Slashdot Mirror

No one wants to date your mother.

I decided to look, I found this:

Hybridizations

        Hybrids between common chimps and bonobos in captivity have occurred

But I can't find a lot more than that. I was looking for pictures.

+1 Balboa Park, including within walking distance of each other the Air and Space Museum, the Fleet Science Center and the Zoo.

+1 Balboa Park, including within walking distance of each other the San Diego Air and Space Museum the Fleet Science Center (with an IMAX theatre) and the World Famous San Diego Zoo which always blows people away, even if their expectations are already set pretty high.

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/got_questions_quxz.html

When I read that they administered 3000 times the amount of a human dose to an elephant, it got me curious. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-elephant.html It says males can reach up to 15000 lbs, and females 8000 lbs. I assumed that the average male is 180 lbs and the average female is 130 lbs (I know I'm not really being accurate, but I just wanted ball park figures). That means that the average male elephant is about 83.33 times the weight of a human male, and the average female elephant is about 61.54 times the size of a human female. So the administered about thirty-six times what they needed for a relative average male elephant dose. YIKES! Let me know if my math or assumptions were silly, and correct them if you can. I think it's no surprise that the elephant died with that much of an overdose.

A scared turtle can swim 22 mph. That's way faster than I can swim.

We need to include the other half - animals.
DNA repositories like CRES.

According to Darwin he does.

Incorrect. Darwin said that the stupid/slow/weak get eaten, not that they deserve or should get eaten. Darwin simply made observations about how nature works; he didn't comment on whether this is the way it should work.

Furthermore, helping weaker members of one's species is an observed phenomenon in nature. For example, dolphins will help their sick and injured.

The final nail to the coffin of social darwinism is the simple fact that humans are perfectly capable of defying natural selection. A wolf that catches a rabbit is following its instincts and needs; it will either catch the rabbit or starve to death, and is completely incapable of understanding why it shouldn't kill the rabbit even if it didn't need to. A human being, on the other hand, is capable of both getting his neccessities for survival without abusing his fellow human beings, and capable of understanding that he shouldn't abuse them. Animals follow their instincts, humans don't need to. When an animal kills another, it is natural selection; when a human kills another, it is murder. In other words, animals are not moral actors, but humans are, and therefore bear the responsibility for their actions; they cannot escape that responsibility just by stating that "it wasn't me, it was natural selection !".

Comments like yours fail to demonstrate anything expect your total lack of understanding about either Darwin's theories, the nature(s) of animals, or the nature of humanity.

Sorry about the rant, but you managed to hit two nerves here - your referred to a scientific theory and got it fundamentally wrong, and then used that misunderstanding as a basis of approving evil actions :(.

At the San Diego Zoo, they have an exhibit called "Absolutely Apes" (which you can watch live. The exhibit has both Orangutans and Siamangs inside.

One of the "enrichment" items in the exhibit is a "terminte mound" made of concrete that the keepers put treats inside of: honey, barbecue sauce, etc.

The orangutans are smart enough to use tools like twigs to get the treats out, but the saimangs do not understand this concept.

This seems a tad unfair, but the siamangs are smart enough to wait until the orangutans get the goodies out, and then the smaller apes sneak up and steal the tasty twigs!

At the San Diego Zoo, they have an exhibit called "Absolutely Apes" (which you can watch live. The exhibit has both Orangutans and Siamangs inside.

One of the "enrichment" items in the exhibit is a "terminte mound" made of concrete that the keepers put treats inside of: honey, barbecue sauce, etc.

The orangutans are smart enough to use tools like twigs to get the treats out, but the saimangs do not understand this concept.

This seems a tad unfair, but the siamangs are smart enough to wait until the orangutans get the goodies out, and then the smaller apes sneak up and steal the tasty twigs!

So the lack of obligation works both ways. Exactly. I was not denouncing the attempted improvement of browsers, but whining that helps no one. I use Firefox on Windows machine, I like it, the only problem I have ever had was with the nightly build, so I go back to the last known good nightly build. I mostly use Safari on OS X, but the occasional website requires the use of Firefox. I just hate the spoilsports that come out when a positive article comes out. These are the same nitpickers who would complain about the jewels encrusting the Holy Grail, were they to stumble upon it.

They only eat one type of food, you know and that is a poor adapation imho. I bet they taste like it too, icky. Unless you want your meat to taste like an herbal cough drop.

The only site I have needed to use IE for on either my Windows 95 box at work (ugh), or my seldom powered on XP box at home (ugh) is for windowsupdate.microsoft.com, and that is it's homepage. I am using Phoen...FireBi...Firefox on the 95 box, works like a charm, no complaints here. Now on my OS X box I only use Safari, but even then there is one site that does not work correctly, which causes me to use FireFox. This oh-so-important site? San Diego Zoo's Pandacam!

Other cool stuff in San Fran: The Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences.

Heading down the coast, there's The Tech Museum in San Jose

There's Fry's stores all the way through California, and they have neat themes like alien invason, alice in wonder land, ancient rome, etc. (I plan to pilgrimage to all of them at some point.) Although they are getting to be more like a giant consumer electronics store than somewhere to go for parts.

Unfortunately it looks like the Griffith Observatory is closed, but I'm sure there's plenty of other geek stuff in LA that people could point you to. There's just so much that nothing uniquely cool comes to mind.

In San Diego we have Balboa Park which has a aerospace museum, model railroad museum, automotive museum, etc, plus the Zoo. And there's the Wild Animal park. And the Birch Aquarium up here at UCSD. And the Gaslamp area, which has good bars ;-)

I see a number of recommendations for the computer exhibit at the American History Museum. And of course for the National Air and Space Museum.

However, the entirety of the Smithsonian is worth visiting. I recommend you spend at least a day per museum for the "quick tour" - I am not kidding. It's not called "America's Attic" for nothing. My personal recommendations:

• Arts and Industries exhibits in the Castle.
• the Renwick Gallery
• The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden [modern art]
• And if you don't get to The San Diego Zoo, a good second is The National Zoo [and I say this as a native of the Washington DC area].
• Ending up my short list is the Natural History Museum and its Insect Zoo.

When I was a kid, the Insect Zoo used to be well-hidden in a back corner of the Natural History Museum - with minimal signage - that it took us three visits to find it. My father joked that "insect zoo" meant "tour of the museum". These days there's more to it than dead mounted bugs and a glass-walled bee hive.

...what is to say that it wasn't meant to happen?

We are! If we are able to change our habits, protect habitats through political influence, or take active measures to protect a species, who is to say that THAT wasn't meant to happen? The whole point of conservation, and wildlife preservation, is that there is a measureable value to it, and the laissez-faire attitude damages our own interests in the long run.

Now granted, I don't think bringing back species through DNA storage or surrogacy is anywhere near a good solution, but there are good reasons for trying.

I was at the San Diego Wildlife Animal Park about a month ago (a large open space zoo and preserve), and it was mentioned that one of the species of asian animals exhibited there (a Chinese deer of some sort, I believe), has existed solely in captivity for over 700 years! I found that amazing.