31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Social Commentary in "The Time Machine"
Science is my territory, but science fiction landscape of my dreams. The year 1995 was the hundredth
anniversary of the publication of H. G. Wells's
The Time Machine, perhaps the darkest view of the
human future ever imagined. Wells used a dramatic
story to give his contemporaries a glimpse of a possible
future. His purpose was not to predict but to warn. He
was angry with the human species for its failures and
follies. He was especially angry with the E nglish class
system under which he had...Folksonomies: science fiction social commentary
Folksonomies: science fiction social commentary
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notes10 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Strategy of Predator Satiation
An effective strategy of predator satiation involves two adaptations. First, the synchrony of emergence or reproductions must be very precise, thus assuring that hte market is truly flooded, and only for a short time. Secondly, this flooding cannot occur very often, lest predators simply adjust their own life cycle to predictable times of superfluity. If bamboos flowered every year, seed eaters would track the cycle and present their own abundant young with the annual bounty. But if the perio... 1 notes
notesCicadas have evolved the strategy of mass-producing in such numbers that the predators cannot eat them all.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Pollyanna VS Sod's Law
It's easy to see that predators (animals that kill and then eat other animals) are working for the downfall of their prey. But it's also true that prey are working for the downfall of their .fedators. They work hard to escape bei and it they all succeeded the predators would starve to death. The same thing holds between parasites and their hosts. It also holds between members of the same species, all of whom are actually or potentially competing with on another. If the living is easy, natural... 1 notes
notesEvolution favors the paranoid mind.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Convergent Evolution in Cacti and Succulents
Let’s begin with one observation that strikes anyone who travels widely.
If you go to two distant areas that have similar climate and terrain,
you find different types of life. Take deserts. Many desert plants are
succulents: they show an adaptive combination of traits that include
large fleshy stems to store water, spines to deter predators, and small or
missing leaves to reduce water loss. But different deserts have different
types of succulents. In North and South America, the succulents... 1 notes
notesThe two groups of species share many many traits, but they exist in completely different parts of the world, evolving separately, but converging to be almost interchangeable.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
DNA as an Archive of the Past
Each individual's genome, in any one generation, will be a sample from the species
database. Different species will have different databases because of their different ancestral worlds.
The database in the gene pool of camels will encode information about deserts and how to survive
in them. The DNA in mole gene pools will contain instructions and hints for survival in dark, moist
soil. The DNA in predator gene pools will increasingly contain information about prey animals,
their evasive trick...
1 A repository of ancestral survival techniques.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Predators Prevent Their Prey from Suffering
The appointment of death by the agency of carnivora, as the ordinary termination of animal
existence, appears therefore in its main results to be a dispensation of benevolence; it deducts much
from the aggregate amount of the pain of universal death; it abridges, and almost annihilates,
throughout the brute creation, the misery of disease, and accidental injuries, and lingering decay;
and imposes such salutary restraint upon excessive increase of numbers, that the supply of food
maintains per...Stephen Jay Gould quoting the Reverend William Buckland.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The Evolutionary Arms Race
Before asserting that the deceptive appearance of a grasshopper or butterfly is unnecessarily detailed, we must first ascertain what are the powers of perception and discrimination of the insects'
natural enemies. Not to do so is like asserting that the armour of a battle-cruiser is too heavy, or the
range of her guns too great, without inquiring into the nature and effectiveness of the enemy's
armament. The fact is that in the primeval struggle of the jungle, as in the refinements of civiliz... 1 notes
notesAdaptations are based on the senses and abilities of the predators.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Guppies Evolve Their Spots in Experimentation
Guppies are popular freshwater aquarium fish. As with the pheasants we met in Chapter 3,
the males are more brightly coloured than the females, and aquarists have bred them to become
even brighter. Endler studied wild guppies (Poecilia reticulata) living in mountain streams in
Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela. He noticed that local populations were strikingly different from
each other. In some populations the adult males were rainbow-coloured, almost as bright as those
bred in aquarium tanks. H...Folksonomies: evolution experimentation
Folksonomies: evolution experimentation
Spots are attractive to females, but also attractive to predators.
04 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Humans are a Self-Domesticated Animal
Mankind is a self-domesticated animal; a mammal; an ape; a social ape; an ape in which the male takes the initiative in courtship and females usually leave the society of their birth; an ape in which men are predators, women herbivorous foragers; an ape in which males are relatively hierarchical, females relatively egalitarian; an ape in which males contribute unusually large amounts of investment in the upbringing of their offspring by provisioning their mates and their children with food, p...A list of the behaviors in human beings.
03 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Parasititic Influence on Evolution
Again and again in recent years evolutionary biologists have found themselves returning to the theme of parasites. As Is Richard Dawkins put it in a recent paper: "Eavesdrop [over] morning coffee at any major centre of evolutionary theory today, and you will find 'parasite' to be one of the commonest words in ti the language. Parasites are touted as the prime movers in the evolution of sex. promising a final solution to that problem of problems.'"
Parasites have a deadlier effect than preda... 1 notes
notesParasites are small and numerous, evolving faster than we do and putting incredible evolutionary pressure on the species they plague.
