions have almost no cecum, and they aren't coprophagous either. Clearly coprophagy only evolves under a very specific set of circumstances, not simply in every animal with a cecum. Do you even read my posts? Evidently not. I explicitly said that being able to lose something does not make it vesitigial, but *does* negate the claim that it's vital. Second, loss of genetalia prevents reproduction, so, in terms of evolution, you might as well be dead. Next poorly-chosen example, please. Yep, poorly chosen. It's called a developmental constraint. Our embryogenesis genes code in such a way that certain organs wind up paired. Only in very rare cases can this developmental problem be overcome (such as henophidian snakes, who have only one lung). Secondly, loss of one kidney places excessive strain on the other, and thus increases your likelyhood of kidney failure. When did I ever state that? "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" has been disproven for a century. However, that does not mean the embryology is of no use in understanding homologies. Let's say I want to understand whether the wings of a bat are something new, or evolved from the hands of mammal. I can look at bat embryos as they grow, and see that the limb which develops into a forelimb for mammals develops into a wing for bats. Had the wing of the bat been *non* homologous, I would have seen the arm never develop at all or be re-apsorbed and the wing develop from some other tissue or part of the embryo. ----------------- As entertaining as this foray into the depths your ignorance has been, I have other, more important things to do with my time than attempt to break through your resistance to the blindingly obvious. I am not getting paid to deal with you, and you have worn out both my patience and the entertainment of refuting your poorly-reasoned points. Everything that needs to be said about this subject has been said, and all you need to know to understand is in my posts (and the links). If you need it explained, I suggest you ask you Special Ed. teacher. Mokele

If that's so, why can the cuban crocodile run at over 20 mph? And I don't even want to guess how fast most lizards can go when you scale their body size to ours, but given that they've outrun me without any such benfit, I'd say pretty damn fast. Speed has little to do with metabolic rate. Now, high metabolic rate *does* give increased endurance and higher aerobic scope, but burst speed is a whole different ball game. The problem is that there's no way to know if something like a Velociraptor relied on burst speed or endurance without observing them directly, which is problematic on account of them all being dead. Wrong, aerobic scope is, not burst speed. Show me a peer-review paper saying otherwise. Early crocodiles also had an erect limb stucture, and, unless you claim they evolved endothermy then lost it again, they were cold blooded. Many modern large lizards have a semi-erect gait, including my own pet, and they're definitely cold blooded. You can't even effectively claim the problem is interference with respiration, and modern crocodilians not only have a semi-erect gait but a hepatic-pump ventilation system, and they're still cold blooded. And what precludes a reptile from generating high blood pressures? Hell, one genus springs to mind that can generate blood pressures high enough to shoot blood from the capilaries around the eys for a distance of 6 feet. If a lizard with a heart the size of a pea can do that, what precludes a reptile from evolving to generate the blood pressures needed for a long neck? Oh, plus skeletal evidence indicates that the museum mounts of brachiosaurs and diplodocids are wrong: The former likely could not raise their necks much above 45 degrees, and the latter could not raise their necks much over horizontal. This is based on joint articulations. You know what the Wallace line is? Ok, take a map of inonesia, and draw a line perpendicular to the island chain between Sulawesi to the southeast and the Phillipines, Borneo and Java on the northwest side of the line. On the asian side of this line, there are very few marsupials, while on the australian side, there are no native placental mammals other than bats (though some have been introduced, sadly). There's something else about this line, though: it represents a divide in the occupation of the niche of "small carnivore". On the side with placental mammals, they dominate that niche. But on the side with marsupials, they are absent from that niche. Who fills that niche? Monitor lizards. Marsupials, which are barely different from placentals, cannot compete with ecotherms. Look at everywhere south of the Wallace line: most of the carnivores are what? Reptiles. Only at night or for herbivorous niches can marsupials compete. What does this mean? That the "dominance" of placental mammals rests on a very narrow margin, and without that margin, the supposedly inferior reptiles outcompete the fuzzballs. Now, given that placental mammals didn't even evolve until the mid-cretaceous, and at that time there were no availible niches for large organisms for them to evolve into, what does that say for your claim? Endothermy is *clearly* not a requirement for outcompeting mammals. This part is verifiable because it's simple thermodynamics. Heat is generated by an organism's cells, thus as the organism increases in linear dimensions, heat generated increases to the cube (more volume either means more cells, or more chemicals in those cells reacting, either of which means more heat per unit volume) However, heat is lost across the surface of an animal (or any object, actually). The surface area of an animal increases to the square of the animal's linear size increase. Let's clarify with an example: Say I take a "giant pill" and grow to twice my current height, without any change in proportions (yes, I am aware that proportions *do* change, but this is to illustrate the underlying principle. That complicating factor can be adjusted for). Because I am twice my original height, I now have 8 times as much volume. That means I have 8 times as much heat generation. But my skin area (surface area) has only increased 4 times. So I'm generating heat 8x as fast as before, but only losing it 4x as fast. In short, when you increase in size linearly, your ratio of surface area to volume decreases linearly. A bit of basic math will verify this. This is why, at the same ambient temperature, an elephant has a slower metabolism than a cow. In order to maintain a core body temperature of 98 degrees (or whatever it is for elephants), it needs to generate less heat per cell than a cow, because it has less surface area per kg of mass. Now, we already know that an elephant's resting metabolism is not much higher than a reptile's, yet that low level of heat is sufficient to warm it because of the small surface area of volume ratio. So what about a sauropod which is twice the size of an elephant? It would have *half* the relative surface area per unit mass of an elephant, and thus half the heat dissipation capacity (ignoring special adaptations). For the largest of sauropods, even with reptilian-level metabolisms their main problem would have been overheating, not cooling down. Mokele

Embryology *PROVES* that parts are homologous. In this case, it shows that humans form with a tail, and simply don't develop it fully. The most logical explanation for this is that we had a tail, and lost it. Otherwise, why would we have it at all, during embryogenesis or otherwise? What, exactly do you want as "proof". I've given you more than ample evidence with which to extract your head from an orfice in the proximity of your coccyx, yet you simply dismiss it out of hand. At this level of stupidity, I'm almost tempted to think you're a creationist. I did answer it. Pull your head out of your rectum and read the links. You *claimed* that, and your claim is false. My links give you all the evidence you need. Read them or shut up. It refutes the claim the the organ is vital. Try removing your lungs and see how well you do. No, seriously, do us all a favor and try. That's because the tail was lost before then, moron. You want evidence of ancestors of ours with tails? They're called *MONKEYS*. Honestly, who taught you science, Bozo the clown? Mokele

Richard, I think he means the B2, the big flat triangular one.

Yep, it's called the real world. Now bow before me, worm. As for the tail, comparative physiology and embryology answer that. Hey, look, our embryos have tails. As development proceeds, those tails get afew bones in them that are identical to vertebrae. In other animals, the tail elongates, and more vertebrae form. In us, the tail remains small as we grow, and the vertebrae fuse. Therefore the tail and the coccyx are homologous structures. It is obvious the tail is the ancestral form. As for the cecum, a simple jaunt down comparative biology shows that many birds, reptiles and mammals have a cecum, and as the degree of carnivory increases, the cecum size decreases. The veriform appendix is homologous to the end of the cecum. For more information, with loads of peer review to back it up, go here. There is a smaller section on the vestigiality of the human coccyx here. Given that both the appendix and coccyx can be surgically removed without any deleterious effect (and I can directly attest to that for the former), any effect they do have is so inconsequentially minor that they can safely be called "vestigial". Mokele

And since when did dictionaries become legitimate scientific sources? I'm willing to bet both of those define a snake as "a limbless reptile". You'll often find that actually knowing something reduces your reliance on finding something to quote. Given that such things don't fossilize, you know **** well that asking for such is ridiculous. But it does not refute my point. Where, pray tell, do *YOU* think the cocyx and the appendix came from? Ignore what they do currently, and tell me where they came from. The correct answer is that they came from the tail and cecum, respective, and are vestigial in that sense, though they have become used for other functions currently. Just because something has a function in one sense does not mean that is it's original function, and I see nothing incorrect in nothing that these traits are vestigial with respect to and in comparison to their ancestral form. Now, if you wish to continue your idiocy, I suggest you actually try thinking, rather than just vomiting forth what you read in books. Mokele

Prove, no, but given that they diverged from diapsida before archosauria did, and that warmbloodedness evolved somewhere in archosauria (in accordance with parsimony), the chances of them being endothermic are excedingly slim. Most of which are balloney. And even if they aren't, that's what, 200 species we thought were extinct but aren't? That's still a tiny fraction of the number of species in the fossil record. Hell, is we doubled the number of species we know, all from supposedly extinct lineages, we'd *still* be looking at 98% of what you see in fossils not being around anymore. Firstly, plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs. They aren't even archosaurs. We have no indications that anything outside of archosauria ever evolved full endothermic homeothermy. Secondly, most large dinosaurs, simply by virtue of their size, had a metabolism closer to a reptile than a mammal, as anything more would have cooked them in their own skin like a giant baked potato. An elephant's metabolism is about 0.08 L O2/kg/hr, while a leathback sea turtle's is 0.07 L O2/kg/hr. As you get larger and larger, the level of basal metabolism needed to maintain internal homeothermy is lower and lower. After a certain size, which is less than many dinosaurs, the distinction between mass homeothermy and endothermy vanish. Maybe some small ones had some degree of endothermy, but it makes no thermodynamic sense of the larger species. But most importantly, I find it hard to believe an aquatic organism would evolve endothermy if not already present. The loss of heat to water is hundreds of times faster than air, making either lots of insultation or extremely high metabolism necessary. We know that endothermy must have evolved somewhere inside Archosauria, since crocodiles are cold-blooded but birds aren't. In order for plesiosaurs to be warm blooded, it would have had to evolve twice in diapsid reptiles (once in archosauria and once in plesiosaurs). Given the lack of evidence or reason to consider endothermy, the most likely posibility is ectothermy. Mokele

I said "vestigial tail" and it clearly is that. But just because something is the vestige of one trait, doesn't mean it can't be used for other purposes. The cocyx *is* the vestige of a tail, but it has been co-opted for other uses by evolution, mostly as a muscle attachment point as you pointed out. A good analogy is the rear limbs of boas and pythons. These are technically vestigial, as the snakes do not have any external limbs anymore (though they do have a small claw on each side of the cloaca, called a "spur"). However, they have be adopted by evolution to a new purpose: the male uses them to stimulate the female during mating. That's why, if you want to sex a boa or python, you can compare the length of the cloacal spurs. They're the vestige of one trait that's been adapted to a new use. Something can be vestigial in one sense, but still be used for something else. And I give a crap about human or even mammal biology why? My sole concern in the biology of mammals in their nutrient value for both myself and my reptiles. Then what, pray tell, is the appendix? To me, that looks suspiciously like a leftover cecum. Then where did it come from? God? Oh, please. The cocyx *obviously* used to be a tail, and anyone who says otherwise is blind. Now, it *has* been adapted for other uses, but that no more changes it's origin than the human earbones' current use changes their origin as reptile jaw bones. My guess would be thermoregulation. Mammals have to maintain a particular, set body temperature. The tail has a lot of surface area for it's volume, and thus would be a useful heat-disipation tool in warm climates. Dilate the blood vessels in the tail and redirect more blood there and instand heat loss. Wagging it around would only increase the heat loss. Mammals pay their cooling bills in water, so any means of cooling off without loss of wat would be selected for. I'd also suspect it works similarly in reptiles, but for both heat capture and heat loss. But this is just a guess, after all, though I'd love to actually do experiments to test it. Fun annecdote: Apparently, a large hadrosaur (duckbill) skeleton was being mounted in a museum. They completed the framework, and had to support it at many points as they placed the bones . Finally, when the bones were in place, they took the supports away and it balanced so perfectly that you could easily rock it back and forth by pushing on one end, in spite of the huge mass. Not terribly scientific, but it does show just how perfectly the tails of bipedal dinosaurs balanced them. Mokele

The appendix hints that we used to have a more vegetable-oriented diet. I think what you're referring to is the cocyx, our vestigial tail. Firstly, iirc, a tail would actually probably interfere with our bipedal mode of locomotion. But that's moot since our ancestors lost the tail long before they stood upright. Primarily, the disadvantage of a tail is that it exists. Any part of the body which exists takes calories; calories to maintain it, to use it, and to grow it in the first place. Thus, when our ancestors became terrestrial, they no longer had such a strong reliance on the tail. Because the benefits were now reduced, those who had shorter tails (and thus needed less food) lost very little but gained a reduced caloric consumption (which would allow them to channel the calories they did get into things like muscles and activity and other reproductively or otherwise advantageous traits and actions). As tails got shorter, the benefits lost by further shortening decreased even more, and eventually, the entire tail was lost, but for a small vestige without extenal parts. So basically, it all boils down to the tail not being worth the calories it took to grow and keep and use. Mokele

You missed my point. What I'm saying is "Where's the data that backs up your theory linking pole reversals to climate change?" Theory is one thing, but theory is totally useless without experimental or observational verification. *That* is my objection. Unless you can actually provide some data that the two are correlated (from paleomagnetic records and paleoclimatic records), then it's just a hypothesis. I've read all of the URLs you posted. They all say the same thing: the last reversal was 780,000 years ago. You're still missing my objection. Yes, pole shifts *could* influence climate. But "could influence" is not the same thing as "do influence". That's where data comes in. Your hypothesis predicts that pole reversals will correlate with climatological changes. Now, as anyone knows, the next step is to test the predictions of your hypothesis and display the results. Nobody believes something built just on pretty words and equations. Science is about facts; about data. Your theory is plausible, but plausible does not mean correct; that's where the data comes in. That's what's really convincing. I'm not saying you're wrong or right. I'm saying that I need to see observational data to be convinced one way or the other. Mokele

That's all well and good, but also entirely hypothetical. Is there actually any data linking long term climate change to pole reversals? I mean, I can come up with lots of plausible possibilities for why climate changes and how it affects nature, ranging from animal farts to aliens. What makes something a theory, rather than just a hypothesis, is data. Does the data support it? I did a bit of digging: the last reversal was around about 780,000 years ago. We've had 6 ice ages come and go since then, and many before then. So basically, what I'm saying is that, while it may sound good (or not), what really matters is if the data supports it. What little digging I just did seems to say "no". Mokele

I dunno, I think I'd kind of enjoy being labeled as a demi-god by my gullible idiot parents. Hell, it'd make being a teen so much easier. "Hi, mom, I'll be in my bedroom with these 3 human girls, erm, 'examining the human form'. Don't disturb us for about 4 hours, or the experiment will be ruined. And some booze would help the experiment too."

On the premise that whoever rigged this one somehow won't rig the next one, even though the prior election clearly indicates they can do so? I'm not really sure I see the point in trying again in a game that you already know is crooked. I'm not saying he should accept it, just that it might be a better idea to get the game un-crooked before trying again. Mokele

True, and i didn't say that just because we have no fossils, there aren't any. But still, you must admit that exceptions like the coelocanth are rare, and that, in general, most things that vanish from the fossil record truly are gone. So, while them vanishing from the fossil record doesn't *prove* it, it gives a pretty high probability. I think a better analogy is a book where 199 out of every 200 words are blacked out, mostly randomly. If we stop seeing 'dog' maybe the dog is gone. It doesn't prove it, of course, but as best we can tell it's the best guess. Of course, all of that is moot, since a plesiosaur would likely just freeze to death in Loch Ness.

It depends when you ask. The aerospace industry seems to move in about an 8-year cycle. At the bottom of that cycle, you couldn't find a job if you were Werner von Braun himself. At the top, you couldn't stay unemployed if you insisted on coming to work dressed as the Green Goblin. Last downturn began summer 2001, but I dunno how the current state of affairs has affected things. From the experiences friends of mine have had in this field, I can definitely say that you *need* an internship or co-op while in college, and a Master's degree might help too. Also, the MS is very useful as an "economy dodger"; if the aerospace hiring sucks when you get your BS, just go hide in MS for a while until things turn around. Mokele

Another rather odd myth: Copperheads (a type of (weakly) venomous snake native to the US) smell like cucumbers. Having been around many copperheads, I can definitely say this isn't true.

Well, they don't *technically* disjoint their jaws. They just have several extra bones and joints in their skull, and the anterior tips of their mandibles aren't fused, but rather connected by an elastic tendon that allows them to spread quite far apart. This works better in person, but try this: Hold your upper arms agains your sides, clasp you hands, and move your elbows. That's pretty much a mammal mouth, with your lower arms as the mandibles and your torso as the skull. To simulate a snake, unclasp your hands and intstead hold a long rubber band between them, and allow you upper arm to move, both relative to your lower arm and to your torso (this is more or less what the "extra jaw bone", the quadrate, is like in snakes). Look at how much wider you can open your "mouth" now. On top of this, the skull itself has several mobile bones, including the premaxilla (in some species), maxilla, and palatine/pterygoid (which run parrallel to the maxilla and have teeth on them too, like a second row of teeth, in a way). How snakes eat is probably one of the most fascinating things in vertebrate biology, in my opinion, and I never get tired of watching it. ------------------- However, cool as snakes are, my absolute favorite possible pet is actually a lizard, specifically Varanus salvadorii, the New Guinea crocodile monitor lizard. They're incredibly gorgeous (pitch black with large bright yellow spots, and bright yellow speckling on the black background), and apparently marvelously intelligent. Every one of them that I've seen (which has been awake at the time) has given the distinct impression that it's not just looking at you, it's *watching* you. Reports of their behavior bear out this reputation for intelligence. There's only two downsides, and for me, the first one isn't really a downside: 1) It's the longest living lizard, with specimens known to reach over 12 feet long. However, this species is arboreal, and thus slender with a very long tail, so a 12 foot adult weighs only about 70 lbs. By comparison, an 8 foot Komodo can top 200 lbs, meaning that one is the largest, the other the longest. 2) The disposition of this species ranges from "the most foul-tempered reptile I have ever worked with" to "this species makes Hannibal Lector look like Mother Theresa". They are highly aggressive, territorial towards humans, and they tend to bite rather than bluff. Coupled with their immense size, this has given them near-legendary status among herpers, and I know people who own king cobras that refuse to go anywhere near this lizard. A very few individuals have been tamed, but the taming process typically results in no longer being able to count to ten on your digits without involving both feet. The good news is that several specialist monitor lizard breeders are attempting to get this species to breed in captivity. The hope is that, like the reticulated python, wild-caught individuals may be nasty, but captive-bred ones will be tame, or at least possible to tame without loss of limbs. The fact that a few individuals have been tamed leads to some hope, and currently New England Reptile Distributors is hoping for a successful breeding. They had one last year, but a cage-mate ate all the eggs before they could be found and removed. These images should give you idea of just how gorgeous they are: A pair of babies (adults don't fade or lose the pattern) A moderately sizable adult at East Bay Vivarium Same animal as above, different view Once captive breds are availible (if they're tamable), I'll be selling most of my possessions to both afford one and make room for the size of cage it needs. Mokele

And? Dinosaurs weren't aquatic. Some may have been able to paddle around a bit, but the large aquatic reptiles of the mesozoic were not dinosaurs, nor even archosaurs of any form. Technically, they were less closely related to dinosaurs than modern crocs are. As such, they were almost definitely cold-blooded, which makes the highly unlikely candidates for Loch Ness. Also, they tended to be shallow-water organisms, or at least those we know of were. That and the fact they're incredibly common in the fossil record, and then suddenly become absent 65mya, which gives a pretty good indicator of "they're all dead". ---------- Also, I should point out that, while I personally think it's a combination of unusual waves and rotten logs, the intention of the thread was a kind of fun, hypothetical "What if...". As in, *if* something was indeed down there, what would it be? My money would be on an extremely large salamader, possibly a cryptobranchid (like the america hellbender and Japanese and Chinese giant salamanders). They can survive in very cold water, respire through their skin, have a low metabolism and thus low food requirements, and typically spend most of their time laying on the bottom where they're well camoflaged, less by any pressure for direct camoflage and more by the fact they look more like an wrinkly sausage. On top of that, as fans of the Carboniferous and Permian know, amphibians can reach some very substantial sizes, given the right selective pressures. Coupled with people's tendency to overestimate the size of big animals (especially herps), something merely twice the size of a Japanese giant salamander would do the trick, I think. And, as I said, this is all hypothetical "what if it wasn't just rotting logs" stuff, for the fun of it. Mokele

I meant "applied science" in the sense of applying what science has found to devices we can use. There is still, of course, some level of science involved, but engineering is primarily the application. However, the divide is kind of fuzzy, and gets fuzzier the more recently a field cropped up. Nuclear and aerospace engineering are both kinda close to science, and often do scientific experiments (though more along the lines of understanding subtle intricacies of the known than exploring the unknown), while civil engineers... Well, back when I was in aerospace, we joked that civil engineers were people who dropped out of engineering after 2 years to study dirt. Not that CE isn't important, just that it's become pretty much entirely application. However, for some, application can be more fun than exploration. It's a matter of personal taste and priorities, I think.

Call my cynical, but EQ has always reeked of "sour grapes" to me, plus a way to "feel good about yourself". I'd be willing to bet that most people who take the test are told their EQ is "above average" or more. "Oh, no, we didn't score very high on the IQ test! Let's make up our own test, claim it measures something totally non-quantifiable but of paramount importance, and support it with a slew of trendy books!" Mokele

(I'm not sure if this really belongs here, but it seemed appropriate) Pathologicly cute... Mokele

Engineering. It's basically "applied science", with more job openings and *much* more pay.

1-2%, 3% tops. Cows, as endotherms, are very wasteful, burning most of their food as heat. Mokele