15 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
The Difficult Choice of Being the First Heart Donor
For a dying man it is not a difficult decision [to agree to become the world's first heart transplant] ... because he knows he is at the end. If a lion chases you to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, you will leap into the water convinced you have a chance to swim to the other side. But you would not accept such odds if there were no lion.Folksonomies: metaphor organ transplant
Folksonomies: metaphor organ transplant
Christiaan Barnard quote uses a metaphor of being stuck between a lion and a river filled with crocodiles.
19 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Species Divisions are Complicated
Zoologists have traditionally divided the vertebrates into classes: major divisions with names like mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Some zoologists, called 'cladists',* insist that a proper class must consist of animals all of whom share a common ancestor which belonged to that class and which has no descendants outside that group. The birds would be an example of a good class. All birds are descended from a single ancestor that would also have been called a bird and would have sha...The ancestors are birds are reptiles, but in the fossil record where do we draw the line between them?