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How Vampire Bats Evolved To Live On Blood Alone
New research has discovered some of the genetic changes that allowed vampire bats to live on a diet of pure blood. One of the bats' most important evolutionary traits is the ability to manipulate an anticoagulant protein in their blood and saliva. In humans similar proteins protect against heart attack by breaking up blood clots and clearing vessels.
They just needed to pass the BAR exam.
My work here is dung.
Who care? What we all really want to know is how Batman evolved from human to hero. Are the tights the key?
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"They live on blood because that's how God designed them!"
Sarah Palin
Trolling is a art,
Fly, my Children! FLY! Bwaha ha ah ah ha ha ha ah ah ha!
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
Or just make all the women look like Kate Beckinsale. Being bitten on the neck is a small price to pay for my wife having that body.
How about they do something useful and give us immortality and the strength of 20 dudes and all the other cool abilities? Then I'll be impressed, oh yeah and none of the weaknesses.
Hell I honestly think I could live with the weaknesses if it meant immortality.
I mean seriously what do vampires have against them? An inability to interact with religious objects, an aversion to sunlight, no reflection, and they can't eat garlic?
I'd bet that 1 and 2 aren't an issue for most Slashdotters anyways, and most probably don't care about their own reflection either (heck usually when I see mine it's a glare on my screen so if I didn't show up then all the better). The garlic thing might be an issue, but I'm sure me and Papa John's could work something out.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Did you show your wife this comment?
The NY Times had an interesting story last week about creatures that dine on blood.
Apparently, most obligate hematophages tend to be very small- insects and such, because blood is not an ideal source of nutrition. In particular, blood has almost no dietary fat, so a large hematophage like a vampire bat, "must consume the equivalent of half their one-ounce body weight in blood every night or risk starving to death."
Also, apparently blood is about 95% water, and so to keep from gaining too much water weight, vampire bats "urinate freely as they feed." That's a detail that seems to be missing from most vampire movies.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
As if you go out in the sun much anyways.
"Or just make all the women look like Kate Beckinsale. Being bitten on the neck is a small price to pay for my wife having that body."
Yeah, but you also get made into her slave and enter into a life of servitude...oh, wait...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"That's a detail that seems to be missing from most vampire movies."
I'm sure Ann Rice covered watersports somewhere in her books.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
10. ???
11. Profit!!!
Mosquitos have stealth going for them, but I really don't understand how a bat is gonna feed on a mammal without getting beaten off. I mean, you can't really not notice a one-ounce hairy beast sucking on your neck and pissing on you at the same time. If a bat tried to feed on me, I'd pound it to a pulp.
(Oblig. Wikipedia reference.)
Granted, a moth costume is more difficult to make for Halloween.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
not to mention all that iron... geez, it must be a sad part of the day when they have to go #2
As a lawyer, I can say that there is dispute on whether law school attracts assholes, or produces them. I'd say it's a combination of both.
All kidding aside, unlike other grad schools which encourage teamwork, law school pits students against each other in many ways. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for advocates, but it does help explain why lawyers tend to be such dicks.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
No garlic? Count me out!
Wait, are you saying that's why I'm such a "hit" at parties?
Hell I honestly think I could live with the weaknesses if it meant immortality.
I mean seriously what do vampires have against them? An inability to interact with religious objects, an aversion to sunlight, no reflection, and they can't eat garlic?
I'd bet that 1 and 2 aren't an issue for most Slashdotters anyways, and most probably don't care about their own reflection either (heck usually when I see mine it's a glare on my screen so if I didn't show up then all the better). The garlic thing might be an issue, but I'm sure me and Papa John's could work something out.
"Just send over a delivery guy with marinara sauce, pepperoni and cheese on his neck please."