Black Death Discovered In Oregon

redletterdave writes "The Black Death, a strain of bubonic plague that destroyed nearly a third of Europe's entire population between 1347 and 1369, has been found in Oregon. Health officials in Portland have confirmed that a man contracted the plague after getting bitten by a cat. The unidentified man, who is currently in his 50s, had tried to pry a dead mouse from a stray cat's mouth on June 2 when the cat attacked him. Days later, fever and sickness drove the man to check himself into Oregon's St. Charles Medical Center, where he is currently in 'critical condition.'"

Comments

Darwin in action.

[Gordonjcp]

Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to try to get the dead mouse away from the cat in the first place?

Re:Darwin in action.

[TheRealMindChild]

It really wasn't a dead mouse. It was a bag of pot he hid under a bush so his wife wouldn't find it. You can't really tell that to the folks at the hospital.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Mannfred]

Frankly, a man in his 50s is less likely to produce new offspring so the accident is unlikely to be of tangible benefit to the gene pool.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anne Thwacks]

It might also be connected with the related news item:

"Growing Evidence of Football Causing Brain Damage"

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it could be a weakened mouse that has eaten rat poison, and then the cat dies if not treated with vitamin K to stop the internal hemorrhage.
I've lost several cats because of this issue.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Pi Is A Rational]

[citation needed]

Re:Darwin in action.

[zill]

Evolution isn't just about having babies you know. If that were the case, all men would have evolved condom breaking mechanisms already.

Re:Darwin in action.

[icebike]

Swoosh !

Re:Darwin in action.

[Pi Is A Rational]

Got opwned, pwnage, etc.. Trolls trolling trolls is becoming tough these days.

Re:Darwin in action.

[eqisow]

Yes, because condoms have totally been around for an evolutionarily significant period of time.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Baloroth]

The summary specifies it was a stray cat. Who the hell tries to pry open the mouth of a stray cat? You have no idea what kinds of bacteria, viruses, or other nasty infectious things are living in a stray cat's mouth.

Although we certainly know now.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Creepy]

I don't see condom breaking penises happening - the species continues to propagate and there is no stress factor forcing such a change with condoms at a cellular level (testicles say yay, we're used, babies formed without a condom or with a broken condom only know success and not about failures and unless brain knowledge factors into evolution, which I seriously doubt or all men would have evolved a penis at least 12 inches long and 2 inches thick that can continuously ejaculate by now and women would never have to fake an orgasm because they would always orgasm, cell knowledge is all it has to go off of). Same thing with certain female birth control like the diaphragm. Progesterone as birth control, on the other hand, I could see as a potential stress factor. Without a stress factor, there really is no reason for an evolutionary mutation.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Xenx]

I'm slightly dismayed to not find crude references to already doing so through superior virility.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

How insightful of you. I bet you knew that right out of your ass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_condoms (yes, five hundred years IS evolutionarily significant, although perhaps not enough so for us to all grow teeth on our penises)

Re:Darwin in action.

[EdIII]

That's just like your opinion, man.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the appropriate onomatopoeia is woosh. A swoosh is the symbol on Nike gear.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, ask Carl Sagan, inventor of the geosynchronous satellite, and lifelong pot smoker.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MrWeelson]

You probably mean Arthur C Clarke who many think 'invented' the geosynchronous satellite...or brought it into the public arena.

No idea if he smoked pot though.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Jane Q. Public]

"Frankly, a man in his 50s is less likely to produce new offspring so the accident is unlikely to be of tangible benefit to the gene pool."

No, you are conflating biology and sociology. Human males are generally fertile even in advanced age. It is females who become infertile with age.

Some years ago, a reporter for National Geographic, who had been visiting sites around the world known for their clusters of people of very advanced age (100+), made a point of describing how a great many of the older men "put the moves on her", as the saying goes, and also noted how many of them had rather young children.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Jane Q. Public]

"Growing Evidence of Football Causing Brain Damage"

Yes, watching too much football can definitely do damage. Trust me.

Re:Darwin in action.

[amiga3D]

ANY cat's mouth.

Re:Darwin in action.

[epilido]

The condom breaking mechanism is stupidity. If you don't know how to use the condom correctly then it breaks and you pass you genetic material

Smart persons know appropriate condom usage and do not pass on their lineage. Seems like evolutionary pressure as been applied.

Epi

Re:Darwin in action.

[Jane Q. Public]

"Who the hell tries to pry open the mouth of a stray cat?"

He was probably a do-gooder who was trying to save the cute little mousie.

Karma is a bitch.

Re:Darwin in action.

[The Archon V2.0]

Dunno, I've seen some abstinence only sex-ed that claims that's already happened.

Though they didn't call it "evolution". They hinted at really SMART ninja/MacGyver sperm

Re:Darwin in action.

[Prune]

500 years is not evolutionarily significant. Biologically, humans have remained almost unchanged from the early days of civilization 10,000 years ago--just ask any anthropologist.

Re:Darwin in action.

[nautsch]

500 years, eh? What is that? 20 generations? maybe a few more or less. Evolution is not directed, so even if somethings seems evolutionary benificial, it does not mean, that it will develop. There has to be alot of improbabble mutations happening for growing some kind of piercing mechanism on your penis. So in this case 500 years is definitely not evolutionary significant.

Read up on your evolutionary theory.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lanteran]

inventor of the geosynchronous satellite

Actually, that was Arthur Clarke.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

Perhaps you should try reading the second line of my post too. 500 years is evolutationarily significant. Saying otherwise is nonsense. No, that doesn't mean we'll grow penis spears in 500 years (but one can dream).

Re:Darwin in action.

[eqisow]

I have found a paper on evolutionary rates of change. It calculates an instrinsic rate of evolution of .1 standard deviations per generation. If we call a generation roughly 20 years" we're looking at 25 generations over 500 years. Unless you can provide evidence of a relatively strong selection pressure towards some penis change that makes condoms less effective, I'm going to go ahead and stand by my original claim.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

Yes, I'm sure all the papers showing otherwise in the last twenty years are nonsense. You're talking about skeletal/morphological changes which are a tiny, tiny subset of possible genetic changes.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

Jesus christ does no one read the past the first line of posts any more?!?!

Re:Darwin in action.

[anagama]

Or condom avoidance mechanisms such as: http://www.absolut.com/us

Also interesting with distilled spirits:

Consumption of distilled beverages rose dramatically in Europe in and after the mid 14th century, when distilled liquors were commonly used as remedies for the Black Death. Around 1400 it was discovered how to distill spirits from wheat, barley, and rye beers, a cheaper option than grapes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_beverage#History_of_distillation

So ... booze got cheaper and more widely available in the century before the introduction of condoms (if the 500 year history of condoms is correct). Plus it cured the plague!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Artifakt]

Seems like evolutionary pressure (h)as been applIed

          You would think so, but it hasn't. Reason it out a little further and I think you'll see why. One thing condoms are useful for is not having babies until you want to. Delaying reproduction isn't the same as not reproducing. Another thing condoms are useful for is avoiding diseases, some of which could make the user permanently infertile. In the long run, condom use could make some users more reproductively successful, not necessarily less. If you're betting there is significant evolutionary pressure, you're betting that there's a lot of people using a temporary method of birth control to permanently curtail reproduction instead of just to time it better, and that disease prevention doesn't offset avoiding reproduction in high risk situations. Neither of these is statistically supported.

            There's plenty of examples where having just a few offspring and investing lots of resources into raising them beats having lots of offspring who are mostly on their own - in fact the whole mammalian survival strategy is basically "fewer offspring, more care", and mammals as a whole have been a pretty successful class. Condoms are a mammalian sort of idea.

Re:Darwin in action.

[pjt33]

Actually the evidence all points in the opposite direction, but the researcher is a retired football player.

Re:Darwin in action.

[eqisow]

Oh, I'm sorry. I assumed the topic of discussion was evolutionary penile changes due to condom use since that was the topic of the comment I replied to. If we're just making broad statements about evolution then, yes, 500 years can be significant.

I'm not sure why you would have phrased that like you were calling me out though.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution isn't just about having babies you know. If that were the case, all men would have evolved condom breaking mechanisms already.

We did. It is called the Catholic Church and abstinence only education.

Re:Darwin in action.

[bky1701]

You mean Roman Catholicism?

Re:Darwin in action.

[gmanterry]

The condom breaking mechanism is stupidity. If you don't know how to use the condom correctly then it breaks and you pass you genetic material

Smart persons know appropriate condom usage and do not pass on their lineage. Seems like evolutionary pressure as been applied.

Epi

That's why God created bananas. So you could practice proper application of a condom. Just ask any American school kid. It's part of their curriculum.

Re:Darwin in action.

[b4dc0d3r]

If you are talking about the most recent 500 years, I would argue that advances in medicine and science make the latest 500 years far less significant than any previous period of 500 consecutive years. I would be convinced that the 500 year periods making up the "dark ages" were much more evolutionarily significant than the period in which condoms were in any manner common. According to your own link, if such knowledge and use existed prior to the 5th century AD the knowledge and practice was lost. The most critical times which might lend credibility to your argument, and the crucial usage was missing.

You replied to several comments already, but provided nothing other than "papers showing otherwise in the last twenty years." No one knows which papers you refer to, nor can anyone check if they have been redacted or superceded.

Finally, since condom use is mostly a choice, except when it is not available, I don't see it exerting much pressure at all, certainly not as much as whatever factors might be discussed in the uncited articles of yours.

Quite simply, you are protesting too much and adding little if any to the conversation. There is no evidence that an optional utility would exert any speciation change in the periods in which it may have been available, though not widely used. Feel free to post some sort of citation to the contrary, or just stop replying.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Prune]

[Citation needed]
The ONLY significant change that is measurable between generations is that of the immune system, which is by evolutionary design, as the immune system is in a constant arms race with pathogens and needs to match some of their speed of change.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Tarlus]

It's not just the offspring he could start producing, it's the offspring he may have already produced.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lysdestic]

Indeed, that is the symbol for Nike.

...which is Headquartered near Beaverton, Ore. Part of the Portland Metropolitan area.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Jane Q. Public]

"Karma ain't workin, or the glibertardians would hemorrhage out of the sole orifice they are speaking from - their arse...."

So... you stepped in here for the sole purpose of insulting me again, when all I did was make a silly joke to someone else and wasn't talking to you at all.

That makes you the biggest asshole I've encountered so far in all of my years on Slashdot. Wait... except for one other person, who did exactly the same thing. Once.

Do you know the definition of "troll"? Maybe you should look it up. And try to guess why people think it's a bad thing.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm... a condom breaking device is a skeletal/morphological change soo your point doesn't really matter even if it's true.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but every condom I wear is too small and thus breaks.

Re:Darwin in action.

[ClioCJS]

Because you don't want to find it in your bed when you wake up the next morning.

Re:Darwin in action.

[mrmeval]

Two decades before Clarke, George O. Smith had that idea. Clarke acknowledged this in the forward to the one edition of the the book "Venus Equilateral"

Re:Darwin in action.

[VanGarrett]

Evolution cannot provide useful features. It can only remove features that result in few or no viable children. Anything useful has to come from random (not to mention rare) genetic mutation, which in turn, creates a feature that is harmful more often than insignificant, and insignificant more often than useful. For men to evolve condom-breaking penises, a male would first have to be born with a mutation which caused it, and as well, he would have to be driven to mate prodigiously. As for the latter condition, I would expect a condom-breaking penis to be rather uncomfortable for the woman, and therefore, this is a mutation which is unlikely to spread quickly.

Re:Darwin in action.

[camperdave]

Why are people focussing on the cat? Did you ever stop to think that perhaps the MOUSE was the pet?

Re:Darwin in action.

[theshowmecanuck]

About 25 or 30 years ago in Toronto they had a "town forum" on one of the local super stations. The subject was about legalizing pot. Some stoner had the floor and when he got to the mic his speech went something like: "Ya heh heh heh.... Like I smoke pot you know... And like.... ... uhhh ... ... ... heh heh ... I fogot what I was gonna say... ..." then he turned around and sat down. The station this was on broadcast to all of southern Ontario, and transmitters close to the border meant a good chunk of the U.S. across Lakes Ontario and Erie. Potential audience of many millions (actual audience probably a few million since it was during the news hour... pre-internet days). A better spokesman for making weed illegal could not have been found. The panel were speechless for a minute.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lumpy]

Civil infraction 27-5 against county Code 54.2.1 Hiding your pot in a fake mouse is a mistreatment in this county.

$350.00 fine or 2 days in jail.

There is your citation, you can pay it at the county clerks office.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

(or vagina)

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lumpy]

Well i have proof that the general population is far stupider now than 500 years ago. But the rate of stupid started growing exponentially in 1992.

Today we have masses of drooling morons that cant even figure out how to add water to a radiator if their car was overheating, cant understand that it's bad to not look out the window of the car while driving, and has elected or supports a band of utterly evil people that want to roll back civil rights to the early 1950's.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lumpy]

BIG disagree.

Medical advances allow the Genetically defective to continue to survive and reproduce. Just 100 years ago this would not have happened.

Just wait to see how fucked up as a species will will be in 500 years.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Lumpy]

You spelled republican wrong.

Re:Darwin in action.

[TapeCutter]

Lactose tolerance is the standard example of recent human evolution.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

500 years is not evolutionarily significant. Biologically, humans have remained almost unchanged from the early days of civilization 10,000 years ago--just ask any anthropologist.

Obviously, a single generation is evolutionarily significant. Unless, of course, you do not believe in evolution.

Re:Darwin in action.

[icebike]

Ah, no, it is a general purpose word, used in print since at least 1865.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/swoosh
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swoosh
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/swoosh
http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/swoosh
http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/swoosh

Not one of those dictionaries mentions Nike.

Re:Darwin in action.

[jamesh]

Jesus christ

Can't we have an irrational flaming discussion about evolution without bringing him into it??

Re:Darwin in action.

[EdIII]

Heh :)

Alcohol and pot are like dish soap and concentrated dish soap. They can both get you clean, but the concentrated stuff works faster and more efficiently.

That's the problem with pot. No middle ground. A couple of tokes and you are in the kitchen shoving everything into the microwave and staring at in awe for the next few minutes as the Giver of Life itself. At least with beer you can nurse a few for an hour and still remain reasonably intelligent.

I'm sure that just about anybody there would have sounded like a Nobel prize candidate after a case of beer. Of course you are from Canada, so it might take a lot more beer.

P.S - That's the real reason why pot is illegal. It's cheap, effective, concentrated stupid... and that's not good for Capitalism.

Re:Darwin in action.

[jc42]

Except the appropriate onomatopoeia is woosh.

Depends on your dialect. My native dialect is one of the many that still preserve the "wh" sound (which has always actually been /hw/ phonetically, but the usual insane English spelling rules apply ;-). It's only "woosh" if you speak one of the many dialects that has dropped yet another kind of initial /h/, the one represented in the "wh" digraph.

I'm not aware of any dialects that converted /hw/ into /sw/. But maybe the writer speaks a dialect (idiolect?) that does that. Stranger things have happened in the English language.

Re:Darwin in action.

[RKBA]

Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to try to get the dead mouse away from the cat in the first place?

He was hungry.

Re:Darwin in action.

[jc42]

That's why God created bananas. So you could practice proper application of a condom. Just ask any American school kid. It's part of their curriculum.

And this is why American bananas are a sterile species that reproduces only asexually. All those condoms make banana sex unproductive, so they've been selected for a means of reproduction that is productive under the conditions imposed on them by their human predators.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

And let's also not forget--let's not forget, Edlll, that keeping wildlife, a non-amphibious rodent, for uh, domestic, you know, within the city - that isn't legal either.

Re:Darwin in action.

[EdIII]

Yeah... and well not everything is like Nam either.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shwuck off.

Re:Darwin in action.

[LandGator]

Well, Charlie was a neighborhood cat, who was well known to everyone on that street, and the sick man was in the habit of inviting Charlie in for dinner, but didn't care for the appetizer Charlie brought. The fever made Charlie atypically cranky, and Charlie chomped down... Three other folks from another household in that neighborhood are also receiving treatment, but don't have the blood-borne version, and they're doing OK. (I have neighborhood sources.) OBTW, no one has mentioned, this is in Prineville, in the High Desert of Crook County, Oregon, 2.5 hrs' drive ESE of Portland, where Facebook's data center is located and other data centers are in development.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Scarletdown]

It certainly made my sister's final months in her bone cancer battle much more bearable for her.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Scarletdown]

I don't know about you, but every condom I wear is too small and thus breaks.

Perhaps you need to switch from size XX-s to just X-s?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Cruciform]

The rate of stupid isn't growing. Your exposure to them has. Technology and urbanization have brought people together so that stupidity may be experienced in full 3D as nature intended.

Re:Darwin in action.

[hairyfeet]

I can't believe I'm even getting involved on this, but your comparison isn't correct. Just as one can have alcohol at anywhere from light beer to pga so too can pot be had with any strength from light buzz to "OMFG where are the cookies?" so it wouldn't be fair to say one is stronger than the other. i would argue that the very fact that it IS illegal is why you get super strength pot now, same as during prohibition you were more likely to get bathtub rotgut than you were a nice light wine. When things are illegal it simply makes more sense to sell the most concentrated you can because the laws treat mellow and strong pot equally and a customer can get more for less by buying stronger stuff.

I have a feeling once this dark and shameful chapter of our history is over and pot is legal you'll see that just like with alcohol you'll have so many choices in flavor, texture, and intoxication factor that just like with booze there will be something for everyone. Personally i like pot from the Ozarks myself, the rich soil gives it a nice peaty overtone with a lovely aroma, almost like being in a forest, quite lovely.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

intolerance

Re:Darwin in action.

[EdIII]

Personally i like pot from the Ozarks myself, the rich soil gives it a nice peaty overtone with a lovely aroma, almost like being in a forest, quite lovely.

LOL.

Ok. Personally, I have never experienced this "mellow" pot that you speak of. Only the super strength stuff. Even just a small puff and I was ready to go Ocean's 11 on the Keebler Elf factory.

I get your overall point though and I have a strange desire to visit the Ozarks.

Re:Darwin in action.

[ancienthart]

Only on Slashdot could a news article about the Black Death turn into an argument about the relative merits of legalising/punishing pot usage.

Re:Darwin in action.

[ganjadude]

right... or we could say that maybe if he didnt smoke the pot that he wouldnt have been as sucessful. plain and simple we dont know, andwe shouldnt assume that" the pot man it, it help him back man, think of all the stuff man, if he didnt just smoke the pot"

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's making a few unwarranted assumptions. For starters, the most common reactions to changing environmental pressures are migration and extinction. Evolution can do a whole lot, as evidenced by the fact that we're having this discussion, but maybe condom breaking penises just aren't accessible to us. Remember that evolution tends to be slow and gradual, and the intermediate stages have to be useful as well.
Then there's the assumption that if evolution will find a solution, it will find some specific one. But if you look at the wings of birds, bats and insects, it's clear that this isn't the case. Even more generally, some creatures solve the locomotion problem by walking, others by flying, yet others by swimming. And some just launch their seed pods. Maybe evolution will solve the problem by giving us a frightful rash when we wear a condom.
And last but not least, the assumption that condoms actually hinder procreation. People who use condoms might invest more heavily in the offspring they do spawn, and maybe their net fertility outweighs the parents reduced net fertility. That's just an example; there may be even more indirect effects.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

By the Flying Spaghetti Monster, NO!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Vagina

Re:Darwin in action.

[TapeCutter]

Both are valid, people who have the mutation are called lactose tolerant, people who don't are called lactose intolerant (their the one's with a 'problem' so their the ones you read about). However I was actually refering to the mutation itself which is called lactose tolerance because that is the condition it bestows apon it's owner, lactose intolerance is the pre-mutated condition that was once universal. Having said that, fully agree it doesn't 'look right'.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Sulphur]

It really wasn't a dead mouse. It was a bag of pot he hid under a bush so his wife wouldn't find it. You can't really tell that to the folks at the hospital.

The moral of the story is never mix pot and catnip.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

Yes, it is the "lamer curve" again.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

You mean the early days of THIS civilization. Humans have been smashed into the stone ages at least a couple of times. There have been signs of civilizations uncovered from under 30+ feet of earth in some areas. There are also many underwater cities yet to be examined or discovered.

Re:Darwin in action.

[hairyfeet]

Oh if you get a chance you really must go, and not just for the most delicious pot. you should really bring a camera and be ready to stop almost constantly because the vistas you will see are truly some of the most breathtaking i have ever seen, with huge valley scenes with incredible peaks and cliffs and flowing water everywhere, it is truly a wondrous view of nature that one simply must see with your own eyes. I swear you can simply pull on the side of the road in a large chunk of the Ozarks and the view is like standing on this great peak, with all this beautiful unspoiled wonder spread out before you, quite inspiring.

But I can assure you that its true that in places where there is a lot of fertile land and pot being grown you'll find as many flavors and textures as you do alcohol, everything from lightly mellow to harsh, from sweet to skunky, from tasty to almost medicinal in flavor. If I were to describe the typical pot from the Ozarks it would be peaty with a slight sweet overtone, with a very forest scent, kinda like a mix of pine and juniper, quite lovely. If one were to go to the swampier south AR the pot is more musky, nice tasting but with a definite skunk scent, while the northeast area close to Memphis favors pot that has a much sweeter taste and aroma, almost candy like.

In a way pot is a LOT like wine in that the kind of soil the plant is grown in and the conditions of the area does seem to cause differences in taste and texture not to mention buzz. I have a feeling most of the pot you've had has been either imported or been grown by mega-growers, their weed tends to be extra strong but not very much in the way of variety, kinda like the rotgut of old. And I can't believe that I'm sitting here actually judging flavors of various cultivars, but as a musician I've got to sample quite a few from different areas and there are some overall themes when it comes to pot grown in certain areas. Oh and FYI the worst pot I ever smoked was East Texas, it'll knock you on your ass but tastes like cheap cigarettes smell, a real ditchweed harsh nasty flavoring.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

No, we're talking about growing teeth on our penises!

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

From the Black Plague to penis fangs, god I love slashdot.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

or vagina?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Sulphur]

Only on Slashdot could a news article about the Black Death turn into an argument about the relative merits of legalising/punishing pot usage.

The thread's out of control. She's going to blow.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

I know, we got off the subject quickly. I was immediately going to make a comment like that, but I was distracted with the visual of a cute, fanged penis.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MaskedSlacker]

There's no way to tell whether our ancestors had "teeth" or other condom-breaking protrusions on their penises. They may or may not have, since boners don't fossilize as well as bones. Maybe we merely lost our vestigial cock-teeth. Or maybe this is where myths of vagina dentata come from--it was the women who had the condom-breaking apparatus.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

Reminds me of those brain teasers from my management classes.

Re:Darwin in action.

[datavirtue]

What the fuck does this have to do with Facebook!? Seriously, I'm trying to make the connection here.

Re:Darwin in action.

[ChrisMaple]

There are also many underwater cities yet to be ... discovered.

For example?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does stephen hawking fit into your theory?

Re:Darwin in action.

[jc42]

Shwuck off.

Hey, you speak Yiddish!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Golddess]

Personally, my thoughts were of a hobo fighting a stray cat for a meal of a mouse. >.>

Re:Darwin in action.

[netwarerip]

Wish I had points left to mod this up. I have been saying this for years.
While wearing glasses.
And taking allergy pills

Re:Darwin in action.

[mjwx]

Well i have proof that the general population is far stupider now than 500 years ago. But the rate of stupid started growing exponentially in 1992.

Today we have masses of drooling morons that cant even figure out how to add water to a radiator if their car was overheating, cant understand that it's bad to not look out the window of the car while driving, and has elected or supports a band of utterly evil people that want to roll back civil rights to the early 1950's.

Well you're meant to add coolant to radiators as they easily get to above 100 degrees C. In summer in Oz, the coolant in my radiator can start cold at 40+ Degrees C after being left in the sun. If you put water in a radiator you'll find the water boiling out after 5-10 mins of driving.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pineville the location of the plague victim is where facebook's northwestern data center is.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Mindcontrolled]

Can't be all-inclusive all of the time...

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, since when couldn't you tell that to the folks at the hospital? Especially in a state like Oregon, which has medical marijuana, as well as measures of decriminalization in place. Doctors != cops.

Re:Darwin in action.

[roc97007]

About 25 or 30 years ago in Toronto they had a "town forum" on one of the local super stations. The subject was about legalizing pot. Some stoner had the floor and when he got to the mic his speech went something like: "Ya heh heh heh.... Like I smoke pot you know... And like.... ... uhhh ... ... ... heh heh ... I fogot what I was gonna say... ..." then he turned around and sat down. The station this was on broadcast to all of southern Ontario, and transmitters close to the border meant a good chunk of the U.S. across Lakes Ontario and Erie. Potential audience of many millions (actual audience probably a few million since it was during the news hour... pre-internet days). A better spokesman for making weed illegal could not have been found. The panel were speechless for a minute.

Agreed, and when I hear something like this, I wonder if it wasn't intentional. It's a well known political tactic to find a subject to pretend to be on the other side in order to make a very bad case for the other side's position.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus (and his fan club) features in ALL irrational discussions. It's not just the ones about evolution.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Unipuma]

Actually, Arthur C. Clarke 'invented' the communication satellite, as in, he picked up on the idea that a geosynchronous satellite would be an ideal platform to bounce your radio waves off around the world. This was during the time he worked as a radar engineer in WW II.

Re:Darwin in action.

[amck]

All those condoms make banana sex unproductive, so they've been selected for a means of reproduction that is productive under the conditions imposed on them by their human predators.

All commercially-grown bananas (and the overwhelming majority worldwide) are clones from a single tree, so yes, those bananas are already sexually unproductive ...

Re:Darwin in action.

[Hognoxious]

But the rate of stupid started growing exponentially in 1992.

Happy 20th birthday!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Captain Obvious to the rescue!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Hognoxious]

This is a 50 year old man who got into a fight with a cat over a dead mouse.

We're not talking about Paul McCartney or Michael Douglas.

Re:Darwin in action.

[MisterMidi]

I'm curious, how exactly does brain damage cause football? And how does one grow evidence of it?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

A better spokesman for making weed illegal could not have been found. The panel were speechless for a minute.

Something similar happened in my town a couple years ago. What most people didn't know, but which I did personally point out to the Council, is that the "stoner" was in reality a DEA agent who also co-chaired a local organization bent on "the eradication of pot in our communities". He was full of shit, not pot.
This did not, however, make it into the paper, which was quite happy to report on the "potheads" looking like idiots in front of the City Council.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Boronx]

If you can survive and reproduce, you aren't genetically defective.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot even compare those two either......

Strong pot, is not from it being illegal, there have always been strains of high end weed for a long time, the only thing that has changed is the science behind understanding how plants grow, what they need the most of, fertilizer mixes, vitamins, a certain spectrum of light. One for the Veg state, and one for the flowering.

You look at the weed in depositories and it is very high end stuff, maybe even more so, then the stuff you get from you buddy, the one that can always some how get the best of the best.
The difference is in how wide spread high end pot is, compared to the 60's. You can ask people that have been around from that era, and have them compare today's high end weed with what was considered high end weed back then and they will say it is not much difference.

With alcohol back in the days of it being banned, there was no real science behind it they just made it for the sake of a quick buck they did not care what happened to the poor suckers that drank it. Some (few) cared about the taste and the proof but anyone jumped in to make it despite if they knew how to make it the right way. When they made it legal then the wanna b's got knocked off, and you got better tasting alcohol, and it was made with care.

Weed obviously is not the same, anyone can grow it, however the time and care spent to grow the plants or create hybrids is something that takes time. Few can grow mid level plants to there highest potential, even buy high end seeds and growing them to reach there full potential is something that not everyone can do.
People that grow them thinking because they are using high end strains they will get super stoned is going to miss understand that in order to get the most from that plant you have to do more then use the stereo type 420 Magazine idiot guides. Otherwise you are just going to end up with a expensive version of street level hydroponic bud.

Re:Darwin in action.

[dargaud]

Teeth or spines ?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the problem with pot. No middle ground. A couple of tokes and you are in the kitchen shoving everything into the microwave and staring at in awe for the next few minutes as the Giver of Life itself. At least with beer you can nurse a few for an hour and still remain reasonably intelligent.

You're talking beer, which rarely tops 8% by volume, as opposed to hard liquor, which is usually around 35% by volume to start out and most bars carry at least one bottle of 100 proof (50% by volume). Everclear sits at a whopping 98% by volume and can't legally be served 'straight up' in some places, but is often allowed as long as it's mixed. (jello shots, for example)

Now, if you sit down and slam a half dozen shots of Bacardi 151 (75% by volume, available in many establishments) in 5 minutes it's going to hit you pretty goddamn hard unless you're a hardened alcoholic. Just like if you sit down and smoke yourself a few grams of high-grade pot in 5 minutes you're going to get pretty damn stoned.
But there are two key differences:
1. The booze will kill you dead if you drink too much. The pot won't.
2. The booze will take a little while, sometimes up to 1/2 hour depending on the person and how much you've eaten, before it really hits you full-force. The pot is a lot quicker if smoked... but has generally about the same lag-time if eaten. Thus, most people who sit down and get obliterated on pot simply won't get up off the couch, while the guy slamming shots has enough time to stand up, pay his bill, get in his car, and make it about halfway home.

So to be perfectly blunt, (pun intended) as with most pot-related subjects, the items which are championed as disadvantages by the anti-pot crowd are in reality advantages over the more socially acceptable drug addictions like alcohol and prescription medications.

Re:Darwin in action.

[nautsch]

I clearly said "in this case". And i stand by that. 500 years may be significant to give some random development an edge in a species, but it will definitely/reasonably certain not cause something beneficial to develop. This might never happen, due to the nature of evolution. And 500 years for something to come into existence by coincidental mutation is very very very unlikely to an extend, that I would say impossible.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Teancum]

There are also many underwater cities yet to be ... discovered.

For example?

I think the GP is talking about the Alterans in this historical documentary including a discussion of this city located a few miles to the west of San Francisco.

Re:Darwin in action.

[flyneye]

That's because Nikes are a cult following limited to certain sport and ethnic cultures.
Van's are more representative of the evolution of the shoe,fitted to mans "pedestrian" needs and furtherance of the species.
Not to mention mans ergonomic need for a shoe with some actual arch support and soles that mimic the give of earth underfoot.
We are progressing toward a society where everyone will travel by hover-board just as soon as we can manage to shrink battery size and conquer the electro magnetic field of our planet. On the other hand I cite stadiums worldwide with ever shrinking attendance vs. the growing number of Youtube videos documenting the Darwinistic sorting out of less-than-able-to-survive members of the species. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtQCzkCBqU

Re:Darwin in action.

[Will.Woodhull]

Someone needs to read up on epigenetics, and then think about the implications this has for their model of genetic inheritance. Especially for a species that utilizes cultural inheritance along with genetic inheritance.

Re:Darwin in action.

[drinkypoo]

Personally, I have never experienced this "mellow" pot that you speak of. Only the super strength stuff. Even just a small puff and I was ready to go Ocean's 11 on the Keebler Elf factory.

And one drink of alcohol turns my dad into a raging, violent asshole. Does that mean we should try to ban alcohol again? Think carefully before you answer...

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prineville is also Central Oregon's home for jokes like:

"How do we know the toothbrush was invented in Prineville?"
"Because if it was invented anywhere else, it would be called the TEETHbrush."

(Disclaimer: I live in Bend.)

Re:Darwin in action.

[drinkypoo]

Radiator caps raise the boiling point. Antifreeze lowers the freezing point and reduces corrosion. Pure water has a far superior ability to transfer heat than antifreeze, which is why we only put up to 50% antifreeze into our coolant. There is a product called water wetter commonly used in racing with nothing but water which reduces corrosion but does not reduce the freezing point, and when winter comes the coolant is changed — at that point, the additional cooling ability of water vs. water+antifreeze is unnecessary. There's also alternative coolants like Evans NPG which are much more expensive but which have much higher boiling points (and even lower freezing points) which actually improve the engine's ability to handle heat since when water boils inside your engine the thermal conductivity goes way, way down.

Sounds to me like you need to upgrade your cooling system, perhaps with a bigger radiator and more fan capacity, or something like Evans NPG (Never used it, no relation, could be shit but a lot of people seem smug about it.) If you're driving in conditions for which a vehicle wasn't really designed (and many vehicles are just poorly designed to begin with) then you can't expect it to behave without some upgrades. That, or there's something wrong with your vehicle.

Re:Darwin in action.

[budgenator]

Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to try to get the dead mouse away from the cat in the first place?

Probably to keep the cat from bringing it into the house, Cats like to bring trophies home. Even worse sometimes they bring home toys, mice 3/4 dead, when they get tired of swatting them around, they forget them, soon they become mice that are 3/4 alive.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook was the first to go down... after that, no one could see it coming, and all hell broke loose. We were so lost...

Re:Darwin in action.

[couchslug]

Some people are totally clueless about animals. Decades of being raised in a "Bamby-ist" environment produces people who think Nature is a Disney cartoon. Have some nice plague for being stupid.

The best way to deal with stray dogs and cats has always been "farm rules". Trap or shoot them then properly dispose of the corpse. If critters are free to kill each other, we should be free to kill them. I am.

I keep chickens so any stray without a collar on my property gets shot, which is only a couple over many years.

BTW we rescue and relocate non-poisonous snakes when they turn up in the coop. They are valuable for rat and mouse control. People fear the wrong things. Snakes, generally speaking, are benign. (Know the difference BEFORE you handle them!) Mammals carry all sorts of nasty stuff and may be rabid.

Re:Darwin in action.

[angel'o'sphere]

First of all: 500 years *is* irrelevant.
Second: evolution means you have to have a mutation, some mutation that allows you to pierce condoms for instance. As long as such a mutation is not happening time is completely irrelevant.
And finally you need to have a selection pressure, that means men with that mutation must breed more than other men (I fail how that should work as other men freely breed by not using a condom at all) *or* other men need to die more early than the one with the mutation.

Adaption (in the sense of evolution) means: some mutant is fitting better to the situation at hand than the original "normal" species. There is however there is no: "wow the situation is awful, we need to mutate, adapt and breed better/faster effect" involved.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Provocateur]

I would however wager that Arthur knew someone who knew someone who smoked pot.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

When things are illegal it simply makes more sense to sell the most concentrated you can because the laws treat mellow and strong pot equally and a customer can get more for less by buying stronger stuff.

Huh? Is that so in the US? In Germany, your charge will depend on the amount of actual THC in your pot. I thought the argument for high-potential stuff was a) transport (you'll need less space) and b) competition. The home-growers seem to be very active in optimizing their strains.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Gordonjcp]

I'm fortunate in that whenever my cat catches mice, she just gives it a couple of good hard whacks and eats it. None of this mummy cat try-to-show-the-kittens-how-to-hunt thing, just *thud* *munch munch munch*.

Re:Darwin in action.

[sapgau]

They are called "interesting facts"

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know whether to laugh at a funny joke, or be very scared while taking you seriously because this appeared near a central point in a billion dollar corporation....the last thing we need is Facebook starting a bio-weapons program.

Re:Darwin in action.

[EdIII]

I think I have been misunderstood.

My point was that both pot and beer can make somebody pretty stupid. It usually does not take as much pot though.

Neither should banned.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the U.S. Government hade decided to make both cigarettes and weed illegal, nobody would have stopped smoking cigarettes.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wondered the same thing. A dead mouse from a STRAY cat's mouth. no less. Yes, natural selection is alive and well!

Re:Darwin in action.

[Jane Q. Public]

Haha! Good point.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Gordonjcp]

Well yeah, exactly. I mean, I have a lovely wee cat but I'm under no illusions about how nature works. Of all our domesticated animals, cats are probably the closest to wild. For a cat, "domesticated" means "turn up at mealtimes and purr and look cute, and pee outside, and things become very easy".

Even if I was quick enough to get to it, I don't think I'd want to try to get a mouse away from my cat. I've got enough scratches and injuries, and my kevlar gloves are pretty knackered as it is.

Re:Darwin in action.

[drinkypoo]

My point was that both pot and beer can make somebody pretty stupid. It usually does not take as much pot though.

Well, I don't know about that, I think my comment was equally about the idea that things affect people differently.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Define genetically defective please. I would say that medical advances allow new variants of genes that may be better suited for our modern world.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Darby]

Phew, and now we're back on Star Trek. Thread saved.

Re:Darwin in action.

[jonadab]

The important difference between marijuana and alcohol isn't potency or side effects, but practical controllability.

A random third grader of mediocre intelligence is exceptionally unlikely to accidentally discover how to make his own marijuana using nothing but common food and a piece of Tupperware. Producing it in any substantial quantity at all either has to be done outdoors in plain sight where it can be spotted from airplanes, or else it requires special equipment and draws an unusual amount of power. Either way, people who grow it in any developed area, in any quantity suitable for distribution, invariably get caught. That makes it effectively an import, which makes it theoretically controllable (not absolutely, but to a great extent).

Attempting to prevent people from getting alcohol, on the other hand, is like attempting to prevent teenagers from making rude comments. You can make basic alcohol (beer, wine, etc) in a six-foot-square shed using nothing but food and some containers. Add basic household kitchen equipment and you can make exceptionally strong distilled liquors. The only people who were sober during prohibition were sober before and after prohibition too (unless they weren't around yet when prohibition started and/or had died before it ended). A law against alcohol is like a law against being a jerk -- possibly well intentioned, but totally unenforceable. That doesn't really apply to marijuana -- certainly not to anything like the same extent.

No, if you want to argue that marijuana should be legal because something else that's at least as bad is legal, alcohol is the wrong substance to compare against.

Tobacco would be a better comparison. The only reason tobacco is legal is because it always has been. If it were a new product, the FDA would make it go away so fast you'd never even know it existed (unless you're in the habit of reading obscure research journals, and maybe not even then). I have doubts it could even make it into clinical trials, and if it did the effects it has on the heart and nervous system would kill it before the conclusion of phase I.

Nonetheless, tobacco is theoretically not significantly harder to control than marijuana, substantially more addictive, and WAY too medically harmful to ever be approved for prescription use under the current standards[1] even if it weren't addictive. Yet, it remains legal. If you want to compare marijuana against a legal drug, in order to argue that it should be legal, tobacco is your best option.

---
[1] Technically, something with side effects like tobacco has could be approved, if it were an effective treatment, for extremely intractable and unpleasant targets, like ALS or forms of metastatic cancer for which no good chemotherapy exists. But the drugs we're talking about aren't useful for treating those kinds of conditions.

Re:Darwin in action.

[LordLimecat]

Well i have proof that the general population is far stupider now than 500 years ago.

Do tell. All you posted was anecdotal generalizations, which are pretty worthless as proof goes.

Sounds more like "grass is greener" syndrome to me.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you need to read "the blind watchmaker", Evolution, that is natural selection does not have an end in mind when a change is introduced, more like changes happen at random and either stick around because they confer a survival advantage or they dont. It is that simple, nothing mystical or anything. Common mistake. Carry on..

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but if they were to legalize pot in this country, we'd be completely overrun with stoners.

Then, every industrial resource of any value would quickly be taken over by sociopathic fascists, because the stoners wouldn't fight back. The fascists would prop up some fake religious authority to take charge of our supposed morality. And then they'd promptly make pot illegal, construct a prison-military-industrial-complex, and enslave the stoners in some horrid kafkaesque "drug war". . .

So you see, that's why we can't allow pot to become illegal.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

IMNSHO; latex allergies are an evolutionary response against condoms. I have 3 kids (and a vasectomy) to prove it. One day in the far future, my descendents will likely evolve a mechanism to circumvent vasectomies. (most likely, some form of "lack of common-sense").

Re:Darwin in action.

[CAIMLAS]

would argue that the very fact that it IS illegal is why you get super strength pot now, same as during prohibition you were more likely to get bathtub rotgut than you were a nice light wine. When things are illegal it simply makes more sense to sell the most concentrated you can because the laws treat mellow and strong pot equally and a customer can get more for less by buying stronger stuff.

The only thing prohibition really does is change the quality of what's available, not so much the strength. There's 180 proof alcohol available today, and people buy it still. They mostly don't, because 180 proof can't be consumed straight, and if it could be, it wouldn't be pleasant in the least bit. There is, however, a good market for stuff in the 'non-distilled' range, just as there was back then. The reason people buy the non-distilled, 'weak' stuff is due to availability and convenience, primarily. If the quality of the 'low refined' stuff was roughly the same today as the 'highly refined' stuff, you can bet that people would be going for the higher refined goods. However, with alcohol there's the case that the stuff in the 10-20% range is typically "very good" and preferred by most: more flavor, more variety, and not distilled.

There are, of course, those of us who prefer drinking hard liquor straight. That is not the majority, however.

Look, I smoke cigarettes and cigars. I like them - both the feeling they give me and the oral act of smoking them. In particular, I like good tobacco. If tobacco was illegal tomorrow, I'd be pissed off, because it would still be available but much more expensive. A "dime bag" of tobacco would piss me off, because I know it probably wouldn't even be good leaf and would be exhorbinant. I wouldn't so much be purchasing the 'high potency' stuff because it's better, but simply because the low potency stuff isn't even worth bothering with (for one reason or another).

For the record, I go with an earlier poster in saying that pot smokers make the best arguement through their continued existence and embarassing behavior as to why pot should remain illegal. Even meth users seem to adapt better after long-term use to functioning within society than early-life pot smokers, from what I've seen. Why? Because once they've stopped geeking, they actually try to lead a successful life. They may relapse, and they may have a hard time of it, but they're trying. A modicum of effort is something most potheads lack, even after they've stopped. It does something to their brains which seems to short-circuit all the effort behind what's required to make their aspirations actually work. To compare, drunks usually have to hit a very low point before they're functioning as poorly as a pothead does on a daily basis.

Case in point: I believe "lacking the essential motivation to take responsibility for one's self and improve one's own situation" can be fairly well summed up by the behaviors of the indigenous people where hashish consumption is a common, almost universal pasttime.

I have a feeling once this dark and shameful chapter of our history is over and pot is legal you'll see that just like with alcohol you'll have so many choices in flavor, texture, and intoxication factor that just like with booze there will be something for everyone

That may be true, but my understanding is that pot already "comes" in many, many different varities and potencies. Some people don't like the 'high' they get from pot, however - regardless the strain. It isn't for everyone.

Re:Darwin in action.

[CAIMLAS]

Who? The people who have been indoctrinated by the farce of "animals are just people, too". It reduces their humanity while at the same time elevating their perception of vermin like rats and mice. Net result: absolutely no discernment.

This is what happens when you see more animals on a daily basis in pet food commercials than you have real animals in a lifetime (amongst other similar limited-life-experience perception inducers). Things like spouting out about the horrible evil of the US Government jackboot cleptogratic thuggery, while completely (and willfully) ignorant of how most of the rest of the world operates. (Sure, it ain't pretty, but it could be, and probably will be, a whole lot worse. Histronics only makes people ignore you and the case you need to present.)

Re:Darwin in action.

[BeanThere]

In 500 years time, genetic re-engineering will have long since become mainstream ... all those flaws will be bio-engineered out and our offspring will be super-strong and highly intelligent ... except for a small sub-species that thought it was sacrilegious to use such technology.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

a 50 year old man who got into a fight with a cat over a dead mouse...and LOST the fight.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when you are looking.
  Your cat has figured you out pretty well.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

See, there's the problem right there: If we legalize pot, the terroir-ists will win.

Re:Darwin in action.

[mjwx]

Sounds to me like you need to upgrade your cooling system, perhaps with a bigger radiator and more fan capacity

I understand what you mean but I think you've misunderstood me, my radiator performs well when the engine is running but when the engine isn't running (the car is parked in the sun whilst I'm at work) there's no cooling. Where I live it gets above 40 degrees C in the summer, leave your car in the sun for 8 hours and the insides get the same.

In that kind of heat you learn to use things like steering wheel covers and put a sock over the gear-stick. I learned that one the hard way early on as I had a chrome plated gear-stick. I'm sure people who live in places that freeze for a few months have their own tricks.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Significant to disperse an existing gene among a certain amount of the population in the face of strong evolutionary pressure.

Probably not long enough for there to be a high probability of a chance condom-breaking gene appearing in the first place.

And even if that gene had already existed, and given that condom use don't entirely proclude procreation, nor is it the only method of birth control available (even 500 years ago), nor has sperm-fertilizing-egg been the primary obstacle to propagation of one's genes over the past 500 years (disease, starvation, and war having prevented far more people from passing on their genes than infertility or birth control up until the late 20th-C in the "developed world", and still doing so in undeveloped areas), the evolutionary pressures aren't nearly sufficient to make that gene prevalent within such a narrow window.

Re:Darwin in action.

[kaatochacha]

I don't think it's intentional. I attended a legalize rally at UCLA sometime in the early 90s. Some intelligent professorial guy stood up, gave an impassioned speech for legalization, rambled on about hemp and uses for it, how it would save the world. He was met with silence. The next "speaker" was a dreadlocked fellow, stood up and said "I like Pot cuz i can Smooooooke it!", to the howls of appreciation from the audience.

Re:Darwin in action.

[roc97007]

I don't think it's intentional. I attended a legalize rally at UCLA sometime in the early 90s. Some intelligent professorial guy stood up, gave an impassioned speech for legalization, rambled on about hemp and uses for it, how it would save the world. He was met with silence. The next "speaker" was a dreadlocked fellow, stood up and said "I like Pot cuz i can Smooooooke it!", to the howls of appreciation from the audience.

Ok, I may have chosen a bad example... but nevertheless, in general, when someone makes a case for a position that absolutely destroys that position, it doesn't hurt to look into ulterior motives. Like, are the dreadlocks a wig? :-)

Re:Darwin in action.

[kaatochacha]

The knowledge did exist,and we know about it!
"In days of old, when men were bold, and rubbers weren't invented....."

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

He was obviously very hungry.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh if you get a chance you really must go, and not just for the most delicious pot. you should really bring a camera and be ready to stop almost constantly because the vistas you will see are truly some of the most breathtaking i have ever seen, with huge valley scenes with incredible peaks and cliffs and flowing water everywhere, it is truly a wondrous view of nature that one simply must see with your own eyes. I swear you can simply pull on the side of the road in a large chunk of the Ozarks and the view is like standing on this great peak, with all this beautiful unspoiled wonder spread out before you, quite inspiring.

But I can assure you that its true that in places where there is a lot of fertile land and pot being grown you'll find as many flavors and textures as you do alcohol, everything from lightly mellow to harsh, from sweet to skunky, from tasty to almost medicinal in flavor. If I were to describe the typical pot from the Ozarks it would be peaty with a slight sweet overtone, with a very forest scent, kinda like a mix of pine and juniper, quite lovely. If one were to go to the swampier south AR the pot is more musky, nice tasting but with a definite skunk scent, while the northeast area close to Memphis favors pot that has a much sweeter taste and aroma, almost candy like.

In a way pot is a LOT like wine in that the kind of soil the plant is grown in and the conditions of the area does seem to cause differences in taste and texture not to mention buzz. I have a feeling most of the pot you've had has been either imported or been grown by mega-growers, their weed tends to be extra strong but not very much in the way of variety, kinda like the rotgut of old. And I can't believe that I'm sitting here actually judging flavors of various cultivars, but as a musician I've got to sample quite a few from different areas and there are some overall themes when it comes to pot grown in certain areas. Oh and FYI the worst pot I ever smoked was East Texas, it'll knock you on your ass but tastes like cheap cigarettes smell, a real ditchweed harsh nasty flavoring.

Yes, but will I get to see a double rainbow?

Re:Darwin in action.

[Gravitron 5000]

C-C-C-Condom Breaker!

Re:Darwin in action.

[yurtinus]

People are just animals, too.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Prune]

Who cares.

Re:Darwin in action.

[Hognoxious]

my radiator performs well when the engine is running but when the engine isn't running (the car is parked in the sun whilst I'm at work) there's no cooling. Where I live it gets above 40 degrees C in the summer, leave your car in the sun for 8 hours and the insides get the same.

You appear to be confusing the cooling system for the engine with aircon/climate control.

Do you actually know anything about cars?

Re:Darwin in action.

[mjwx]

You appear to be confusing the cooling system for the engine with aircon/climate control.

No, I know what I'm on about, it appears you are confusing the cooling system for the aircon?

I'm mentioned the radiator (if your cooling system fails, 9 times out of 10 its the radiator thats the problem), you know the one attached to the engine by 2 hoses. Those hoses contain a coolant fluid that is not in motion whilst the engine is switched off, it's this coolant fluid that allows the engine to bleed heat via a radiator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiator

So not only is it obnoxiously clear you don't know anything about cars, it's painfully obvious you don't even read posts because I have no idea how you got "aircon" from "radiator".

Re:Darwin in action.

[benhattman]

Ye Gads I hate seeing this argument.

What do you even think genetically defective even means? Here's a hint, it's not what you think it means. Sure, this might mean that more people are born with asthma and survive to reproduce. But, just because asthma is generally maladaptive, doesn't make it a bad evolutionary route to traverse. Perhaps, there is a protein that is required for people to evolve better cancer fighting, and the most direct evolutionary path is one that includes asthma.

What's really happening isn't Idiocracy so much as the total gene pool is given an opportunity to widen. In the short term, we have a lot of people with poor vision, in the long term, who knows!

Re:Darwin in action.

[benhattman]

Duh. Facebook IPOed. Literally nothing else matters to society anymore.

Though, GP could have jumped to the point and just said "Facebook, facebook, face book. Facebook" and left out the stuff about the cat. Who cares about a feline?

Re:Darwin in action.

[ancienthart]

Insightful??? Come on guys, I was clearly going for Humour. :D

2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

2012 strikes again.... Anyone else notice that alot of items such as this one are happening again?

Re:2012 strikes again

[isopropanol]

No, must be confirmation bias on your part.

Black Plague is rare, but still happens you just usually don't hear about it because it's treatable with antibiotics and preventable by controlling rodent populations - neither antibiotic treatment nor effective prevention were known in europe during the middle ages.

Re:2012 strikes again

[AikonMGB]

Wrong, it's a new zombie strain, carried by rodents and cats from Japan; I suspect it is entirely distinct from the zombie strain seen in Florida, originating in Cuba.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

A professor once told us, "It's around, and yes, occasionally kills someone. You just see, 'person died of severe bacterial infection'."

Re:2012 strikes again

[f3rret]

Yeah plague isn't really uncommon, there are still areas of Russia and Africa and other countries [citation needed] where plague is still a problem, mostly for livestock.

It wont really turn into the black death again, since we now have stuff like proper hygiene and antibiotics. Of course it could have been one of those super plagues the Soviets were designing that somehow got out, if that was the case commence you panicking now.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

meh oregon is a weird place you should see eugene

Re:2012 strikes again

[ArcherB]

Wrong, it's a new zombie strain, carried by rodents and cats from Japan; I suspect it is entirely distinct from the zombie strain seen in Florida, originating in Cuba.

You may be on to something:

Portland police shorten hours at Laurelhurst Park after reports of group of teen boys attacking others

Re:2012 strikes again

[mysidia]

neither antibiotic treatment nor effective prevention were known in europe during the middle ages.

Neither were there pervasive antibiotic resistant bacteria. Today it is "treatable with antibiotics"; but we cannot rely on there not being new strains that are resistant to antibiotics.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

killing alll the old ladies cats didnt help either

Re:2012 strikes again

[Kidipede]

One big cause of plagues in the Middle Ages was therefore situations that caused huge increases in the rodent population. This happened whenever there were food shortages, because people would stop being able to spare food to feed dogs and cats. When you stop feeding your dog, pretty soon you have to kill it (and then you may as well eat it). Without dogs and cats around, the rat population would take off. That's why in famines, as soon as people get done eating dogs and cats they start to eat rats. But of course the combination of lots of rats with underfed, weakened people means that plague can kill a lot of people. Indeed, the worse food security you had in your town, the more people tended to die of plague.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Caledfwlch]

Actually they did have rodent population control in those days, but it's effectiveness was severely curtailed as they associated cats with witchcraft and so went around killing them. An enlightening glimpse of how perpetuating a climate of fear with no sound basis can backfire!

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot.

Re:2012 strikes again

[dpilot]

That may happen, but antibiotic resistance usually happens because of overprescription, and people not following directions. Since there aren't many cases of Plague, pretty much any time it does pop up, those people are under careful care, so if there is any antibiotic resistance to it, it's probably because of "environmental antibiotics" - pets under treatment peeing excess, same for farm animals, leaching landfills, etc.

Re:2012 strikes again

[morcego]

No, must be confirmation bias on your part.

Black Plague is rare, but still happens you just usually don't hear about it because it's treatable with antibiotics and preventable by controlling rodent populations - neither antibiotic treatment nor effective prevention were known in europe during the middle ages.

I'm not sure you are entirely correct. The Black Plague is a particular stain of bubonic disease, or at least a group of stains. Although the bubonic disease is still around (and easily treatable), it is not the same stain. One would expect this news is regarding a different stain than was we "usually" see these days. Otherwise, why would be it news worthy ?

Re:2012 strikes again

[rve]

That may happen, but antibiotic resistance usually happens because of overprescription, and people not following directions. Since there aren't many cases of Plague, pretty much any time it does pop up, those people are under careful care, so if there is any antibiotic resistance to it, it's probably because of "environmental antibiotics" - pets under treatment peeing excess, same for farm animals, leaching landfills, etc.

Antibiotic resistance usually happens because of the widespread use of sub therapeutic doses of antibiotics as a 'growth enhancer' in animal feed, and the ability of bacteria to exchange genes, even between different species of bacteria. A fairly recent example of this behavior is the EHEC strain, a strain of previously harmles e.coli bacteria that seems to have absorbed the gene for producing a deadly toxin from the dysentery bug.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Antibiotic resistance usually happens because of the widespread use of sub therapeutic doses of antibiotics as a 'growth enhancer' in animal feed,

False. That happens occasionally, but the vast majority of antibiotic resistance is because bacteria that cause human diseases are really, really good at developing resistance to antibiotics. Pathogens that infect people are rarely 100% killed by treatment, the survivors are resistant.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie and South Park references are no longer tolerated here, I see.

Re:2012 strikes again

[bitingduck]

Black Plague is rare, but still happens you just usually don't hear about it because it's treatable with antibiotics and preventable by controlling rodent populations

I live on the edge of a national forest at the "urban/forest interface". Every once in a while there will be a report of Y. Pestis (aka "The Plague") in squirrels or something in the park nearby (it's a nature center that leads into the forest). I don't recall any cases where it was transmitted to people. Even if it were relatively common, there are far more dangerous things in the forest, even right here at the developed edge. Most Saturdays in the summer seem to bring a lot of helicopter traffic over the house, as the sheriffs fly back and forth plucking people off of a dangerous climb that leads to the second of many small waterfalls. A couple people died there last year, and already this month I think there have been two major falls of ~150+ feet. Both survived, but with pretty serious injuries. Plague is a lot easier to deal with.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Will.Woodhull]

the ability of bacteria to exchange genes, even between different species of bacteria.

This is a good time to remind everyone that the whole concept of different species is an intellectual model that we have found to be convenient in simplifying reality enough that we can understand it, sort of. We might all be in agreement about where the lines are between different species, but that does not impose any limitations on the reality Out There: it might be this way, or it might not.

Most of the time the taxonomy of species, genus, phylum, etc is a good enough model to be useful. But when it comes to things that can affect inheritance of traits, it is important to remember that what we have is just a model, and is certainly wrong at some of its edges. With activities like prophylactic antibiotics and genetic engineering of food crops the species model just does not work. A more conservative, and saner, way of looking at antibiotics in cattle feed and GM corn is that we are monkeying with the genetics of an entire ecosystem, not just the target "species".

At this level the concept of "species" is just wrong. In fact it is worse than wrong, it is entirely inappropriate.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Will.Woodhull]

I cannot offer any citations since the research I did on plague was back in the day before Internet and if I kept the notes I have lost track of where they might be. But as I recall there was strong evidence that bubonic plague and pneumonic plague were the same bacterium; that the only difference was in the mode of transmission. If bubonic plague got to the lungs, y. pestis was dispersed in aerosols as the victim coughed, and inhalation of the bacterium would assure a lung infection. This mode of transmission can be very deadly, with onset of symptoms, including cough, in hours and death within one or two days.

I live in Oregon, where we have a documented case of plague every couple of years. At the time I read up about plague I was studying to be a Registered Nurse, and would occasionally see a doctor's order for a blood test to rule out plague.

Re:2012 strikes again

[mysidia]

False. That happens occasionally, but the vast majority of antibiotic resistance is because bacteria that cause human diseases are really, really good at developing resistance to antibiotics.

It only has to happen once for every useful antibiotic effective against that kind of bacteria.

For antibiotics to guarantee no new future plague caused by a kind of bacteria, they have to work every time.

Or new kinds of antibiotics have to be developed at a rate no slower than the development of new resistance.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Abreu]

Search YouTube for "Juan de los Muertos" for Cuban zombie goodness

Re:2012 strikes again

[primenerd]

How exactly does the presence of sublethal levels of antibiotics in the environment lead to selective pressure on E. coli to take up a shiga-toxin gene? Current research I have seen indicates the toxin provides an advantage in persistent carriage in livestock and has nothing to do with surviving antibiotics in animal feeds.
I strongly agree with the sentiment that antibiotics in agriculture are severely overused, but I do not think this is a valid example.

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the alternative. The Pied Pipers Co-op do have pretty severe penalties for non-compliance with contract conditions though.

Re:2012 strikes again

[CAIMLAS]

The other half of controlling Black Plague is nutrition. A big part of why it thrived was due to inadequate high-nutrition foods, resulting in diminished immune systems. (That's a part of your 'prevention' picture.)

Re:2012 strikes again

[Anonymous Coward]

It was obviously meant as an example of bacteria swapping genes between species.

stupid

[donaggie03]

Maybe you shouldn't be screwing around with wild animals and their food . . .

Re:stupid

[Grishnakh]

The article says it was a cat. Cats, by definition, are not wild. Some of them may be feral, but they are never wild.

Re:stupid

[donaggie03]

Oh we want to play the definition game, huh? Well then, by definition (Dictionary.com), feral means

1) existing in a natural state, as animals or plants; not domesticated or cultivated; wild.

2) having reverted to the wild state, as from domestication.

3) of or characteristic of wild animals; ferocious; brutal.

All three definitions equate feral with being wild, so what was the point of your pedantic nitpicking again?

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

A feral cat is a descendant of a domesticated cat that has returned to the wild.

Have you ever seen a domesticated tiger? What about a domesticated fox?

The difference between is mostly just a few generations of human attention. There are some more gradual changes (and numerous abrupt physical changes) at work in dogs, which creates the gap between 'feral' and 'wild' for them, but the most important alterations are purely in how the animal has been raised. Barn cats have been selected for their ability to survive and hunt, after all, for most of history. Not very pet-like traits.

Re:stupid

[shadesOG]

The article says it was a cat. Cats, by definition, are not wild. Some of them may be feral, but they are never wild.

Apparently you don't live in Oregon. We have wild cats. We call them cougars or mountain lions and they can fuck your day up. They have been getting a bad rep for pouncing on mountain bikers. http://www.dfw.state.or.us/wildlife/cougar/

Re:stupid

[Grishnakh]

The other important difference is geography. Yes, there are wild cats that are pretty close to our domesticated cats, but they don't live in Oregon, they live in Europe; in Oregon, or Australia, they'd be considered an "invasive species".

Barn cats aren't wild either, because barns aren't natural habitats in the least. Cows aren't "wild animals" either, but they don't live inside with people either, they live on farms (which frequently also have barns, though cows don't normally live there, but horses do, and again aren't wild).

Re:stupid

[Anarchduke]

he's bored?

Re:stupid

[Grishnakh]

Usually, when someone says "cat", they mean felis domesticus, not a mountain lion (same thing as cougar). If they meant a mountain lion, they would have specified that.

Besides, what kind of moron would try to get a dead mouse (or anything for that matter) away from a mountain lion? Obviously, this case was about a housecat.

Finally, I live in Arizona. We have mountain lions here too, though not generally in the city. Mountain lions live all over the western US, they're not unique to Oregon. I think they had some problems with them pouncing on bicyclists in southern California too a while back.

Re:stupid

[maharvey]

Also lynx and bobcats, which are definitely wild.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

I don't think geography is that important. An invasive species would continue acting like it used to if it were transported home, after all.

The trick with barn cats is that our relationship with them isn't nearly as exploitative as it is with, say, cows. For thousands of years, humans' relationship to cats was nothing more than "I will feed and shelter you just for existing (and eating mice), as long as you remain in the vicinity of my home." We never really asked them to change their instincts, and we barely control their reproduction; we just plug in to their minds as some kind of vaguely-defined maternal figure, and they're saved the trouble of finding somewhere new to hide during the day. Stray cats are pretty much completely unmodified, and even have all of the natural territorial habits found in the sand cat.

Have you ever seen a fancier's pedigree cat, like a Japanese bobtail? They're a perfect example of the difference between the average feline and the results of the pet typical domestication process. They're much more sociable, and essentially incapable of surviving as a feral species. In fact I would argue that an animal's ability to revert to feral behaviour in only a generation or two pretty much defines whether or not it's truly domesticated, because otherwise it's (probably) just a transient behavioural change. By this definition, humans may not be fully domesticated either.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

And goats, which are not cats at all.

Re:stupid

[PNutts]

"Girls Gone Feral" doesn't have the same ring to it, but sounds interesting for the same reasons.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading this thread makes me conclude that you're a hard headed moron who would rather burn down his entire house to prove right what is so obviously wrong. I hope you can muster up the courage to admit you're wrong. I'm guessing that it takes a little more courage than you have at the moment though.

Re:stupid

[shutdown -p now]

Um....

Re:stupid

[Jane Q. Public]

I think you over-estimate the effects of "domestication" on dogs... although I do admit that many of them have had the piss bred out of them. Pocket dogs are an abomination.

But for most of human history, dogs were working animals, too. The only difference is that they are (usually) too big to be allowed to gather their own food. That would be dangerous (and inconvenient, considering that they are pack hunters). That is the difference: practicality, not biology.

Dogs do go feral. In an area not very far from here there has been a pack of feral dogs, descended from escaped domestic dogs, roaming the mountains for at least 30 years. They have been spotted every few years (it is a very remote place and rough country) but their fate is uncertain now that the wolves have returned. And Dingos are of course another example of formerly-domesticated dogs returning to the wild.

Another interesting example is the domestic ferret. Evidence indicates that they have been domesticated for approximately as long as dogs and cats. And again, for most of human history they were working animals: they were (and still are) used to hunt small game. Not only that, but prior to WWII, right here in the United States, ferrets were also popular farm animals, used for keeping rats, mice, etc. out of the granaries just like cats.

But unlike both dogs and cats, and except in New Zealand (which presented very specific and unusual conditions), ferrets don't go feral. They just don't. It doesn't happen.

Re:stupid

[Jane Q. Public]

"'Girls Gone Feral' doesn't have the same ring to it, but sounds interesting for the same reasons."

I like it. I think I'll keep it.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Feral = wild, but wild != feral

Re:stupid

[snspdaarf]

"Girls Gone Feral" doesn't have the same ring to it, but sounds interesting for the same reasons.

Just don't try to put your mouse in their mouth

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

Alright. Neat; thanks. I've always been more of a cat person and have never really understood the temperaments of dog breeds that well. In a way, though, this underscores my original point, that we're fooled by behavioural changes into assuming that animals have changed drastically due to domestication. (I still maintain, though, that cats are generally much less trained than dogs. There are also very few breeds that fit into the 'pocket dog' equivalent, mostly notably the Japanese Bobtail.

Re:stupid

[Grishnakh]

Yes, those are probably the cat that housecats descended from (it says so in the article). However, it's still a different species. There's no African Wildcats in Oregon; the map clearly indicates they only exist in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they had some problems with them pouncing on bicyclists in southern California too a while back.

Yeah. From time to time, they missed.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha who gives a shit? I'm not saying you're wrong, I don't know much about the distinction, but his point was that taking a rat out of a stray cat's mouth is a shitty idea. He wasn't exactly using the word in the scientific sense, just the meaning that it's commonly understood to have by the majority of the people who are gonna read it. Whether or not the cat is "feral" or "wild" isn't an important distinction in this situation. If you really want people to think you're smart, you should also think things like that through before spouting out shit everywhere everyone will just think you're an ass.

Re:stupid

[Jane Q. Public]

"In a way, though, this underscores my original point, that we're fooled by behavioural changes into assuming that animals have changed drastically due to domestication."

Yes, I agree. No argument here. I would illustrate with an example from my own pet, but that would be giving away too much personal information for Slashdot. Some of the people here are, to be blunt, not very nice.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

I know that feeling.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

It owes a huge amount to upbringing. I have both a barn born cat and a feral who lived in the alley for his first six months. The barn cat came inside and is as charming and tame a cat as most of us will meet. The feral came inside late, and it is taking a long time to train him to be comfortable around people, but aside from that demonstrates all the traits of a tame animal.

Re:stupid

[whoever57]

but the most important alterations are purely in how the animal has been raised.

The link you pointed to refutes your point. The difference in the foxes' behavior was entirely due to selective breeding, not how they were raised. The scientists showed that if fox cubs that were bred for aggression were placed with a non-aggressive foster mother, they were still highly aggressive and also vice-versa.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably less of a relation than even feed and shelter. The barn cat would have been more simply welcome to as much food and shelter as could be found about the farm - which happens to be prime territory for the cat's prey. Some of the selection pressures would be that a cat that tolerated people better would be more comfortable in the territory, and that the high density of prey around the farm would lessen the need for territoriality, and might even lead to some eusocial pressure.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

You're right; that looks pretty lousy in retrospect. I think I was trying to make my argument about "cats are not super-domesticated, but canines are" and it came out wrong.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbcwDXhugjw

Re:stupid

[ChrisMaple]

Mountain lions have been spotted in New England. It's not unreasonable to assume they'll be in all the contiguous states within 20 years or so.

Re:stupid

[blind biker]

I was hoping I'd find a story about cougars attacking mountain bikers, behind that link. I used to do MTB/XC and wanted to share the story with a few friends.

Re:stupid

[Mista2]

A wolf, or a dingo are wild dogs. The offspring of an abandoned poodle is likely to be feral, not wild.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

All feral animals are considered wild. The term has no special biological meaning.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Dictionary.com isn't a scientific dictionary. In everyday speech wild and feral may mean the same thing, but in zoology they are distinct terms with distinct meanings. Definition 2 hints at this. Wild animals and their ancestors have always been wild; feral animals are descended from domestic populations and reverted to living in the wild. e.g., wolves are wild dogs, dingoes are feral dogs; Przewalski's horse is wild, the mustang is feral.

Re:stupid

[bungo]

Some of the people here are, to be blunt, not very nice.

Welcome to Slashdot!

You know, it wasn't always like this. I've been around since before the time that accounts were created (I held off creating an account, like a lot of other people, since I didn't like the idea of logging in to read a website, times have changed). I think things started to change for the worse after Rob Malda sold the site and it was bought (for the first time) and people starting coming here because it was 'cool', and then a flood of juvenile people turned up.

It sort of reminds me of the never ending September with Usenet. (I was on Usenet back since 1986, probably before most people here were even born.) Before that September, Usenet was a 'small', friendly community, made up of mostly university types and large companies.

Where was I?... Ah, yes, well, we used to hitch an onion to our belt, as that was the fashion at the time ....
 

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Feral = wild, but wild != feral

The technical difference is that wild is referring to the species of animal, while feral is referring to the individual. The term "feral" is the opposite of "tame", and the opposite of "wild" is "domesticated".

However, in normal conversation the term "wild" is used to mean both things.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Dictionary.com isn't a scientific dictionary. In everyday speech wild and feral may mean the same thing, but in zoology they are distinct terms with distinct meanings. Definition 2 hints at this. Wild animals and their ancestors have always been wild; feral animals are descended from domestic populations and reverted to living in the wild. e.g., wolves are wild dogs, dingoes are feral dogs; Przewalski's horse is wild, the mustang is feral.

No. Scientifically speaking, feral and tame refer to individual animals. Wild and domesticated refer to the species in general. In conversation we usually assume a member of a domesticated species is tame, and a member of a wild species is feral, so it's not usually stated explicitly. Only when we deviate from the assumed normal is it usually mentioned, for example a wild animal which has been tamed or a domesticated animal which has gone feral.

Now, to be blunt, there is no agreed consensus on how long a group of formerly domesticated animals must remain feral before they are considered to be wild. Likewise, there is no consensus on how long a group of formerly wild animals must be tamed before they are considered domesticated.

There is a certain school of thought among some zoologists which says that once "spoiled" by man, a species cannot be considered truly wild ever again. This is what you're referring to, and frankly speaking that's not science it's zealotry: If you wish to propose that there is a genetic point where the animal becomes domesticated, then you must also accept a genetic point where it becomes UN-domesticated, and the line of thinking you're using does not allow for such things.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

All feral animals are considered wild. The term has no special biological meaning.

Stop quoting wikipedia, it only makes you look like an idiot who can't understand the actual material and has to rely on Cliff's Notes. Had you bothered to investigate, you would find that scientifically speaking, an animal is only wild if it had no domesticated ancestors. If it comes from a domesticated lineage, it can go feral but not wild. Just like a wild animal can be tamed, but not domesticated.
The terms refer to the idea that genetics play a role in the behavior of the animal which cannot be overcome by environment, and that certain behaviors and traits can be "bred out" of a species. Note that I'm not claiming that it's a correct theory, I'm simply pointing out that the terms DO have a special biological meaning.

Again, stop quoting wikipedia. Take the time to follow the citations and read them, that's what they're there for.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

You're a step behind, I'm afraid. Because it may not be the case that a domesticated lineage actually underwent genetic change (relevant or otherwise), it cannot be guaranteed that an organism that meets the zoological definition of feralness is genetically distinct from a specimen that has never been domesticated.

I suppose we're arguing the semantics of the term "biological meaning" at this point, since "meaning" implies that we're discussing the field of biology as it is studied, rather than natural fact. Let me rephrase to say "no biological significance."

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

...significance is also an imperfect word. "Does not necessarily have a biological basis" sounds better.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Dictionaries doesn't define words. They explain them according to the use of the word at the time of the compilation of the dictionary, and sometimes lists past meanings as well.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if you changed it to "MILFs gone feral" you might get a better reaction.

Re:stupid

[shadesOG]

I was hoping I'd find a story about cougars attacking mountain bikers, behind that link. I used to do MTB/XC and wanted to share the story with a few friends.

This was in California. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/09/mountain.lion/index.html I couldn't find a local one.

Re:stupid

[dunkelfalke]

Well, there is also felis silvestris, which is by the very definition a wild cat, but you wouldn't tell it from a domestic one. Doesn't live in the States, though (except maybe at some zoo).

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

I've owned a barn-cat. Not very freindly, towards people. (not mean, or anything like that, just pretty much indifferent). She liked to stay around the house, but sometimes would wander off for weeks. One time, she just wandered off and never came back. But she was like an artist, at killing. In the spring and summer, when game was more plentiful, she would bring home one, or more kills, every single night. She would pick a favorite spot, and leave it as a gift. Usually, the door mat, but sometimes the kitchen floor, or the foot of our bed. She lined them up orthagonally. She gutted them, precisely. I could not have done finer work with a scalpel and tweezers - she didn't even have thumbs. One night, she brought home a rat, a lizard, a bird, and a fish, (the neighbor's koi, and not the first), and laid them down neatly, evenly-spaced, on the welcome mat. As-if to say: "I have mastered every type of critter there is."

We were genuinely worried that she was singlehandedly decimating the songbird population in our neighborhood. So we got her a collar with a bell. When she came back it was gone. She shrugged off three of them before we gave up.

Before she left for the last time, we adopted a kitten. A male. She taught him to hunt. And he was just as talented, but not as creative. He'd just leave decapitated or gutted carcasses splattered across the floor or countertops. For some reason, he started eating them. Then he'd just leave the feet and tails. Or just the guts. Then, he began eating them whole. About a year ago, he either stopped hunting, or because of the situation with coyotes in our neighborhood, there isn't anything for him to hunt anymore.

But personality-wise - this cat is completely the opposite of the barn-cat. He's very friendly, loves people. Loves to be touched and scratched. Loves to sleep with us, loves to stay at our home, and even bathes the dogs.

A couple years later, we adopted a new kitten. The male taught HER to hunt. But she's completely inept. She can't catch much more than a moth. And when he brings mice in for her to hunt, she will sometimes corner them, (with help), but she refuses to kill them. She'll bat them around for hours, but just never do the deed.

Re:stupid

[Samantha Wright]

I think that speaks volumes about how little we appreciate the educability of animals. They have culture just as much as we do; we've just taken it for granted for most of human history that their behaviours are all instinctual. If you're interested in similar peculiar anecdotes, try Googling "avian intelligence" sometime. It's amazing what we've been able to learn about parrots, pigeons and corvids through controlled experiments.

Re:stupid

[blind biker]

Interesting news nonetheless. Thank you.

Prying dead mice from feral cats mouths

[Anonymous Coward]

At least he got the payoff of a free dead mouse. I'm sure it was worth it in the end.

Bring out your dead!

[ColdWetDog]

While an exciting headline, certain to raise the blood pressure of the angst brigade, this isn't terribly newsworthy. Bubonic plague has been found in animals (mostly prairie dogs in Colorado) for decades and apparently is the sixth case of plague in Oregon since 1995. It's easy to treat with antibiotics. The hardest part is actually thinking that Yersinia pestis is the causative organism.

Bonus points for Monty Python addicts.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unsurprisingly, the diseases that killed us forever ago aren't really a threat to us anymore. It's the superdiseases of the future we need to worry about.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[bruce_the_loon]

Rare, but still around. House MD had a case that turned out to be the Black Death caught from an adopted pet from Arizona about five years ago. Even rarer than lupus, and as you all know, "It's never lupus!"

Re:Bring out your dead!

[AthanasiusKircher]

Bubonic plague has been found in animals (mostly prairie dogs in Colorado) for decades and apparently is the sixth case of plague in Oregon since 1995.

From TFA:

Health officials in Portland have confirmed that a man contracted the plague...

Hmm... I KNEW there was something that the Portlandia folks left out when they said, "The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland...."

Clown school, double-decker bicycles, and of course... bubonic plague.

(P.S. Yes, I know this case of plague didn't originate in Portland... but neither did clown school, and clowning is apparently still going on there. Elsewhere, plague is so 1390s...)

Re:Bring out your dead!

[aliquis]

How sure are they it's the same?

Seem legit:
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/352856/20120615/octomom-2-woman-pregnant-mouth-eating-squid.htm
"'Octomom' 2.0? Woman Gets 'Pregnant In The Mouth' After Eating Squid
By Dave Smith: Subscribe to Dave's RSS feed
June 15, 2012 5:01 PM EDT
A 63-year-old South Korean woman was shocked to learn she "became pregnant" with 12 baby squid after eating a portion of calamari."

Seem too good to be true, but it probably is.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Xtifr]

Yeah, it's pretty common throughout the western US (at least). Several years ago, some friends and I went camping at a California State Park, and were perplexed to see signs posted saying that there was risk of bubonic plague. We asked a ranger, who basically told us it was no big deal, and not all that unusual. They weren't even bothing to send campers home. It did make the night feel a little spookier, somehow. :)

Calling it "The Black Death" in this day and age borders on histrionics (though I admit it's historically accurate).

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Creepy]

Human infections are relatively rare, but yeah, I've heard of other cases as well. Certainly not the killer it once was, much like tetanus, which many people still think can only be contracted from rusty nails, while the bacterium is dirt dwelling and can be contrived from any puncture wound. Heck, people have contracted it from dirty heroin needles.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[wjcofkc]

It is only easy to treat if it's been caught early which it typically is. This poor guy waited a little too long.

Re:bring out your dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

"he says he's not dead!"

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Jane Q. Public]

There are 3 essential forms of Black Plague (all of them caused by the same organism), and each of them varies in the rapidity of onset.

The most virulent is the pneumonic form. It can kill within days. But it is also relatively rare, even as cases of plague go. Usually it takes somewhat longer.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a kid we were taught not to pick up dead animals. Good advice. One year there were plague, hants, and anthrax infections in the state.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hanta. Damn swype.

Re:Bring out your dead!

[starworks5]

You mean "The dream of the 1890's is alive in Portland"

Not so fast, Mr. Simpson...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has become customary to give returning employees the plague...

Um sir? Don't you mean the plaque?

Yes, the plaque!

Biggest question...

[betterunixthanunix]

Why was this guy trying to pry a mouse away from a cat? That appears to be the most interesting story here...

Really though, from TFA:

it is treatable with antibiotics

the bacteria thrives in forests, grasslands and any wooded areas inhabited by rats and squirrels

Without the help of modern medicine, Europeans in the Middle Ages could do little to combat the plague.

So this is a bacterium that is common in the wild, which can be contracted by humans but is treatable with modern medicine. It is not as though we are facing another plague here...

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing that bacteria cant become resistant to antibiotics, right?

captcha: evasion

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it could evolve, remember.

This is possibly the worst infection to evolve, if it were to get worse, god help the human race.
There is only a small number of humans who are outright immune to it, and a partial number who are strongly defended against it. It is unlikely that it will evolve a way to defeat the immune systems of those people, but everyone else...

We have better medicine, but we also live much closer together and have partially compromised immune systems due to the overly-sterile environments we live in and foods we consume. (which is, finally, now being shown to have actually done pretty damn serious damage overall, in addition to creating super-bugs all over the place)
This is also why that strain of H5N1 (was it?) is such a huge concern if it evolves in to the strain they created in the lab.
They say that it could easy evolve this way. Worse, it is easy to produce it that way as well with pretty easy to obtain equipment and any random biology expert.

Things like this need to be heavily monitored to make sure they don't get to lethal status.

Re:Biggest question...

[D'Sphitz]

Also:

there are about seven cases of the Black Plague in the U.S. each year

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was this guy trying to pry a mouse away from a cat?

Simple. He saw it first, but the cat was quicker...

That's some good eat'n ;)

Re:Biggest question...

[ShanghaiBill]

Good thing that bacteria cant become resistant to antibiotics, right?

Bacteria that spread from human to human can evolve antibiotic resistance relatively quickly. Bacteria that spread primarily from animal to animal, especially if those animals are wild, are much less likely to evolve resistance. I don't think we are going to start giving antibiotics to prairie dogs.

 

Re:Biggest question...

[betterunixthanunix]

Good thing that bacteria cant become resistant to antibiotics, right?

Sure, but there is more to keep in mind when it comes to this particular infection:

1. Cleanliness slows the spread immensely, especially around areas where the bacteria live. One of the main reasons for the plague's spread in the middle ages was poor hygiene, as evidenced by the reduced rates of infection in communities where bathing and washing hands were common.
2. We do not leave dead animal carcasses rotting in our streets. One of the ways this infection spreads is by fleas jumping from a dead animal to a live one.
3. We have quarantine protocols for serious diseases, which help reduce contact between infected and uninfected people.

So even if by some strange twist, the plague were to develop resistance to antibiotics, it would be unlikely to become an epidemic. Indeed, only a tiny handful of people become infected in modern times, and that is despite the fact that we have much larger populations and higher population densities.

Re:Biggest question...

[AK Marc]

You are right. Bacteria can't become resistant to antibiotics. What happened with MSSA and such is that the resistant strains already existed, and the widespread and often inappropriate usage of antibiotics killed of the other strains, making MSSA more common. But the antibiotics didn't "create" MSSA, and and the bacteria didn't "become" resistant, but had been that way for longer than we have records.

Re:Biggest question...

[betterunixthanunix]

This is possibly the worst infection to evolve

Really, the worst? This is an infection that is not hard to control with quarantines, good hygiene and good sanitation -- none of which are a challenge in this century. It would be a pretty serious leap for the plague to evade all of the above.

We have better medicine

More importantly, we have better medical practices. Doctors wash their hands between seeing patients. Highly infectious patients are kept under special quarantines. Corpses are not handled without gloves. Medical instruments are carefully disposed of. These things are more relevant to the plague than antibiotics, which are just a treatment for those who become infected.

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we just give antibiotics to our farm animals, then let them get hunted by the wild animals....

Re:Biggest question...

[EdIII]

I don't think we are going to start giving antibiotics to prairie dogs.

Only because they are apparently not that tasty. If they were in a sandwich from McDonald's you would see farms of them with antibiotics in their food.

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Bacteria absolutely can become resistant to antibiotics. Scientists have recreated this phenomenon countless times in the lab. Now whether MRSA pre-existed the use of modern antibiotics, I don't know. Maybe you're right.

Of course, we're both playing fast-and-loose with terminology. By create, of course, I presume we're both referring to the evolutionary mechanism of selective pressure.

Re:Biggest question...

[Jane Q. Public]

"Only because they are apparently not that tasty."

Except to black-footed ferrets. Prairie dogs are their primary diet.

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't think so eh? Well we are. With what we give all our livestock... Antibiotics are entering the water and food for alot of species.

Not really a problem yet. but man, those ppl in the future are SO FUCKED!

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, we are giving antibiotics and everything else we flush to prarie dogs.....look up what usa is doing with its toilet waste. Google "biosolids" - a quirky pr term used to cover up fact that it is infectious human waste.

Im quite sure gubamint keeps all the furry and flyin critters off it after its spread on farm land tho

Re:Biggest question...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that we are actually going to treat this idiot who thought it wise to confront a stray cat while it was feeding on a dead rodent. He'll live to do something equally as stupid and we'll need to treat him for something else more than likely. Let nature take it's course.

Re:Biggest question...

[drinkypoo]

We do not leave dead animal carcasses rotting in our streets. One of the ways this infection spreads is by fleas jumping from a dead animal to a live one.

Heh heh. You haven't been to Lake County, California. Especially on the streets and roads that approach my road, there are often dead animal carcasses, up to and including deer. They do tend to clear them out right in town, though. However, Animal Control will no longer come to pick up animals that just drop dead on private property, you have to deal with that yourself. Not making this up... you'd think they'd want to check out an animal like that. Had a long conversation with a guy whose dog likes to go after skunks and kill them, some animals are just on a mission or something. But he got bit by one so he called animal control and they never came to get this thing for so long that a test would be meaningless. Then some weeks later they told him they wanted to destroy his dog because the skunk might have been rabid. So don't take it as a given that we give a shit about whether animals might be spreading disease; our officials always have the option of operating in cover-up mode.

The Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not big news. The plague is harbored by squirrels and other rodents throughout the Rockies and the midwest. Lately it's been passing around the prairie dogs and killing the rare and nearly extinct American Black Footed Ferret.

Re:The Plague

[BitterOak]

True, many of the hiking trails in New Mexico have signs warning that rodents may be carrying the plague. What surprises me, though, is the man is in critical condition. I thought the plague was easily treatable with antibiotics today. Is this a new antibiotic resistant strain?

Re:The Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

True, many of the hiking trails in New Mexico have signs warning that rodents may be carrying the plague. What surprises me, though, is the man is in critical condition. I thought the plague was easily treatable with antibiotics today. Is this a new antibiotic resistant strain?

Treatable when caught early.

Re:The Plague

[Grishnakh]

Yep, it was a 50-year-old men. People in that demographic are infamous for avoiding medical treatment until it's too late.

Re:The Plague

[Nyder]

Yep, it was a 50-year-old men. People in that demographic are infamous for avoiding medical treatment until it's too late.

That is because by the time we are that old, we know that most doctors don't actually know as much as they think (meaning they tend to guess alot), and don't want to pay the high price for that.

Re:The Plague

[AK Marc]

"I can survive with the Plague for another 15 years and get on medicare"

Re:The Plague

[chmod a x mojo]

Even back in the Ye Olden Days when the plague was rampant there was strains / variations that where a lot more virulent. If you caught the strain that was the one that rapidly progressed to septicemic plague you where toast in hours to 1-2 days.

Re:The Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

Not apparently in this man's case. Also, this guy's going to have to pay a whole lot more now (if he survives).

Re:The Plague

[isorox]

Yep, it was a 50-year-old men. People in that demographic are infamous for avoiding medical treatment until it's too late.

That is because by the time we are that old, we know that most doctors don't actually know as much as they think (meaning they tend to guess alot), and don't want to pay the high price for that.

What a strange country the U.S. is

Re:The Plague

[Anonymous Coward]

He was afraid his insurance wasn't going to cover him, because it was a pre-existing condition.

Bring out yer dead!

[howardd21]

Obligatory Monthy Python Reference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs "I'm not dead yet"

Re:Bring out yer dead!

[redneckmother]

Obligatory Firesign Theatre reference: "According to my careful prosthesis, this man has - The Plague." (from Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him)

This is hardly news.

[hey!]

Bubonic plague has been endemic (sustaining itself permanently, in this case in the animal population) in the western part of the US for years, although it is news to public health officials when a human contracts it. There was a case two years ago, also in Oregon.

The reason it doesn't sweep the nation the way it swept Europe is advances in hygiene, public health and medical treatment. Rats and fleas in the house aren't unheard of these days, but they're no longer universal. If people are getting bit by fleas they'll call the exterminator or the board of health; they won't just accept it as a fact of life. If they contract plague they'll go to the doctor who will cure it relatively easily.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Mashiki]

Bubonic plague has been endemic (sustaining itself permanently, in this case in the animal population) in the western part of the US for yeas...

Yep. When I was in the US southwest in the 80's they were handing out phamplets at the national parks like the grand canyon(I think I have mine tucked away somewhere still--I was a kid and thought it was kinda cool) to avoid dead animals. This really isn't news, we see a dozen or so cases of it in Canada every year from the same way.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anubis IV]

This really isn't news, we see a dozen or so cases of it in Canada every year from the same way.

I didn't realize it was a common thing for people to pry dead mice from the mouths of stray cats. ;)

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize it was a common thing for people to pry dead mice from the mouths of stray cats. ;)

That's how you make the Canadian delicacy poutine au rat.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Eastern Oregon Bubonic Plague is so common in the wildlife that every couple of years the U.S. Forest Service will fire-bomb the entire desert, killing off every deer, gopher, squirrel, and rat when the infected wildlife population reaches a certain threshold percentage. It seems cruel to fire-bomb all wildlife in a geographical area and something that would normally have PETA up in arms over, but it's the humane choice and what keeps the Bubonic Plague in check and from commonly spreading to the human population. The first thing you learn living in Oregon are that deer, gophers, squirrels, and rats are vermin. You don't feed them. You don't touch them. They are carriers of disease, not cute Disney characters.

I think the only thing that is news-worthy about this article, being that Bubonic Plague, albeit relatively rare in humans due to monitoring the epidemic among the wildlife and periodically reducing the wildlife population when the epidemic spreads, is that this guy got it from a domestic cat. People might be willing to turn a blind eye to Bambi being fire-bombed into oblivion every 5-8 years, but they wouldn't be so willing to let Fluffy or Mr. Bigglesworth be put down to prevent the spread of contagion.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so sure about how people react to fleas. Most of my family has fleas and they just go, "herp derp I shor do hate dem fleez. I shor would Like to get rid of 'em but I don't wanna spend moneyz on anythin'. It's a scam and a waste of moneyz cuz I could buy cigaretes instead and that's more important. I know cuz I'm smart! I went to kindergarten!!" Yeah, my family is stupid...

Re:This is hardly news.

[the eric conspiracy]

Cue the dirty is better theorists.

"If we let the kids play on dirt floors in a filthy home without any disinfectants or vaccinations the would be healthier".

Ignore the fact that historically half of all children died before age 5.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Mashiki]

I didn't realize it was a common thing for people to pry dead mice from the mouths of stray cats. ;)

You'd be surprised, there's warnings put in newspapers, local flyers and on the TV in metro centres here, for the city folk not to do this stuff. It might seem stupid if you've ever lived in the country, it's kinda like "where does hamburger come from" obviously the store.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Jedi Alec]

I have yet to encounter a "dirty is better" theorist who is also an anti-vaccer, considering vaccines perform the same function as playing around in the dirt: introducing the immune system to the bad guys, so it knows what they look like and how to kill them.

Besides, generally the argument is hardly to keep the house filthy, but against sterilizing everything and anything and preventing children from playing outside.

Washing your hands after using the bathroom and before preparing food is good. Sterilizing them every time one touches a door-handle is over the top.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's taking it WAY too far, but giving the immune system some challenges from time to time does tend to make it work better.

Re:This is hardly news.

[jamesh]

Cue the dirty is better theorists.

"If we let the kids play on dirt floors in a filthy home without any disinfectants or vaccinations the would be healthier".

Ignore the fact that historically half of all children died before age 5.

Selection biases are great. We still get that from some of the older generation "When we were kids we used to ride around in cars without seatbelts and child restraints and we turned out just fine". Sure you did... the ones of you who lived mostly turned out just fine.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Making the immune system work better is not the same thing as living a longer, healthier life.

Re:This is hardly news.

[the eric conspiracy]

I have encountered such people in various Slashdot discussions on vaccination.

The fact is that anti-vaxers will put forth pretty much anything as a justification for their position.

Re:This is hardly news.

[Anonymous Coward]

A-ha! An evolutionary theory to explain why drivers are so bad these days!

Before, the children of bad drivers (who probably inherited the "bad driver" gene) tended to get killed in accidents because they were not wearing seat belts and such. Therefore, they did not reproduce and the average quality of drivers went up.

Now, the children of bad drivers are forced to protect themselves from the damaging effects of traffic accidents, and they go on to become bad drivers themselves.

Therefore, seat belts, airbags and child car seats cause bad drivers!

Re:This is hardly news.

[findoutmoretoday]

There are old studies about why russian officers suffered more from the plague than their soldiers eating molded bread.

If I can catch it, I'll eat it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with Darwinian Logic on this one. What could have made him think this was a good idea?
There is a possible 'Side-B' :) The posts states "unidentified man".
This could possibly mean he was homeless, no? Possibly making the dead mouse a "Tastey-dactil", and a target, like "taking candy from a baby", or in this case, taking black death from a cat. That's alot of possibles, but I'm sure it will be the last time he goes for "fast food".

Boo to story submitter

[adosch]

"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Although I find stories of older men prying dead mice out of stray cats' mouths very riveting for about 2.5 seconds (which as already stated many times already, complete ODD), this isn't or should EVER be a slashdotted story. Ever. Period. Get back to the tech news, /.

Re:Boo to story submitter

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it that with a 1.3 million SDID you even think you have a right to bring up what Slashdot is "all about"?

Re:Boo to story submitter

[93 Escort Wagon]

You forgot to add "and get off my lawn!"

Re:Boo to story submitter

[Xtifr]

Well, I've got an SDID that is a thousand times smaller, and I agree with the OP. This is barely news, let alone news for nerds. The bubonic plague is not-uncommon among the west coast's rodent population, and is easily treatable, and there's nothing particularly nerdy going on here.

Hardly darwin award worthy... he is in his 50s

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he probably has already had all the children he intends to have, with or without the plague.

Time to get vaccinated

[alen]

Ive had mine in the army. I'm not worried

Re:Time to get vaccinated

[mysidia]

Ive had mine in the army. I'm not worried

Vaccination improves resistance in the aggregate over the entire population that receives vaccination; in other words there is less likelihood of an epidemic, but it is still very possible for normal individuals to catch the disease if exposed.

So you are at less risk, in case an outbreak of the most common strains the vaccine was designed against, but you would still be at significantly high risk in case of an epidemic, unless the rest of the population of people and animals you interact with (or rather, that fleas in your area interact with) were vaccinated as well.

Obligatory LOLcat ref

[thatseattleguy]

I can has worldwide pandemic?

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[equex]

haz

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[xstonedogx]

It's a beautiful world we live in when we have a second spelling and dialect for what we imagine our domesticated companions are telling us... and there are spelling and grammar nazis for that dialect.

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLz

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[jamesh]

If I hadn't already posted you'd be the first spelling/grammar nazi I would _ever_ have moderated up!

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[thatseattleguy]

Original "has": http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/11/i-can-has-cheezburger-3/

"Haz" would have been way funnier here, though.

"I CAN BE HAZ MAT?!"

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[Mana Mana]

LUL ^_^

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[Hognoxious]

we have a second spelling and dialect for what we imagine our domesticated companions are telling us... and there are spelling and grammar nazis for that dialect.

They look like this

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even better when the nazi is 'rong.

The z is on cheezburger, not on has.

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[equex]

lol, I actually remembered wrong and the original cheeseburger cat is with an 's', but as you say, there are more dialects, especially around IRC and some popular forums, they use 'z' more.

Re:Obligatory LOLcat ref

[Anonymous Coward]

I can haz Godwin's Law?

Plague?!?

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

that is all.

Oh wait, anyone else ever know that putting something like 'PPPPPLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAGUE?!?" as a comment subject produces a "filter error: Too much repetition". Isn't it reasonable to expect that a mature person who can operate a computer and engage in discussion groups well aware enough of what constitutes too much or too little repetition?

Because I can clearly say it in the message body, just not the subject. Yet, its exactly what I wanted the subject to be!

Re:Plague?!?

[bruce_the_loon]

It is reasonable to expect it, yes. But it is also reasonable to expect that the immature id10t's on this board will abuse the priviledge to post that sort of crud, so society here forbids it from being possible in the first place.

Re:Plague?!?

[Cute Fuzzy Bunny]

And yet it happened anyhow, in one form or another. Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to use my own definition for excessive repetition? After all, I'm not trying to force it on someone else, yet someone elses definition of repetition is now forced on me, yet only in the comment subject area. Its sort of like saying "Yes, you can protest, but only in this small area over here where nobody can see you", isnt it?

Sensationalized article

[tirerim]

Yes, he contracted septicaemic plague, the blood-borne form of Yersinia pestis. That doesn't mean he contracted "the Black Death". The Black Death was almost certainly caused by a variant of Y. pestis which is no longer around (microorganisms tend to change a bit over the course of a few centuries). It's also the name of a specific pandemic of plague, and while there were other smaller outbreaks in the following centuries, they weren't generally referred to by that name. One human case of a disease that is now treatable with antibiotics and easy to contain does not make for a pandemic.

Re:Sensationalized article

[Prune]

You are wrong. Black Death DNA was extracted from teeth of victims in the Tower of London and it's the same Y. pestis as we have today: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/science/13plague.html?_r=1

Re:Sensationalized article

[Kohath]

...That doesn't mean he contracted "the Black Death". The Black Death was almost certainly caused by a variant of Y. pestis which is no longer around...

That's racist.

Re:Sensationalized article

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually read the article, you'd find that it's not conclusive. It is true that it shows that Y. pestis seems to be the causative agent of Black Death, but the Y. Pestis found on those victims does differ from the modern day strains. It doesn't differ by much, which suggests that genetic differences probably aren't the cause for the different infection rates and symptoms, but they're not yet sure and are investigating the differences one-by-one to find out. The article also says that the scientists also failed to get the correct ordering of genes within the bacterium's chromosome (because they had only fragments to work with), and the gene ordering might affect pathogenicity.

Re:Sensationalized article

[Jane Q. Public]

"Yes, he contracted septicaemic plague, the blood-borne form of Yersinia pestis."

You are confusing different forms of the disease with different forms of an organism. There are 3 known basic types of Plague, all caused by the same organism.

Re:Sensationalized article

[tirerim]

That article says that the recovered genome is "remarkably similar to that of the present-day bacterium". Note that it does not say "identical". It also says, "The changes in the genome will be studied one by one to see how each affects the microbe’s virulence." So there have definitely been changes, and the jury is still out on whether they are significant.

Re:Sensationalized article

[Nimloth]

Oh no, quick: someone is WRONG on the internet!

Re:Sensationalized article

[Prune]

At your age, you should know better than to still be quoting a comic that's become lamer and shittier over the years, and wasn't even all that good to start with. It's become a cliche of pseudo-nerd culture.

Black Death? no, epidemiology guesses Ebola like

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern research methods have studied the so called "Black Death" a great deal and we feel it was probably something most more akin to an Ebola-like virus than Bubonic Plague. From studies of incubation times and patterns to symptoms. There was a plague outbreak, but it was NOT the black death.

Not a big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly this. In the Southwestern US there is a case of plague every couple of years. Not a big deal unless it isn't diagnosed and treated rapidly. It probably shows up in other areas of the world as well.

Re:Not a big deal.

[dpilot]

My brother-in-law is a veterinarian in southeast Utah, and he found one of those "every few years" cases of bubonic plague a few years back. He told me the same thing - a case pops up every few years.

Re:Not a big deal.

[TapeCutter]

It does, from anecdotal reports I've read, India seems to be the place to go for a dose of the plague. Unlike smallpox (and soon Polio), it's doubtfull that it will ever be eradicated with current methods since it's normally transmitted by fleas, but we do know how to control it when it pops up so yeah, a repeat of the black death is highly unlikely. Pathogeans that turn into pandemics with a high mortality rate are rare, from an evolutionary POV it doesn't make sense to kill off your host and worse still if you kill your host too quickly (eg:Ebola) you have very limited opportunities to spread to new hosts. Smallpox (the biblical plague) and polio only occur in humans, 'simply' cure every last human case on the planet and they are gone for ever. Coincidently India is also one of the last places on the planet where polio still occurs, mainly due to local religious beliefs. That in itself is an fantastic achivement (I can recall going to school with several polio victims in the 60's, they were the lucky ones, they could still waddle around without a wheel chair. ).

However there's an interesting moral conundrum with smallpox; As an achivement for all mankind the erradication of smallpox is right up there with the moon landing, and was a far more practical and noble use of our resources. It was made possible because a healthy 8yo boy was afforded all the rights of a lab rat by the man who discovered the vaccine. Yes it was a different planet in the 18th century, but the conundrum is timeless and can be expressed in star trek terms as - does "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few, or the one"?

Once we have an answer to that connundrum we can decide whether or not the few pockets of anti-vaccine nutters should be forceably innoculated for certain communicable diseses. There existance provides a breeding ground from where new strains can evolve and launch themselves into the general population (re: recent whooping cough outbreaks in Australia). Fuck it, what am I saying? Unlike Jensen we KNOW modern vaccines work and we KNOW how to develop them without using humans as lab rats, I say round the ignorant fucker's up and jab 'em.

Re:Not a big deal.

[TapeCutter]

/s "There existance", "Their existance"

Re:Not a big deal.

[jedidiah]

They plain have plague warnings at the campgrounds in southern Utah. This stuff is by no means new. It's just relatively rare and pretty localized. It's unusual enough that it fits into the "man bites dog" category of the news. No one remembers that it happened before 5 or 10 or 15 years ago and nothing came of it then either.

Re:Not a big deal.

[ChrisMaple]

The question of whether "the good of the many outweigh the good of the few, or the one" is unrelated to forced inoculation, because it is good for those inoculated and everybody else.

Once cannibalism and other leftist ideologies are rejected, there are very few cases where "the good of the many" is opposed to "the good of the few".

Re:Not a big deal.

[TapeCutter]

Aren't you a clever little tea bagger, you got my point.

Re:Not a big deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kazakhstan has a large research program on plague that has been going on since the Soviet times (funded by the army, speculate as you see fit). They're a steppe country with a large rodent population, and most likely the source of a majority of the European outbreaks in the middle ages. They've done enough research now to be able to predict infection risks in the different regions based on weather data and models of rodent populations + activity.

Pretty Common Out West

[Greyfox]

They keep finding plague in the prairie dog colonies out here. They do a news story about it every couple years. It's not really anything to get worked up about, unless you're doing something you shouldn't have been doing in the first place. Like messing with stray cats. Or maybe letting your dog run around in the prairie dog fields...

Not surprising

[hattable]

that the end of our civilization will start in Portland. Take a bath you hipsters!

Plauge huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the pope going to have to sit in a circle of burning torches to keep the demons away again?

Re:Black Death? no, epidemiology guesses Ebola lik

[Daetrin]

Actually, epidemiology is entirely unsure about the matter. (Also, don't anthropomorphize inanimate objects, they hate it when you do that.)

Some people think it was the bubonic plague because that matches _some_ of the symptoms reported at the time and y. pestis has been found in mass graves from the period. (Obviously people who disagree are pulling out the "correlation does not equal causation" card.)

Other people believe it was ebola, anthrax, or something else because the incubation period, the rate and nature of the spread, and some of the symptoms don't match those of the modern bubonic plague.

Some people believe it was the y. pestis, but it behaved differently back then because humans had zero immunity when it was introduced, and both humans and the bacteria have had a few centuries to evolve since then.

And some people believe that it wasn't just one disease that was responsible for the black death but a number of different diseases sweeping through around the same time. They didn't know much about disease at the time, and if everyone has heard of the black death and a bunch of people get sick and die, everyone is going to blame it on the black death.

Doctors aren't curing him

[Provocateur]

They've taken bets on how many days he's going to stay alive.

Come on! The guy has no insurance!

bring out your dead!

[Errtu76]

"I'm not dead!"

Re:Black Death? no, epidemiology guesses Ebola lik

[Daetrin]

Also, as a bonus, Seanan McGuire has an amusing "teaching song" about the Black Death which briefly covers a lot of the objections to the y. pestis theory. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be one of the songs with a performance on YouTube, though you can hear a brief clip of it on CDBaby.

Obligatory South Park Referrence

[Anonymous Coward]

People must be saying 'shit' too much. After all, it is a cursed word.

HERE IS HOW IT STARTS

[Anonymous Coward]

The Zombie Apocalypse. It starts with a bite...

Non story

[Dunbal]

There are 1-2 cases of bubonic plague in the US every year. "Yersenia pestis" is part of the normal body flora of several animals, especially underneath the nails of the armadillo. Now when we see cipro resistant plague, then you can panic.

Re:Non story

[Prune]

>Now when we see cipro resistant plague, then you can panic.

No doubt it's on it's way. Tuberculosis has been steadily growing in resistance, and there have been cases of TB now resistant to all antibiotics that were tried. And just recently, gonorrhea is also becoming multi-drug resistant: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/06/06/drug-resistant-gonorrhea-spreading-says-world-health-organization/

Re:Non story

[dkf]

No doubt it's on it's way. Tuberculosis has been steadily growing in resistance, and there have been cases of TB now resistant to all antibiotics that were tried. And just recently, gonorrhea is also becoming multi-drug resistant

But there's no selection pressure on plague to become resistant. It's happily sitting in its wild reservoir, unexposed to antibiotics, and only very rarely jumps to humans (and when it does jump, it doesn't propagate far; transmission between people is very rare these days). Given that, while it is possible for a drug resistant version to evolve and become an epidemic strain, it's really unlikely and will continue to be so until some idiot farmer decides to dose all the rodents on his land with "growth promoters" on a long-term basis. I'd find something else to worry about instead, something more likely...

Re:Non story

[ChrisMaple]

Rodent overlords!

Re:Non story

[Anonymous Coward]

It's alarming that the article says there are about 7 cases in the US each year, then later says there are about 10 to 15 cases in the US each year. Considering only a few hours at most passed while the author wrote that article, we should all have the plague by next week.

I would pry a dead mouse from the cat too.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You now a days all the mouse manufacturers have switched to USB. Those with the old serial green connector that looks like S-video connector are quite rare, and many people are fond of them, even if they are totally dead and it is unlikely for them to become valuable again. So, yeah, if a cat tries swallow it, I would pry it from its mouth too.

Re:I would pry a dead mouse from the cat too.

[TeknoHog]

You now a days all the mouse manufacturers have switched to USB. Those with the old serial green connector that looks like S-video connector are quite rare

The green ones that look like S-video connectors are definitely not serial* in the sense of RS232, they are called PS/2 ports. Yes, I think I still have a real serial mouse somewhere around here, although not a 25-pin one like god intended, only this newfangled 9-pin variant. Plus I still use RS232 for hacking on FPGAs, although often TTL voltage levels instead of the real thing.

*As far as the pin count goes, all of USB, PS/2 and RS232 are serial. But only one of these is called the serial port.

Fucking cat people

[GodfatherofSoul]

Five thousand years and they still haven't figured out that cats are jerks.

Re:Fucking cat people

[Gravitron 5000]

Most people are jerks too, so I guess it depends on which kind of jerk you prefer to spend your time around.

More than that...

[bashibazouk]

From the linked article:

Even though there are about seven cases of the Black Plague in the U.S. each year, most cases have been in the West and the Southweset, the bacterium is considerably less fatal than it once was. According to the CDC, 1 in 7 cases are fatal, but the disease can now be treated with antibiotics.

I know, I know I'm not supposed to read the article...

Re:More than that...

[ganjadude]

when you think about it, its pretty crazy to think that something that once wiped out over 1/3rd of the human population can be treated so easily. Really makes you wonder what we will do about the next "black death"

Re:More than that...

[equex]

The next black death will be something that escapes one of those labs where they toy around with black death and anthrax every day.

Re:More than that...

[burne]

You don't need to back that far. We have general vaccinations over here. Before that one or two out of every ten kids would die of diphtheria. One in a hundred would end up severely paralysed by poliomyelitis. We haven't seen a single case of diphtheria in thirty years, and poliomyelitis-epidemics are restricted to the bible-belters.

That's just sixty years ago. My mother (born in the thirties) lost a brother to diphtheria, so that era is still in living memory.

Re:More than that...

[Will.Woodhull]

More likely it will be some variant of the common flu, dispersed by air line passengers so that there are multiple points of origin.

Think about that the next time you are cooped up with a couple hundred other passengers at 30,000 feet and somebody sneezes.

Re:More than that...

[mha]

As far as I remember from a book I read - I believe it was "Survival of the Sickest" (http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Sickest-Surprising-Connections-Longevity/dp/0060889667/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340023923&sr=1-1&keywords=survival+of+the+sickest), but I'm not certain, I read so much - the explanation is: evolutionary selection. There where several waves of the plague in old Europe, and each subsequent one was less disastrous than the preceding one. The reason is selective pressure, those who survived were more likely to have genes that had to do with how iron is retained in the body. If I remember correctly the bad feature of the plague was (is) that they circumvent the body's immune system: the white cells do what they usually do, the grab the invader, but in this case that's just what they want: they use the iron reserves stored inside the white cells for their own proliferation.
The gene variant that survived tended to remove the iron from the reach of the plague.

So today the (European? not sure about others) population would be expected to be much more resistant to the plague.

Same as many Africans are MUCH more resistant to malaria than Europeans. A table from the 1870s I saw recently showed that of 1000 Europeans more than 500 died within a year(!!!) in malaria countries, while only 70-something Africans died in the same period.

Re:More than that...

[mha]

I just asked Google - I got the book right. Search for "plague" on this page: http://biblioblogaroni.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/survival-of-the-sickest-a-medical-maverick-discovers-why-we-need-disease/

Re:The same axiom applies.

[Anonymous Coward]

No telling what he could have done if he wasn't a pot head.

There is equally no telling what he wouldn't have done if he wasn't a pot head. Cannabis is a complex plant with many diverse effects upon the select few species that can metabolize T.H.C.; and your blind fear of it is something Sagan would have found pitiful.

I can haz bubonik plaguez?

[starworks5]

I can haz bubonik plaguez? http://lh5.ggpht.com/_3iv5LGzCFf4/SdUvJpZF39I/AAAAAAAAB5s/eY-hdDrHU9I/bubonic.jpg

Well, the world is supposed to end this year

[Snaller]

Or did I miss a memo? :)

Re:The same axiom applies.

[amiga3D]

I have no fear. I know if I don't use it then I can't be hurt by it. What it does to you is of course your business. I'm sure the effects aren't all that beneficial. I've seen plenty of pot heads and it was enough for me to pass on the experience.

1-2 cases? Nobody agrees...

[bennomatic]

You say 1-2 cases, and the article, in two different places, says 7 cases per year and 10-15 cases per year. I don't know whom to believe!

Re:The same axiom applies.

[drkstr1]

I am actually a better programmer after smoking a _small_ amount. My right-brained creative problem solving abilities are greatly increased, at the expense of some of my left-brained activities (such as doing math in my head). This is particularly important for me, a heavily left-brained thinker. Whenever I get stuck on a problem, I go have a "smoke break," and suddenly I have all kinds of ideas flowing through my head (some of which are even good). Results will vary depending on the person though.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Madagascar has closed its ports.

oh dear!

[Lancer873]

How will we ever face the plague? It's not like we have some sort of chemical that can kill the very cause of it this time around! ... ... ... *koff*

Re:The same axiom applies.

[amiga3D]

I think Pot may be like most things. A little probably wont hurt and might even be beneficial in some cases. Unfortunately it gets treated like alcohol by most people. If a little is good then more has to be better. That said, I don't really see why it's illegal.

Re:Black Death? no, epidemiology guesses Ebola lik

[Anonymous Coward]

The teaching song is quite outdated and doesn't incorporate new findings that discount all the objections she mentions for which I could actually find a reference, and some that severely incriminate Y. pestis.
Given the current state of medical knowledge, we can be reasonably sure that apart from a few cases which might have been misinterpreted by the (to us) ignorant medieval population, Y. pestis caused the majority of the Black Death.

This was an episode of house.

[holophrastic]

I'm almost positive it's exactly the same. Except the plague episode was from a jar from a ship that had a cat, and the cat episode was a neighbour's pet that had previously died. Or something like that.

The reason not to fear this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions died already so we could have resistance against this. There's nothing to fear here. The ones who couldn't handle it took themselves out of the genetic pool. Which is why this guy isn't dead.

Let it spread.

[Khyber]

Survivors of this plague, when paired, produce offspring that are often missing the CCR5 receptor which the majority of HIV strains bind to for infection.

This would (in theory) boost the future population's natural immunity, at least for that segment of the population, and until there's enough of that population to give marrow transfusions to the other population to give them artificial immunity to those strains. Of course, we then have to worry about the strains that work in a different manner, which would begin to become more prevalent.

Just another bandage, but better than having to take a constant supply of drugs!

Re:Let it spread.

[slashmydots]

And people intelligent enough to wash their hands before touching their mouth and nose after touching a shopping cart for example.

simple equation

[slashmydots]

Can nobody else figure this out?! Oregon + cat + rare centuries old plague = witch. That's just clear as day lol. Obviously it was a black cat as well. Time to start up the Salem witch trials again! What? I have the wrong Salem? It's Salem Massachusetts, not Salem Oregon? Shut up, lol.

Okay, theory 2: apparently icanhascheezburger.com wasn't kidding. Cats really are trying to kill everyone and take over the world.

Oh, and major correction to the bajillion above posts. This is NOT evolutionary Darwinism. This dumbass who basically tried to wrestle a rat away from a stray cat is doing something immensely stupid that will get everyone else killed. That's sort of the opposite.

Cat bite?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it's fleas that spread the thing. We sure he didn't get it from a flea bite off the mouse.

Let's confirm it's from the cat bite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Before Utahns start killing cats .. let's be sure that the cat bite passed it. Rats and fleas are the ones responsible for the plague .. getting rid of cats .. which kill rats .. will only make the problem worse by increasing the rat population. Oh yeah, rats attract snakes too.

ab resistancy?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is no news unless the germs are now resistant to antibiotics.

Re:stupid - "Girls Gone Feral"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Girls Gone Feral"
I think you've misunderstood the use of the word pussy in the article!

Source : Unverified.

[Anonymous Coward]

Source : Unverified. (someone's imagination).

Maybe the Cat Evolved?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come no one checked to see if the cat evolved a new defense mechanism? If I was a cat, I too would want to defend myself by injecting plague into nasty humans that try to take my food from me.

Re:Lamarckism

[hoboroadie]

Read up on your evolutionary theory.

Re:The same axiom applies.

[Maritz]

That said, I don't really see why it's illegal.

Yeah it's interesting to think about. In the UK the government ignored and overruled scientific advice on cannabis and made it a Class "B" drug (with stiffer penalties), presumably because politics trumped science. I would imagine it's societal (cannabis is a drug, alcohol for some reason isn't "it's not a drug, it's a DRINK") and maybe even financial - in many parts of the world it'd be so easy to grow that it would be difficult to monetise in the way big companies like.

Plagues is spread by fleas

[minstrelmike]

We have bubonic plague endemic in prairie dog colonies in Colorado. It is spread by fleas and every so often, a dog colony collapses as it flares up.

We are warned to keep cats away form the colonies because they carry the fleas but I've never read where cats actually get the plague.

Not all that unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

As was pointed out, there are always a few cases around.
Problem is usually doctors do not recognize what the problems is.
Few have ever seen a case of plague.

St Charles is a neat hospital, I spent a week there after a skiing accident (they have experience with that
being close to Mt Bachelor).
Nice view of mountains from the room.

So Not News

[Phat_Tony]

There are usually several cases of Bubonic Plague in the US every year.

It is treatable with antibiotics.

Bring out the dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

But I feel quite fine I must say!

Re:The same axiom applies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, except the next day I look at my "brilliant" code and go, "WTF was I thinking???"

Connie Willis' Doomsday Book

[Anonymous Coward]

For sci-fi readers, check out Connie Willis' Hugo Award and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book! Time travel, bubonic plague, and more! Just a great read. Was actually part of required summer reading way back in HS.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/06/time-travel-and-the-black-death-connie-williss-doomsday-book

SHUT. DOWN.

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERYTHING!!!

Now get an alcoholic up on stage.

[Anonymous Coward]

To defend the movement against prohibition of alcohol.

Humpty-dumpty did the same argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Humpty-dumpty did the same argument when he said "A word means what I mean it to mean. No more and no less".

Like you, the thought it was a knock-down argument.

You see, how do you know that the reporter was using the DICTIONARY meaning of Wild, rather than your preferred version?

Bacteria evolve too, you know.

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

The only life you can morally spend is your own

[Anonymous Coward]

The only life you can morally spend is your own.

Deliberately infecting someone else is criminal and immoral.

Re:The same axiom applies.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad I do not have to maintain your code base.

Re:The same axiom applies.

[drkstr1]

I am glad I do not have to maintain your code base.

On the contrary, I get complimented all the time on the "readability" of my code. It is the one art form I excell at.