Auburngirl05

I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I read that ancient Egyptians were so used to drinking warm water from the Nile that when they traveled to a new area (sorry I can't remember the specifics) they refused to drink the cold water that was offered to them, apparently they had never experienced that before and were suspicious of it.

I saw the commercials for the lion/antelope program, I think I'm going to tune in out of curiosity as to the 'whole story' behind the 'odd couple'. My only related anecdote it that I've got a cat that is an expert mouse hunter but loves to curl up for naps with my guinea pigs, I guess all rodents were not created equal.

They would have to have something resembling a nose or mouth to breathe, although I guess that doesn't necessarily mean they'd have the corresponding sensory receptors like normal nasal passages/oral cavities. Also, in order to qualify, their skin cells wouldn't be innervated, unless the problem was "deeper" and something prevented stimuli from reaching the brain...

I read somewhere that there's evidence that a dolphin's echolocation can make it aware of whether a woman is pregnant or not. I'm admittedly not very well read on marine biology so I'm not sure if that's correct, but I thought the possibility was pretty interesting.

I think that in situations like the recent tsunami it is just a case of the aboriginees being more in tune with weather patterns and signs, and most of all being aware of the local wildlife and simply following the cues when the animals picked up signals and made a run for it.

I should have specified that I was talking only about mammals, sorry. I would say that even though animals like reptiles and amphibians are kept as pets, they aren't exactly domesticated, the difference in a wild salamander and a captive one probably isn't as dramatic as that between a wolf and a chihuahua. But you do make a really good point, I don't think that pet birds look at all like the result of neoteny, but they can be trained to do some pretty amazing things, so you're right that the neoteny=trainability rule definitely isn't universal.

Several of the forums I belong to have a thread designated for members to post pictures of themselves if they want to, that wouldn't be a bad idea, I've always felt strange about putting myself in an avatar.... Anyway, if anyone cares or is curious or just plain bored, here I be: http://groups.msn.com/Anne-MariesPlace/shoebox.msnw?Page=1

If you read Raymond Coppinger's book on the evolution of dogs (It's called Dogs with a lengthy subtitle, can't recall it exactly), it discusses neoteny as part of the domestication process, it's pretty interesting. Not only does it produce "cute" pets, but I've also read that it preserves some of the plasticity of young minds and helps to make domesticated (and thus "neotenized") pets more "trainable". It's definitely an interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up.

I think that the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond deals with this issue, I haven't read it but have heard great reviews.

I'm in it this year, UGH, I"m not a "math person" but I have been able to pull As...I'm finding that second semester is not as hard as first semester was. Definitely invest in "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus", it's been a life-saver for me, and the author's website has great tutorials. Good luck!

We grew popcorn a couple of years ago-you have to buy special seeds, but it's really amazing how well it works. We didn't treat the kernels at all in order to get them to pop: I even popped it straight off the cob sometimes, just stick the whole cob in small brown paper bag with a little oil, and it was really great-tasting. I'm not sure where we ordered the seeds from, but it was definitely an interesting thing to try.

I didn't know exactly where to put this thread but thought Biology may be most appropriate. Here is the is the article I read on it. This is really a sad day for science, I was stunned when I read the news (although he definitely lived a full life) Evolutionary Biologist Ernst Mayr Dies http://news.yahoo.com/newstmpl=story&u=/ap/20050204/ap_on_re_us/obit_mayr_1 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Ernst Mayr, one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists, has died at 100. The longtime Harvard University faculty member died Thursday at a retirement community in Bedford. His work in the 1930s and '40s, while a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, established him as a leading neo-Darwinist, supporting a theory of evolution that is a combination of Darwin's natural selection theory and modern genetics. In his travels in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Mayr showed, unlike Darwin, that species can arise from isolated populations. "Professor Mayr's contributions to Harvard University and to the field of evolutionary biology were extraordinary by any measure," Harvard history professor William C. Kirby said, calling Mayr a "leading mind of the 20th century." Mayr "shaped and articulated modern understanding of biodiversity and related fields," Kirby said. Born in Kempten, Germany, Mayr joined the Harvard faculty in 1953 as a zoology professor and led Harvard's Comparative Zoology museum from 1961 to 1970. He retired in 1975. He is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren and 10 great- grandchildren.

I wasn't trying to imply that you were, sorry if it came off that way. I agree with you about literal interpretations, how can you take something literally after the text has been through so many centuries of transcribing by hand and translation to translation to translation? Doesn't seem to make sense.

(I'm not antireligion, although not religious myself, not trying to offend anyone) The same can be said about religion: some (not all, no flaming, please) people think acting pious once a week at church services is enough, and then they lie, cheat, etc etc once they're out of sight of the steeple.

I actually just wrote a paper about capital punishment for my social psych class, and the statistics I found said that if a 25 year old person gets a life sentence and lives until around age 80, it costs about $810,000 to support him. In contrast, the average execution costs $2.17 million. I'll try to find the site I got that from, I think I Googled "cost of execution" or something like that.

The Pharyngula blog had an entry about the discovery when it was first made covered the traditional science about the fossil and its implications, as opposed to a rebuttal against creationst claims, it can be read here: http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/repenomamus_giganticus/

PZ Meyers at Pharyngula (one of my favorite science blogs) had a really good critique of the creationist take on the find, here's the link, it's definitely worth reading for anyone interested. http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/repenomamus_was_a_flood_victim_snort/

I've noticed a definite trend with the threads centering on various debates about religion.

Which edition did you try to read? I read the first edition, and actually enjoyed it..(it fascinated me, am I a total nerd now? LOL). My copy had an intro by Richard Dawkins, and he recommended the first edition because later revisions in later editions were partly in response to various critics and some of that overshadows his basic ideas/principles...but I haven't read a later edition, so I can't say if that comparison is true or not, but I thought I'd pass it along.

I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certian psychiatrists are considered MDs, while psychologists aren't. I think psychiatrists, in practice, do more with serious disorders such as schizophrenia, while in general psychologists do more counseling and other things. That brings to mind a question of my own, can psychologists prescribe drugs? I know that psychiatrists can, but I wasn't certain if both could.

I don't really mind references to God in traditional phrases and things, even though I'm not religious, but it does bother me when policies reflect certain religious beliefs (such as stem cell research issues). I don't think that the beliefs of one group should have the power to regulate the choices of people who don't necessarily share those idealogies. If one religion thinks life begins at conception and public policies reflect that, it stops other people from potentially life-saving procedures...just the concept of governing those things with religious-based beliefs bothers me. What if the government was Jewish and policies forbade pork and required circumcision? (no it's not a good comparision to stem cells but it's early and it's all I could come up with, bear with me, lol, and I have NOTHING against Jews, again, it's just the first example that popped into my head). Anyway, just my two cents...

I thought it was interesting that the two specimens were judged to be two separate species, implying that there were at least a handful of different niches for mammals bigger than the shrew-sized critters I'd always pictured during the Mesozoic. And you're right, Ophiolite, fossil animals are like cockroaches, lol for every one you find, there were 1000 more you don't.