Mokele

The frequency with which spiders turn up in the stomach cavity during autopsies.

It probably depends a lot on the environment, panel type, etc. I did some work at a field station in Guam which used solar panels, but they weren't enough to power the whole building by any means. However, in all fairness, these were fairly old panels and didn't cover anywhere near the full roof area, which created the dual problem of reduced surface area for generation and more area exposed to the tropical sun.

Seconded. Seriously, kleinwolf, your weird masturbation obsession is even creeping *me* out, and that's not easily done.

I actually never disputed the distinction between terrorism and "regular crime", and I don't see how acknowledging someone's terrorism or attempt at it as a "reward", especially since it comes with stiffer penalties. Punishing criminals isn't about "justice", but rather about prevention, and it's not so much about "motive" as goals[/b]. If I catch two robbers in the act, before they can make off with something, and one was stealing a car while another was robbing a bank, should the bank robber be sentenced to more time because of the greater magnitude of the crime. That's the mistake people make in these debates - a 'hate crime' isn't punished more severely because of the perpetrator's mindset, it's punished more severely because the crime causes more damage, affects more people, and damages both individuals and society more. IMHO, it's an issue of consistency. Either broader social effects don't matter, in which case neither hate crimes nor terrorism are justifiable distinctions, or they do matter, in which case both are equally valid.

Dewlaps in lizards are pretty much used exclusively for display.

IMHO, it's educational. Seldom for a crackpots themselves, but for those watching. They can see how and why we ask what we ask, asking for references, hypotheses, predictions, etc.

Oh, of course - energy expended to maintain them and build them during growth, providing an obstruction and possible handle for predators, etc. But those would apply to a sail, too. There's also the question of why have either - why not just add a fan to the tail? Yet we don't see that as often, and never really for thermoregulation (usually for display or camouflage). Why not?

Exactly - with such ears, why bother with a dorsal sail?

Because motive and message do matter. When someone kills Joe Sixpack over a bar fight, it has no real effect beyond his friends and family. When someone kills someone else to "send a message", the act doesn't just hurt the victim and their friends and family, it damages an entire community, and has hundreds or thousands of people looking over their shoulders, fearing they might be next.

Motives, I think, play a large role. If you kill someone, through whatever means, just because they pissed you off for some reason, with no real thought of broader consequences or how this will affect anyone beyond you and them, IMHO it's just plain murder. If, however, your actions are motivated by the desire to "send a message" to a group of people, to intimidate or terrify that group, or as part of your personal 'war/battle' against that group, it's terrorism.

Eh, I think the OP has left.

Sure there were. They were called "wagons", and while they didn't use fossil fuels, they were actually *worse* in terms of energy efficiency because, well, there's no "off" switch on the horse or horses needed to pull them. The need to move large objects, or large quantities of objects, to very specific places (moreso than rail or boat, at least) has been around since the dawn of agriculture, and will continue long after cars are all electric. The issue is how to make those same vehicles more ecologically friendly and energy efficient.

Not actually - the sailback synapsids such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus were 'cousins' to the lineage that led to modern mammals. Sails have turned up a few other times, such as in the dinosaurs Spinosaurus and Ournasaurus, as well as the extinct amphibian Platyhystrix. They seem to be for temperature regulation, but it's not very clear. It's possible it could re-appear, but until we actually know the function, it's hard to say under what conditions.

Welcomes to SNF, where we can go from Science to Nipples in 14 posts!

Agreed, but the price is rather steep for a car with such limited capabilities. IMHO, the target for "around-town" cars should be substantially cheaper than a new gas-powered car, because otherwise people will say "why should I spend that extra cash on a car with less ability?". I think there would be a real market for cheap, low-speed, short-distance electric cars, but not until they're a substantially cheaper alternative to a normal, gas-using car.

No, he's pulling it out of his ass. Want to convince me otherwise? Get him to put his full dataset out online. That's how science works. A geocities page? Are you freaking serious? You need a serious course in what a "reputable source" is. Except that it couldn't for many, many reasons laid out in this thread. And, since you see to be ignoring it, the way you do science is to look for differences, and test those. What's the point of a theory that gives all the same answers? The video you linked to explicitly stated "no water", and your idea of the water resting on top doesn't hold, either. Yes, you have. It follows directly and indisputably from your claims. You're just too blinded to see it. Evidently not. ------------------- In light of bombus' continued refusal to listen to evidence, willful ignorance, avoidance of questions, total lack of understanding of the scientific method, and general intellectual dishonesty on the subject, this thread is closed.

I'm sorry, I don't see any of it. But mantids will hunt and kill vertebrates.

As I say, I don't have an S.U.V., I have a G.T.V. - Greyhound Transportation Vehicle (Yes, we actually bought the car specifically for the dogs, because they couldn't fit in our sedan). However, I actually use less gas than some hybrid owners - I walk to school, my wife stays home, and all of our weekly errands are within a mile. I think I filled up about 6 weeks ago, and I'm down to a bit less than half, even after a few unscheduled longer trips. Anyhow, what would be nice is some sort of high-capacity electric vehicle with limited range and low speed. Then I could just park the car for months on end, and use the electric for groceries, trips to the dog park and vet, etc. Something with limited range and speed could be genuinely useful in densely build cities like here (New England) if it was made cheaply enough.

Part of the problem is assessing species intelligence. What's a fair test across species, one that won't be biased by a particular species' or group's life history, habitat, etc? How well does this fair test reflect "intelligence"? And how much does neocortex matter? Do mammals just "centralize & specialize", while other organisms like birds and reptiles have the relevant neurons spread widely in the brain? It's tantalizing and interesting, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet.

What we need is more limited, intensive scaling studies across groups with a wide range of body sizes but similar life history traits. Felines would be a good choice (excluding lions and cheetahs due to odd lifestyle), as would monitor lizards, ranid frogs, charadriform birds (gulls & their allies), and Cervids (deer etc.). With these species, body size changes, but little else does, and the limited range of species within a group gives you time to do more measurements per animal, thus a larger data set. Because I'm VERY biased, I think pythons would be an excellent choice. Not only does a tiny brain control a huge body with hundreds of serially repeating units, but the number of repeats varies tremendously within the genus (from less than 200 to over 450). With a big enough sample size and enough variation, you might even be able to pull a correlation from a large sample of a single species (since the vertebral number varies between individuals quite substantially). I'm not aware of anyone doing such studies, but they could test the whole "Bigger body = more control = more brain" hypothesis very well.

Thank you for that astonishingly uninformed and useless opinion. Go actually read something, and maybe you'll have something to contribute.

No, but rod and cone cells remain the same size. Bigger eyes = more cells. The same is true for noses - bigger nose = more surface area and more receptors, therefore more input. Bigger bodies simply have more cells, which means more stuff to control and more input to process.

Bigger bodies mean more surface area for sensation, both internally and externally (the GI tract has a LOT of nerves). Also, larger bodies have more muscle cells, thus more motor units, and thus need more motor control.

Ectotherms (and presumably near-ectotherms) can function in a wide range of temperatures. Definitely, though most don't need to.