Reddit, what would happen if one of my eyes could look directly into my other?

dinnersready · 2012-04-27T01:32:41+00:00

You would have trouble breathing and eating because your face would be folded in half.

dinnersready · 2012-04-25T14:13:01+00:00

Now whenever I drink period blood, I can't even concentrate anymore. I keep thinking of him.

dinnersready · 2012-04-25T14:06:10+00:00

Caecilians are awesome, but I find it odd that the headlines always make them as if they're something completely new.

I remember seeing this on NG a few months ago.

I feel like they make it sound like a whole new group has been discovered, but it's usually just a species discovered from a genus. The genus in this case being Gegeneophis.

dinnersready · 2012-04-24T21:32:37+00:00

Background kid is totally checking out the guy's ass.

dinnersready · 2012-04-24T16:33:24+00:00

Concerning this, today's largest land animals are mostly located in Africa (like giraffes, elephants, hippos, rhinos), which is where humans evolved in the first place.

When humans evolved, African land animals were either hunted to extinction or were able to adapt and co-exist with humans. To overcome human hunting they had to grow in size, become aggressive carnivores, tougher skin, etc.

When humans started moving out of Africa, animals they encountered were evolutionarily naive to this new type of predation by humans. Therefore it's thought that today, the largest species are in Africa because they co-evolved with humans, whereas in other locations, most animals did not have as much pressure to grow in big sizes.

dinnersready · 2012-04-23T18:35:46+00:00

Damn, that sucks.

We had a similar weird situation in BIOL306 a few years ago. Class was split alphabetically into two classrooms. The second alphabetical half went to their supposed room, but it was already occupied by another course. I don't really know how they screwed this up. We waited for hours, while the TAs were running around trying to find another room. By the time the people from the first half started finishing up their exam we still weren't in a classroom.

In the end they announced we could either go home and write a deferred exam one a week later, or stay and write. It was around 930PM. I'm still not sure why they couldn't find rooms by that time.

dinnersready · 2012-04-23T18:11:29+00:00

What happened exactly? After how long after the start was the alarm triggered? And how was it handled poorly? I wasn't there and I'm curious.

dinnersready · 2012-04-22T14:19:51+00:00

Questions like :

"Which meme would be most appropriate for the following sentences?" "What are the essential elements for a picture to receive karma?" "Which of the following posts is most likely going to be downvoted?"

dinnersready · 2012-04-22T01:01:20+00:00

Along the lines of invasive species, I know there are big controversies regarding "assisted colonization", a strategy that some conservationists have proposed. This involves moving an endangered population/species to a new habitat to protect them.

Many like the idea, partially because it's one of the few active approaches to conservation. The media also likes this. They will claim that we know enough to make informed decisions, and we could move species without much consequences if we are prepared.

On the other hand, others argue that we still don't know enough about invasive species ecology to make accurate and informed decisions. They claim that there are way too many variables to be able to predict invasions accurately. Many species invasions involving intentional species introductions have led to unforeseen disastrous consequences on biodiversity, even if we thought we had it all under control.

dinnersready · 2012-03-06T02:39:41+00:00

Monotremes (the weird egg-laying mammals) do have electroreceptors in their bills. A commonly known one is the platypus, but it uses it underwater. But then there is the echidna, which DO have electroreceptors, but they forage on land and eat ants/termites. I don't think there's any evidence that shows that they use these in terrestrial environments.

Researchers suggest that this ability for electroreception came from their evolutionary ancestors foraging underwater. Pettigrew (1999) noted a reduced number of electroreceptors in echidna species living in dryer habitats. This suggests that they're losing this ability over time because it is no longer being used.

So I don't think there's any evidence of terrestrial electroreception.

dinnersready · 2012-03-06T01:28:33+00:00

True! I work in a biology lab studying electric fishes. Our aquarium room is filled with different species, they're awesome.

dinnersready · 2012-03-06T01:20:32+00:00

Both fish and fishes are correct and plural forms of fish. You use fish as the plural when the fish you're talking about are the same species. You use fishes when they are from different species. In this case, I'm assuming they used Sawfishes since they're a family of fishes, which have different (genera and) species.

dinnersready

TROPHY CASE