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Fish Raised On Land Give Clues To How Early Animals Left the Seas
sciencehabit writes When raised on land, a primitive, air-breathing fish walks much better than its water-raised comrades, according to a new study. The landlubbers even undergo skeletal changes that improve their locomotion. The work may provide clues to how the first swimmers adapted to terrestrial life. The study suggests that the ability of a developing organism to adjust to new conditions—its so-called developmental plasticity—may have played a role in the transition from sea to land.
"Ve...haf vays... of making you valk...'
http://www.livescience.com/475...
These creatures take to land like a fish takes to water.
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No, no, no! You have it backwards. Here on Soviet Slashdot, developmental plasticity fish overlords welcome you!
Ironically, it's a revival of Lysenkoism, which has its supportive roots in Soviet era propaganda - making your comment quite apt, given that there was official party support from Stalin, to the point of those opposing the idea being executed. It's gained popularity again due to possible epigenetic mechanisms, but this hasn't really panned out in terms of direct heritability of the induced characteristics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
by living in periodically shallow waters for perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of generations.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The conditions may not be so "new" to the species. They might have evolved this developmental plasticity precisely because they've been exposed to this same variety of conditions in their evolutionary past.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
An organism benefits from plasticity in changing or not optimal environments. About every organism shows signs of a certain plasticity. It doesn't just thrive under optimal conditions, but it can also exist in not so advanturous environments, but it doesn't grow to the same size, reaches the same age or produced the same amount of offspring. Nevertheless, thanks to plasticity, it can overcome the situation.
We see some level of this even with humans - a human who grows up lifting heavy objects will develop more muscles for doing so, and one that experiences regular bone stress will develop stronger bones in those areas.
I agree that they were exposed to it in the past, probably on a regular basis. There's a reason these fish are air breathers. The ability to move between various shallow ponds really raises the habitat areas for mudskippers, for example.
I don't read AC A human right
I heard that you have to pay them scale.
No brain, no pain.