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Condor Chick Born In Wild
hank writes "Great news (Yahoo! News link) today on the endangered species front! A condor chick born in the wild is alive and well. Originally, biologists planned on interfering and giving "life support" to the egg; however, biologists were surprisingly pleased to see the father aggressively protecting his young. Wisely, they decided to let nature take control. The chick in Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County is the first conceived, hatched and raised in the wild to survive more than a day. It was 4 days old on Monday. What does this mean for genetic cloning and incubation research? Can nature really repair itself? What do you all think?"
What on earth does a captive-released pair of condors properly incubating their egg have to do with cloning?
'(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
So, is that what the ugly ones are called these days?
"What does this mean for genetic cloning and incubation research?"
It means birds lay eggs and they hatch. I don't think it has much to do with cloning.
"Can nature really repair itself?"
If we leave it alone long enough.
"What do you all think?"
I'm no scientist, but doesn't this mean the bird would have to mate with its siblings to continue the species? Can this be healthy?
Wow! I didn't know the father's name was Nature. But seriously, nature doesn't control anything. Nature just is.
Gayest story ever.
How could it be "gay" when the story is about a wild chick?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
When I think of condors and chicks, I think of The Condor in SF - Former home of Carol Doda
That perhaps the mother is better @ telling which children have the best chance @ survival. "...the chick from the third egg was killed right after hatching last year by the same female mothering the latest chick..."
Think Greeks throwing defective children off cliffs. It was barbaric, but people of Greek descent are some of the toughest people I know. The condors could be doing the same thing.
In an interesting twist, it seems as if our coyote problem(these creatures are extremely numerous) can help the condors. Instead of culling coyotes and burying them we should instead leave them out in areas where condors are known to frequent to provide ample food for the scavengers.
(Why does genetic engineering and cloning seem as the answer to our endangered species problems. What does cloning and genetic engineering have to do with anything. The baby was born naturally, without our tampering. That is the way it should be.)
..nature can fend for itself and the ones that can't die off, lets do away with tree huggers now.
The Truth: There is no string:)
This is what the regular /. reader sees from the headline:
"****** Chick **** ** Wild"
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
Genetic engineering can be important because it can allow us to enhance traits that aid survival. Some endangered species are unlikely to recover unless we tamper with the genetic makeup of the population. For example, the reason the cheetah is endangered is because of a long history of inbreeding (which resulted from overhunting). This inbreeding resulted in a population of cheetahs that has a lot of health problems and very little genetic diversity (in ecology terms, this is called a genetic bottleneck). Loss of genetic diversity is bad for evolution because it leaves little for natural selection to work with. In the case of the cheetah, a large number of cubs are born with health problems and die before they reach maturity. Also, because of the loss of genetic diversity, there is nothing for natural selection to work with. So basically, there are two reasons genetic engineering and artificial breeding can be useful in preserving endangered species:
http://www.peregrinefund.org/conserv_cacondor.html
The radical conservatives who cannot "allow" a species to die off are the abarations. A species ceasing to exist is a perfectly natural act. The strong survive, the weak perish, and this is just as true for species as it is for individuals.
If the Condor cannot adapt to its environment, cloning or captive breeding are not going to improve the situation. Released birds will still fail to breed.
This story is of a healthy birth. Woopie, get over it.
Go back 500 years (if you can) and follow the population of the Condor. I would not be surprised if their populations were decreasing long before industrial humans were in the area.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Birds lay eggs. Big deal ...
Even if this is an endangered bird, unless it was cooked up in a vat in some lab somewhere, it still doesn't say dick about cloning or cloning technology.
The bird laid an egg. So does this story.
Who's in charge around here, anyway?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Simple fact: The better adapted, or better able to adapt, survive. Weak perish. If you cannot understand that, no wonder "global warming" is still being touted as "science".
I also find your blending of fields interesting. Darwin and ecology? Cause and effect. When ecological parameters change, that which can adapt to the changes survive and those which cannot die out.
Funny how your attempts at argument merely prove my point.
I would love to see how you would demonstrate that the singular cause of the Condor's demise has been industrial man.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
You would rather collect people without regard to quality. This means nothing. Budweiser is the most consumer beer, but its garbage. This is analogous to Slashdot, to stoop to your food and beverage analogy. Bud beer. Its good because a lot of people drink it.
Actually, Budweiser has some of the highest quality standards of any beer. The production is far more carefully controlled than most imports and microbrews, and Anheuser-Busch goes to great pains to insure that every Bud you buy tastes exactly the same as the last Bud.
Now, you might not like the taste. Quite a few people don't. I don't care for it myself; when I want a beer that tasteless, I'll drink Natural Light at half the price. When I want to drink beer for the flavor, I'll usually go for Bass or Newcastle.
Now, to poke the hole in your analogy: If Slashdot was like Budweiser, there would never be a writeup with a grammar or spelling error, there would be no commentary from idiots who didn't read the articles, no page widening or goatse.cx crap. You still might not like the taste of the content, but the 'quality' would be much higher.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
What does it have to do with cloning? It means you don't need to clone animals to save a wild species, as some technophiles like to think. Of course, we already knew that. Witness the recovery of bald eagles, wood ducks, and the slow increase in the numbers of Whooping cranes, which were down to about 25 individuals a few years back but now number in the hundreds. Cloning to save a species is a silly idea anyway, because you need genetic diversity to survive diseases and changing environmental conditions. Jim Kling
Wine grapes were grown in England through early recorded history. It's too cold now to grow wine grapes in England, therefore "global warming" would be merely the return to the prior normal temperatures.
That is, if "global warming" exists as a human effect at all.
This is the sin of pride, that what you have experienced in your lifetime must therefore be "normal".
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I think it's a wonderful idea to study and document the fall, and rise (I hope), of these species.
.22 rifles would do it, but the Japanese have removed that as a legal option.
However, it is not "bad" that species die off. It's normal. Adaptation is normal too. The falcons nesting on the sides of tall buildings, returning to prey on pidgeons in the place that pidgeons flourish (human cities) is a really neat thing.
It would ease lots of minds if something would prey on the Tokyo crow, I can tell you. Training 12 year olds with
Darwin's discoveries drive rational ecology, not radical ecology. "Global Warming" scares and "human effects are by definition negative" are examples of radical ecology that treats humans as invaders instead of integral to the environment itself.
I'm all for Condors. I'm for saving them by the same methods that have saved cows, ducks, chickens, rhinos and emu have been "saved": Private enterprise.
(background: the most successful rhino breeding is being done for profit, for sale to zoos and hunters. elsewhere, rhino are in really deep trouble)
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
This article from Reason comes to mind:
All environmental problems occur in open-access commons -- areas like rivers, airsheds,
and fisheries -- that no one owns and no one has a responsibility to protect. Political
management has generally been the way we have tried to handle the problems caused by
the institution of open-access commons. The CPC is pointing to how private property can
effectively deal with environmental problems. "An owner who neglects or harms what he
owns is soon out of business and is replaced by somebody better," noted Smith.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I wave my hand and a car goes by. Did my waving my hand cause the car to go by? Gee, by your logic it does.
You might try this article for some actual science instead of "The CO2 Is Rising! Oh No!"
The particular part I like:
CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase could possibly warm the earth, but it is only about 3.5 percent of all greenhouse gases. Water vapor and clouds make up over 95 percent of greenhouse gases.
Funny thing is, if you "warm the earth", there's more white clouds which reflect sunlight. So is water vapor a "green house" gas, or an "umbrella" gas?
Wow! We need to restrict water vapor! It's a greenhouse gas! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Dude... How do you think they reproduced before we were around to help? :-)
I thought the left had the envior-wackos?
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
The hubris is hot and heavy. We are as much party to evolution as is the Condor. That we are able to impact evolution via gene manipulation makes us no less party to evolution than say a species in runaway that depletes it's food supply and faces extinction or change. Species die off and rise phoneix like from the dead as much without our help as with it. Walking the urban core at night I'm as likely now to meet the acquaintance of a racoon or a cyote as another person. There's an overabundance of false pride in a context that sets us up as having risen above the give and take of nature. Although we do have the responsibility of stewarts so there's an element of ambivalence.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Not just keystone species, it's a good idea to study why any species would become extinct. A change in the inanimate environment, or in competition, is a good thing to know.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
You could address the fallacy. Does water vapor trap heat, yes or no? Do clouds trap heat, yes or no?
If they are not "greenhouse gasses", can you create a definition of such compounds which excludes them?
Or, do you consider human interaction by definition "bad"? Since water vapor and clouds are not human creations (unlike CO2?), they therefore cannot be bad?
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Blah.
People have practically built a religion around it!
Yes, I am aware that CO2 is a naturally occurring substance, required for plants to crack in order to produce carbohydrates, etc.
The point I was trying to make is that the "global warming" extremists cannot comprehend that the earths natural temperature has fluxuated greatly over time, far colder and far warmer. It is the sin of pride to assume that what has been normal for the last 50 years must be normal for everywhere through all time.
The extremists decry how human action is by definition bad, invasive, destructive. Point out that Mt. St. Hellens dumped far more crap into the atmosphere than humanity, they ignore it.
Point out that the nitrates being "fixed" by internal combustion engines, and the CO2 they produce at the same time, is acting as fertilizer for plant groath, they ignore it.
Point out that the forests are now far more pleantiful than they were 100 years ago, that the mid-atmosphere temp has been very stable for as long as it's been measured, or woe be it that humans making the earth unlivable for *humans* is a temporary effect at best, and they treat you as if you were the extremist.
That is why I phrased my statement as I did. The extremists decry how CO2 content is going up, and demand that this "human interference" stop, by force of arms against individuals.
It is not their motivation I call into question, it is the extremism of their conviction that they must inflict their judgement on others, but oh no never let anyone else effect themselves.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Some species of genetically modified plants were left to see if they would take over the surrounding natural area in an experiment in the UK. What they found was that the genetically engineered plants were incapable of survival in the wild without farming assistance, they died out within one generation. Something in the engineering process hadn't prepared it for the riguors of competition. Nature knows best.
Its one damn thing before another. (Dick Bird 1999)
How can you say all that and still say the following:
[T]his is creating a change that causes a long term (and even permanent if we don't reduce emmisions) temperature increase.
The sin of pride, again. Human beings cannot have a "permanent" effect on Earth. We're an aberation, a short-term species. Anything we could do, including total nuclear war, would be cleaned up and erased in less time than it took horses to go from three toes to one.
I'm pretty sure that the people 14,000 years ago at the end of the last ice-age, as their ice-caps were melting, were terrified of the global warming going on. Just like you are.
And with just as much of an attachment to reality.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
They don't even have a particularly good sense of smell. They find their stuff visually.
l
And they can't even tell when they're raising the wrong species, why whould they know one of their chicks from another of their chicks?
http://www.peregrinefund.org/press/condchic.htm
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL