But there are documented cases of hybrids being fertile.
Mules can be fertile, but it's rare.
Coyotes and wolves are different species, and can interbreed (I left out dogs because dogs are a subspecies of wolves).
Etc.
So the question is: how many viable and fertile offspring were produced? And was it enough to have their genes make it into modern human's genes?
The problem with these categories is that currently, many of the "High IQ" students would fall in the "Undisciplined" category because they aren't being challenged, thus they screw around because they are bored to tears. In fact, most of the "gifted students" are like this.
These students need to be challenged to reach their potential. Instead of 100 easy, boring, repetitive math problems, they need 5-10 interesting, challenging math problems.
I was a screw-off gifted student until I went to private school for my last 2 years of high school. In easy public school classes, I was getting B's and C's. When I went to private school, the classes were actually somewhat challenging and the grading scale was much harder (95% was a B), but I got nearly straight A's.
In our current public school systems, gifted students get the shaft. Gifted students are considered special education for a reason: they need altered coursework to thrive just like the opposite end (i.e. "slow") special education kids do.
Increasing quantity of crap is just more crap. We need to increase the QUALITY of educate. And get rid of the stupid "no child left behind". And teach kids how to think and about subject matter, not just how to do well on standardized tests.
I find that a lot of the guys in the "normal" BMI are too skinny for my taste. (I'm really trying to not sound superficial here, but we are talking about physical appearance.) I prefer guys that are toned and have a little bit of meat on their bones. Not fat, just not too skinny. Brad Pitt has an excellent body, definitely the type of build I prefer, but on the BMI scale, he's "overweight".
My BMI puts me in the "underweight" group. I find that odd, too. I can't imagine myself being much heavier than I currently am.
I've edited the papillon dog page before, and despite the information I added/changed being clearly cited to reptuable sources such as the AKC or Papillon Club of America, it always gets deleted or changed.
Yep, just checked it again. Full of information that is either half-true or false.
- Tri-color the least common? Wrong, it's one of the most common colors. Lemon would be, by far, the least common color acceptable in conformation.
- The breed is far older than any other represented by the AKC? Very wrong. The sight hounds (greyhounds, saluki, etc) are much older. Papillons have been around for several hundred years, but some of the sighthounds have been around over 1000-2000 years.
- Etc.
I don't know if it's people wanting to up their post counts, or just the pre-teens who love dogs and think they know everything about their "favorite breed of the week" after they looked at a website or watched a TV show. Either way, it's not accurate information they are putting out there.
When I went through the interview and phase 1 testing process for the FBI they informed us that as we went through their hiring process, our credit scores would be checked. Why? Because if someone is struggling with their finances, they're more tempted to sell classified information.
Some of their undercover cops... even shoot "gang style" (holding their pistol sideways).
And this is why I take responsibility for my own protection.... (I'm not putting down all police, I have friends that are cops and are great at what they do. But there's also some cops that I wonder how the heck someone decided to let them in.)
How's that any different from the people that go to a shooting range or go hunting frequently? Or those that shoot competitively, such as trap/skeet shooting or on a competitive pistol team? They are used to real guns.
Now I personally think that using real guns for video game entertainment is a bit silly, but I don't think it's something to be concerned about the people turning dangerous.
"Personal equipment is not permitted on any DoD network by policy, only GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) is permitted."
Very true. My sister is in the military, she can't as much as use her personal jump drive to transfer files from work to home or visa versa, it all must be done via email.
Where I went to college it was also based on 10% increments. (And I was in heaven with that grading scale! I went to a private high school where the lowest "A" was 96%!)
Nope, I've never heard of a college guaranteeing a job to graduates. They have resources to help students find a job, but colleges are not job placement agencies. If students want help finding a job, it's their responsibility to go talk to career counselors or use other resources provided to them by the college. The college makes those resources available, it's the student's fault if the student doesn't use them.
If a student thinks that their college will also find jobs for every student that graduates (a) they are in la-la land and (b) I wonder how they got into college to begin with!
Many of my neighbors were feedlot owners, they did the same thing. Cutting and baling the ditching, buying byproducts from other agriculture industry, etc.
I grew up on a farm, a significant portion of the hay we fed our animals was from the ditches along the sides of the road. Farmers can sign up for a stretch of ditch, cut it and bale it up for their livestock. It's a win-win, too, because the county doesn't have to pay someone to mow the ditches.
Livestock also get byproducts, one example is apple pulp; once the apples are crushed to make juice or cider, the pulp remains, that pulp isn't thrown away, it's sold to farmers.
Also, land cannot be farmed every year, it's too hard on the soil. You have to rotate crops and summerfallow. And land used for raising cattle is typically land that is not ideal for raising crops.
(Just the 2 cents of a farm girl turned computer programmer....)
Or perhaps many people are drawing the same conclusion.
Obama is a socialist at best, perhaps even a communist.
Have you looked at the people Obama has surrounded himself with and hand-picked to be in positions? His "Green Czar" is a self-admitted communist. His "Science Czar" wants to put birth control in the water and force women to have abortions. His "Regulatory Czar" is an animal rights nut-job. The list goes on!
Sure you learn a lot from disecting a frog, but I'm still waiting to see a job listing that has frog disection as a skill requirement.
If the student is interested in being a doctor, veterinarian, biologist, etc., then dissecting a frog is an introduction to a "real-world" field. It may not be listed as a job requirement, but it's part of the knowledge that people in various professions need.
We learn a large amount of information in school that we don't need for our jobs, but it's good to have an overview of how various things work and have some knowledge of the world. Do we really need to know how to write a sonnet? Or who was the general at battle X during war Y? Or how to calculate the speed of an object when it hits the group when dropped from Z feet? Maybe not necessarily for your job, but having general knowledge of the world around you is a good thing.
Schools are not adequately providing education for students.
We need to stop blindly passing all students up through the grades, regardless if they have learned the material or not. Some ideas to improve education actually would condone/reward this behavior. For example, if teachers were paid based on how their students performed on standardized tests that year, and if they have slow students that should be held back a year, they aren't going to want to do it.
And we also need to concentrate on gifted students and teaching styles that benefit them. I'm all for having a "slow" class and a "fast" class. Yes, there are AP classes in high school, but in junior high and grade school, everyone is kept at the same level. The lack of challenges for gifted students often contributes to them lacking drive and motivation.
According to the article, both my alternate fields (psychology and veterinary medicine) are also underrepresented by women. I find that odd, I would think that the nurturing/guidance aspect of those type of careers, along with the flexibility if you have your own practice, would be appealing to more women.
I work to live, not live to work. I did choose a technical field, I'm a web developer. It appealed to me because of the problem solving aspect. (If I would have chosen a non-technical field, I would have gone into psychology or veterinary medicine. Both of those fields would fit the stereotypical "woman choices".)
When I do have children, I desire to be a stay-at-home mom until my kids are in school. I feel those first few years are very important in a child's development, I want to be the one raising my children, not some day-care worker.
But then we couldn't say that the reason some Americans can't find the US on a map is because the children in South Africa and The Iraq don't have maps!
Re:Dogs follow the same rules of genetics
on
Designer Babies
·
· Score: 1
How would you find dogs that are "free of genetic issues"? It's too expensive to routinely sequence the DNA of pets, and we haven't yet identified the genes that code for many rare genetic disorders.
There are tests done on the dogs before they are bred to see if they have certain problems or not. For example, many large-breed dogs are prone to hip dysplasia, so before breeding the dog, breeders have the hips xrayed and examined. The results are then sent to a group such as OFA or PennHip that issue a score. If the dog is found to have bad hips, they are not bred.
Depending on the breed, there are different tests done. For example, my breed (papillons) don't get their hips tested because there has never been a papillon found to have hip dysplasia. Papillons are screened for luxating patellas (OFA) and have their eyes tested (CERF).
And yes, there are even DNA tests. Such as the test for Von Willebrand Disease, which is common in dobermans.
Also, since we have pedigrees of dogs, we can sometimes trace back certain genetic health issues to a specific dog or breeding line. Breeders that have dogs descended from the line that is linked to the genetic health issue know to more carefully research pedigrees of potential matings. And they can even be part of the solution by donating blood from their dogs to research to see if there can be a test developed to screen for the issue if there isn't already.
When problems within a breed are found to affect most of the breed, there are things done to remedy it above and beyond the standard health testing. For example, the Kennel Club approves breeder miniature bull terriers and bull terriers, both with all the proper health tests done, to try to weed out the genetic health problems in one of the two breeds (can't remember which one off the top of my head).
I'm not saying that dogs (regardless of purebred or mutt) don't have some health problems. But it's not nearly as widespread as it's made out to be, and it's on the decline if you look at the statistics. Shows like BBC's 'Pedigree Dogs Exposed' make it seem like every show-dog is the product of a brother-sister mating, that all purebred dogs are riddled with diseases, and that breeders are evil people that kill any puppy that isn't pretty enough. In reality, it's sensationalism, they find a few bad apples and make it seem like that's the norm. Yet that's what the general public has come to believe.
Reputable dog breeders care about their dogs' health first. There's no point in pouring in tens of thousands of dollars into a breeding line of unhealthy dogs. (Especially when your reputation of doing so gets out, and the rest of the people in your breed-community exile you.) A good breeder breeds for the whole package: conformation, health, temperament, and working-ability (where appropriate).
A certain amount of line-breeding can lock in desirable traits and lock out bad traits. (And yes, if done incorrectly, it can lock in bad traits if they are double-up on. Which is why it's important that line-breeding only be done by experienced breeders and with top-of-the-line dogs.)
Re:Dogs follow the same rules of genetics
on
Designer Babies
·
· Score: 1
My apologies that the article wasn't a "scientific article", it was a generalized lay-mans explanation and should be taken as such.
Puppies cannot have genes that the parents DON'T have. It isn't possible.
Hasn't Jennie Chen heard of mutation?
For all intensive purposes of dog breeding, you assume that the parents are passing on their genes. When you plan a litter, you look at both dogs and the pedigree of both dogs, study the breeding lines, etc. If there is something about the animal being bred that you would like to improve on, you look to pair that animal up with an animal that is strong on that feature. (For example: in my breed, papillons, American dogs tend to have great ears, and European dogs have great coats, so many American breeders breed into European lines to get the better coat (not that the American coat is "wrong", just the European is "better").)
You don't double-up faults and hope for a mutation. You do set up breedings to weight the dice in your favor of getting a good roll (in conformation, health, temperament, etc).
What happens when you mix 2 bad sets of genes? You get puppies with bad genes! Duh! 2 unhealthy parents don't make 1 healthy puppy, unless it was a miracle.
While that is a bit exaggerated, it is rooted in logic. If you breed 2 dogs, both with hip dysplasia, the offspring have a higher chance of having dysplastic hips.
When you breed animals free from genetic issues, you have a much better chance for offspring that are free from genetic issues.
Slashdot Mirror
This man had a plastic fork in his lung: http://www.kpic.com/news/national/59730562.html
But there are documented cases of hybrids being fertile.
Mules can be fertile, but it's rare.
Coyotes and wolves are different species, and can interbreed (I left out dogs because dogs are a subspecies of wolves).
Etc.
So the question is: how many viable and fertile offspring were produced? And was it enough to have their genes make it into modern human's genes?
The problem with these categories is that currently, many of the "High IQ" students would fall in the "Undisciplined" category because they aren't being challenged, thus they screw around because they are bored to tears. In fact, most of the "gifted students" are like this.
These students need to be challenged to reach their potential. Instead of 100 easy, boring, repetitive math problems, they need 5-10 interesting, challenging math problems.
I was a screw-off gifted student until I went to private school for my last 2 years of high school. In easy public school classes, I was getting B's and C's. When I went to private school, the classes were actually somewhat challenging and the grading scale was much harder (95% was a B), but I got nearly straight A's.
In our current public school systems, gifted students get the shaft. Gifted students are considered special education for a reason: they need altered coursework to thrive just like the opposite end (i.e. "slow") special education kids do.
Increasing quantity of crap is just more crap. We need to increase the QUALITY of educate. And get rid of the stupid "no child left behind". And teach kids how to think and about subject matter, not just how to do well on standardized tests.
I find that a lot of the guys in the "normal" BMI are too skinny for my taste. (I'm really trying to not sound superficial here, but we are talking about physical appearance.) I prefer guys that are toned and have a little bit of meat on their bones. Not fat, just not too skinny. Brad Pitt has an excellent body, definitely the type of build I prefer, but on the BMI scale, he's "overweight".
My BMI puts me in the "underweight" group. I find that odd, too. I can't imagine myself being much heavier than I currently am.
And I thought I recall citing Encylopedia entries in my day, but that might have been in grade school.
If it was in anything OTHER than grade school, your instructor wasn't worth his or her salt.
I've edited the papillon dog page before, and despite the information I added/changed being clearly cited to reptuable sources such as the AKC or Papillon Club of America, it always gets deleted or changed.
Yep, just checked it again. Full of information that is either half-true or false.
- Tri-color the least common? Wrong, it's one of the most common colors. Lemon would be, by far, the least common color acceptable in conformation.
- The breed is far older than any other represented by the AKC? Very wrong. The sight hounds (greyhounds, saluki, etc) are much older. Papillons have been around for several hundred years, but some of the sighthounds have been around over 1000-2000 years.
- Etc.
I don't know if it's people wanting to up their post counts, or just the pre-teens who love dogs and think they know everything about their "favorite breed of the week" after they looked at a website or watched a TV show. Either way, it's not accurate information they are putting out there.
When I went through the interview and phase 1 testing process for the FBI they informed us that as we went through their hiring process, our credit scores would be checked. Why? Because if someone is struggling with their finances, they're more tempted to sell classified information.
Some of their undercover cops ... even shoot "gang style" (holding their pistol sideways).
And this is why I take responsibility for my own protection....
(I'm not putting down all police, I have friends that are cops and are great at what they do. But there's also some cops that I wonder how the heck someone decided to let them in.)
How's that any different from the people that go to a shooting range or go hunting frequently? Or those that shoot competitively, such as trap/skeet shooting or on a competitive pistol team? They are used to real guns.
Now I personally think that using real guns for video game entertainment is a bit silly, but I don't think it's something to be concerned about the people turning dangerous.
"Personal equipment is not permitted on any DoD network by policy, only GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) is permitted."
Very true. My sister is in the military, she can't as much as use her personal jump drive to transfer files from work to home or visa versa, it all must be done via email.
Where I went to college it was also based on 10% increments. (And I was in heaven with that grading scale! I went to a private high school where the lowest "A" was 96%!)
Nope, I've never heard of a college guaranteeing a job to graduates. They have resources to help students find a job, but colleges are not job placement agencies. If students want help finding a job, it's their responsibility to go talk to career counselors or use other resources provided to them by the college. The college makes those resources available, it's the student's fault if the student doesn't use them.
If a student thinks that their college will also find jobs for every student that graduates (a) they are in la-la land and (b) I wonder how they got into college to begin with!
Many of my neighbors were feedlot owners, they did the same thing. Cutting and baling the ditching, buying byproducts from other agriculture industry, etc.
Diet with Some Meat Uses Less Land than Vegetarian Diets - http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/534100
Myth #1: Meat consumption contributes to famine and depletes the Earth's natural resources. - http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtvegetarianism.html#1
Animal farming is an efficient use of land - http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#link1
I grew up on a farm, a significant portion of the hay we fed our animals was from the ditches along the sides of the road. Farmers can sign up for a stretch of ditch, cut it and bale it up for their livestock. It's a win-win, too, because the county doesn't have to pay someone to mow the ditches.
Livestock also get byproducts, one example is apple pulp; once the apples are crushed to make juice or cider, the pulp remains, that pulp isn't thrown away, it's sold to farmers.
Also, land cannot be farmed every year, it's too hard on the soil. You have to rotate crops and summerfallow. And land used for raising cattle is typically land that is not ideal for raising crops.
(Just the 2 cents of a farm girl turned computer programmer....)
Or perhaps many people are drawing the same conclusion.
Obama is a socialist at best, perhaps even a communist.
Have you looked at the people Obama has surrounded himself with and hand-picked to be in positions? His "Green Czar" is a self-admitted communist. His "Science Czar" wants to put birth control in the water and force women to have abortions. His "Regulatory Czar" is an animal rights nut-job. The list goes on!
Obama needs to quit trying to be "Mr. Joe Cool" and act like a President.
Sure you learn a lot from disecting a frog, but I'm still waiting to see a job listing that has frog disection as a skill requirement.
If the student is interested in being a doctor, veterinarian, biologist, etc., then dissecting a frog is an introduction to a "real-world" field. It may not be listed as a job requirement, but it's part of the knowledge that people in various professions need.
We learn a large amount of information in school that we don't need for our jobs, but it's good to have an overview of how various things work and have some knowledge of the world. Do we really need to know how to write a sonnet? Or who was the general at battle X during war Y? Or how to calculate the speed of an object when it hits the group when dropped from Z feet? Maybe not necessarily for your job, but having general knowledge of the world around you is a good thing.
Schools are not adequately providing education for students.
We need to stop blindly passing all students up through the grades, regardless if they have learned the material or not. Some ideas to improve education actually would condone/reward this behavior. For example, if teachers were paid based on how their students performed on standardized tests that year, and if they have slow students that should be held back a year, they aren't going to want to do it.
And we also need to concentrate on gifted students and teaching styles that benefit them. I'm all for having a "slow" class and a "fast" class. Yes, there are AP classes in high school, but in junior high and grade school, everyone is kept at the same level. The lack of challenges for gifted students often contributes to them lacking drive and motivation.
According to the article, both my alternate fields (psychology and veterinary medicine) are also underrepresented by women. I find that odd, I would think that the nurturing/guidance aspect of those type of careers, along with the flexibility if you have your own practice, would be appealing to more women.
I work to live, not live to work. I did choose a technical field, I'm a web developer. It appealed to me because of the problem solving aspect. (If I would have chosen a non-technical field, I would have gone into psychology or veterinary medicine. Both of those fields would fit the stereotypical "woman choices".)
When I do have children, I desire to be a stay-at-home mom until my kids are in school. I feel those first few years are very important in a child's development, I want to be the one raising my children, not some day-care worker.
But then we couldn't say that the reason some Americans can't find the US on a map is because the children in South Africa and The Iraq don't have maps!
How would you find dogs that are "free of genetic issues"? It's too expensive to routinely sequence the DNA of pets, and we haven't yet identified the genes that code for many rare genetic disorders.
There are tests done on the dogs before they are bred to see if they have certain problems or not. For example, many large-breed dogs are prone to hip dysplasia, so before breeding the dog, breeders have the hips xrayed and examined. The results are then sent to a group such as OFA or PennHip that issue a score. If the dog is found to have bad hips, they are not bred.
Depending on the breed, there are different tests done. For example, my breed (papillons) don't get their hips tested because there has never been a papillon found to have hip dysplasia. Papillons are screened for luxating patellas (OFA) and have their eyes tested (CERF).
And yes, there are even DNA tests. Such as the test for Von Willebrand Disease, which is common in dobermans.
Also, since we have pedigrees of dogs, we can sometimes trace back certain genetic health issues to a specific dog or breeding line. Breeders that have dogs descended from the line that is linked to the genetic health issue know to more carefully research pedigrees of potential matings. And they can even be part of the solution by donating blood from their dogs to research to see if there can be a test developed to screen for the issue if there isn't already.
When problems within a breed are found to affect most of the breed, there are things done to remedy it above and beyond the standard health testing. For example, the Kennel Club approves breeder miniature bull terriers and bull terriers, both with all the proper health tests done, to try to weed out the genetic health problems in one of the two breeds (can't remember which one off the top of my head).
I'm not saying that dogs (regardless of purebred or mutt) don't have some health problems. But it's not nearly as widespread as it's made out to be, and it's on the decline if you look at the statistics. Shows like BBC's 'Pedigree Dogs Exposed' make it seem like every show-dog is the product of a brother-sister mating, that all purebred dogs are riddled with diseases, and that breeders are evil people that kill any puppy that isn't pretty enough. In reality, it's sensationalism, they find a few bad apples and make it seem like that's the norm. Yet that's what the general public has come to believe.
Reputable dog breeders care about their dogs' health first. There's no point in pouring in tens of thousands of dollars into a breeding line of unhealthy dogs. (Especially when your reputation of doing so gets out, and the rest of the people in your breed-community exile you.) A good breeder breeds for the whole package: conformation, health, temperament, and working-ability (where appropriate).
A certain amount of line-breeding can lock in desirable traits and lock out bad traits. (And yes, if done incorrectly, it can lock in bad traits if they are double-up on. Which is why it's important that line-breeding only be done by experienced breeders and with top-of-the-line dogs.)
Puppies cannot have genes that the parents DON'T have. It isn't possible. Hasn't Jennie Chen heard of mutation?
For all intensive purposes of dog breeding, you assume that the parents are passing on their genes. When you plan a litter, you look at both dogs and the pedigree of both dogs, study the breeding lines, etc. If there is something about the animal being bred that you would like to improve on, you look to pair that animal up with an animal that is strong on that feature. (For example: in my breed, papillons, American dogs tend to have great ears, and European dogs have great coats, so many American breeders breed into European lines to get the better coat (not that the American coat is "wrong", just the European is "better").)
You don't double-up faults and hope for a mutation. You do set up breedings to weight the dice in your favor of getting a good roll (in conformation, health, temperament, etc).
What happens when you mix 2 bad sets of genes? You get puppies with bad genes! Duh! 2 unhealthy parents don't make 1 healthy puppy, unless it was a miracle.
While that is a bit exaggerated, it is rooted in logic. If you breed 2 dogs, both with hip dysplasia, the offspring have a higher chance of having dysplastic hips.
When you breed animals free from genetic issues, you have a much better chance for offspring that are free from genetic issues.