07 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Resveratrol and SIRT1
For the last decade, the science of aging has increasingly focused on sirtuins, a group of genes that are believed to protect many organisms, including mammals, against diseases of aging. Mounting evidence has demonstrated that resveratrol, a compound found in the skin of grapes as well as in peanuts and berries, increases the activity of a specific sirtuin, SIRT1, that protects the body from diseases by revving up the mitochondria, a kind of cellular battery that slowly runs down as we age. ...Folksonomies: longevity supplements
Folksonomies: longevity supplements
1 28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Do Animals Perceive the Uncanny Valley
pathological aggression: dolphins kill porpoises for no reason, they don’t eat them, they’re not competitors. Does this suggest the uncanny valley exists for all mammals? 1 
notes
notesDoes it explain dolphin violence against porpoises?
01 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Differences Between Humans and Apes
It is well-known that both rude and civilized peoples are capable of showing unspeakable, and as it is erroneously termed, inhuman cruelty towards each other. These acts of cruelty, murder and rapine are often the result of the inexorable logic of national characteristics, and are unhappily truly human, since nothing like them can be traced in the animal world. It would, for instance, be a grave mistake to compare a tiger with the bloodthirsty exectioner of the Reign of Terror, since the form... 1 notes
notesIt's not possible to compare the violence in the general animal world to that of humans.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Arctic Tern's Migration
The difference between night and day is dramatic - so dramatic that most species of animal can thrive either in the day or in the night but not both. They usually sleep during their 'off' period. Humans and most birds sleep by night and work at the business of living during the day. Hedgehogs and jaguars and many other mammals work by night and sleep by day.
In the same way, animals have different ways f coping with the change between winter anc summer. Lots of mammals grow a thick, shaggy ... 1 notes
notesThe bird migrates back and forth from North and South poles so that it always enjoys the arctic and antarctic summers.
14 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
If Birds Studied Man
Let us only imagine that birds had studied their own development and that it was they in turn who investigated the structure of the adult mammal and of man. Wouldn't their physiological textbooks teach the following? 'Those four and two-legged animals bear many resemblances to embryos, for their cranial bones are separated, and they have no beak, just as we do in the first live or six days of incubation; their extremities are all very much alike, as ours are for about the same period; there i... 1 notes
notesAn insightful way of looking at our prejudices.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Evolution of the Eye
A possible sequence of such changes begins with simple eyespots made
of light-sensitive pigment, as seen in flatworms. The skin then folds in,
forming a cup that protects the eyespot and allows it to better localize
the light source. Limpets have eyes like this. In the chambered nautilus,
we see a further narrowing of the cup’s opening to produce an improved
image, and in ragworms the cup is capped by a protective transparent
cover to protect the opening. In abalones, part of the fluid in t... 1 notes
notesA simple series of adaptive steps explain the evolution of eyes over time.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Mammals Produce Useless Yolks
Vestigial genes can go hand in hand with vestigial structures. We
mammals evolved from reptilian ancestors that laid eggs. With the
exceptions of the “monotremes” (the order of mammals that includes
the Australian spiny anteater and duck-billed platypus), mammals have
dispensed with egg-laying, and mothers nourish their young directly
through the placenta instead of by providing a storehouse of yolk. And
mammals carry three genes that, in reptiles and birds, produce the
nutritious protein...Because they evolve from egg-laying reptiles, they have dead genes for producing yolks and even produce yolks in the placenta.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Vestigial GLO Pseudogene
And the evolutionary prediction that we’ll find pseudogenes has been
fulfilled—amply. Virtually every species harbors dead genes, many of them still active in its relatives. This implies that those genes were also
active in a common ancestor, and were killed off in some descendants but
not in others. Out of about 30,000 genes, for example, we humans carry
more than 2,000 pseudogenes. Our genome—and that of other species—
are truly well populated graveyards of dead genes.
The most fam... 1 notes
notesUsed to produce Vitamin C, alive in most mammals, but dead in humans, primates, and others.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Skeletal Similarities in Mammals
What a piece of work is the mammalian skeleton. I don't mean it is beautiful in itself,
although I think it is. I mean the fact that we can talk about 'the' mammalian skeleton at all: the fact
that such a complicatedly interlocking thing is so gloriously different across the mammals, in all its
parts, while simultaneously being so obviously the same thing throughout the mammals. Our own
skeleton is familiar enough to need no picture, but look at this skeleton of a bat. Isn't it fascinating
ho...
1 There are corresponding bones across species, evolved into other functions.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The laryngeal nerve's haphazard course through the body
A favourite example, ever since it was pointed out to me by Professor J. D. Currey when he
tutored me as an undergraduate, is the recurrent laryngeal nerve.* It is a branch of one of the cranial
nerves, those nerves that lead directly from the brain rather than from the spinal cord. One of the
cranial nerves, the vagus (the name means 'wandering' and it is apt), has various branches, two of
which go to the heart, and two on each side to the larynx (voice box in mammals). On each side of
the n...Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Another example of poor biological design.
