On the other hand, the main character did not have 'improved' genes, and so he had to falsify his identity to get a job. However, he appeared to be just as competent as all the other people where he worked, perhaps more so. Therin lies the contradiction - why would corporations go through great lengths to exclude people with inferior genes, if those are not real indicators of performance?
I think there is a modern conceit that we are wiser than people in the past. We look at their strange beliefs, and they are obviously strange.
We still believe in "progress".
Look at the strange beliefs of the past. Experts thought blood-letting would purge your body of bad humours. Experts thought flagellation would purge your soul of sin. Experts though you could measure a person's talents and character traits by fondling the bumps on your head. Experts thought masturbation would drive you insane.
Set the time machine forward a couple of generations, my prediction is that our generation will be seen as possessing just as many goofy foibles as past generations.
I know it is just a movie, but look at films like "Back to the Future", and look at how they portray the modern visitor as innately wiser and more insightful than they guys from the past.
...I'd expect to see a post to comp.os.minix that had a single line:
In your face, Tanenbaum!
Linus spoke in Toronto a few years ago. During the question and
answer section I asked him to comment on his 1992 dispute with
Andy Tanenbaum.
His answer was a very polite, gracious one. So, I doubt he would be
gloating.
And, as an earlier poster pointed out, support for minix
in Xfree86 doesn't mean it is dead. Operating systems can be
used for useful stuff, without X.
Why shouldn't minix users just continue to use older versions
of XFree86? Won't most minix users be using it on really old hardware,
with really old ISA video cards? I can't think of a reason for the
minix user to upgrade to the latest version of XFree86.
...and the average American requires over 45,000 pounds of newly-mined minerals every year. I work in the mineral industry, and I am a scientist. This smells like a grant proposal that got by someone. Suckers!
That is an amazing stat. This is the raw ore you are talking about?
Re:The reason for sterility == odd chromosomes?
on
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· Score: 2
I must have been half asleep when I posted this, there is stuff
missing.
There was an article in Scientific American, on mule fertility about 45 years ago. It advanced a theory about Mule fertility, that Mules produce gametes, eggs and sperm, but that almost all of them contain a mixture of Ass and Horse chromosomes. And those would be no good. But occasionally a gamete is produced that has all the
chromosomes
from a single parent. IIRC the theory was that this gamete could be fertilized and brought to term. That offspring would be pure Horse or pure Ass. "One in million" is the estimate of how often a mule brings an offspring to term. Check my math. If this theory is correct
then the chance is more like one in 2^61.
Was it really free trade that caused the collapse of the old Soviet Union? Or was it economic brinksmanship on the part of the Reagan administration?
They're the same thing; the capitalist economy made it possible for the West to force the Soviets into a spending competition that a communist economy simply couldn't win. Their political system collapsed without a fight, infinitely preferable to a military confrontation.
Economic Brinksmanship == free trade? Hmmm.
Your view, that free trade represents the pinnacle of human acheivement is a depressingly widely held one. And, in my opinion,
one based on faith and wishful thinking. As you have observed,
there is a vast gap between the ideal of free trade, and the
corporate cronyism practiced in the first world. It seems to me
that the gap is so vast it could as easily be cited to prove the exact opposite of your belief.
If you can believe things on no evidence, then so can I. I predict
a day will come when the current faith in free trade will be seen
as a quaint superstition.
About the Reagan administration's brinksmanship? They were lucky.
They gambled with our lives. Was it a safe bet? That doesn't
matter. Because they deceived the public.
The USA had bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union. Including
the ABM treaty. SDI would have violated the ABM treaty. If one
believed the hype about SDI its completion would have been
indistinguishable from preparing for a first strike. It would have
been a far more blatant real example of what the Bush junior adminstration is accusing Saddam.
That SDI would have been in violation of the ABM was pointed out
repeatedly. And this is the lie -- Reagan administration officials
kept saying, "that is only true if you use a strict interpretation of the ABM treaty."
It still makes me mad to think of it. A bilateral treaty is not like
a civil contract. There is no higher authority to whom you can
appeal if you think the other party is cheating. It only works to
the extent the two parties trust one another. Changing the rules
in mid-play is a real trust destructor.
Okay, there is a big gap between the ideal of "free trade"
and the reality found in the First World.
Consider this example. If you have been following slashdot you
have had an opportunity to learn about the Recording Industry's
attempts to retain the status quo, where the middlemen who stand
between artists and the public collect all the loot. How do they
do that? Do they get Alicia Keys to appear before Congress? Yes
they do.
Do they have her sit and answer questions before a Congressional
Committee. No, they host a
private concert for congress critters!
Most recently, one of the giants of the recording industry, Clive Davis, came to Washington DC to give Capitol Hill with rising star Alicia Keys to give a crash-course in the intricate and complex process of identifying, nurturing, and developing a star. Clive Davis, the music mogul behind the success of such legends as Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, and Santana, offered Members of Congress and staffers a behind-the-scenes look at this process, and introduced a special private performance by his latest new discovery, Alicia Keys. The night club-style event was presented by the RIAA.
Look at
this picture of your congress-critters rooting at the
trough. Hands up if you think they paid for those drinks you
see them imbibing at this "night club style event".
Is it fair or equitable that congress-critters get offered and
accept freebies from special interests like the RIAA?
This is my opinion of why the old Soviet Union collapsed. In
theory, in the old Soviet Union, everyone was supposed to be really
equal. But, from my reading, I gather that Communist Party members
were extremely privileged.
The Party members rooted at the trough, just like First World
politicians who accept gifts from special interests. Only more so.
Other institutions, like organized religion, which could have
helped balance were destroyed.
The rationalizations that allow someone in power to accept corrupting
freebies is clearly not a quality unique to either Capitalism or
Socialism. There are forces fighting this kind of corruption.
All of you Americans who think this is wrong should write a letter
to your congress-critter telling them so. Explain that you think
they should ignore the blandishments of the RIAA. Tell them you
support the efforts of guys like John McCain.
Let me say something, in this final paragraph, in favour of
Socialism. When I was a kid I was fascinated by cavemen. I read
about the Neanderthal people, and Peking man. And I remember reading
about the discovery of earlier hominids who buried their dead. I
read about how early Anthropologist found these graves contained
individuals whose bones showed they had recovered from crippling
wounds. They had been cared for when they were no longer able to
fully contribute to their group's economy. I read how these graves
contained gifts, and flowers, showing that they had been loved.
I read the interpretation that showing love and concern for others
illustrated a leap of culture from barbarism to full humanity.
And I was convinced. In this interpretation the naked greed,
power-mongering, opportunism and deceit that come with free trade
represent a slide back into barbarism.
The thing that grates on my ear is when people refer to
"other Solar systems".
I think it should be "other stellar systems".
Re:Hybrids: fertile and sterile
on
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· Score: 2
Are there known hybrids/half-breeds can have normal fertility, as opposed to requiring a "miracle" to occur?
Here is an example.
Most of the most widely used cereals are hybrids that breed true.
However, from memory, I think that the number of chromosomes of
triticale and similar hybrids is the sum of the number of chromosomes
in the parent stock, not the average.
If the name triticale rings a bell it may be because Captain Kirk
had to make an emergency delivery of QuadroTriticale in an old
Star Trek episode.
Re:A shot in the dark as to why it happened ...
on
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· Score: 2
However, this mule suffers a form of "mule Down's syndrome" - she only has 62 pairs. The father is a donkey. There is a match in the number of chromosomes.
Could you post your source for this info for the rest of us to read?
The problem... is that the precincts that had the most difficulty in Florida (and did again with Janet "Waco" Reno) were run by DEMOCRATS...
Okay, I am not an American, so maybe someone can explain this
to me?
Why are Federal elections run by local officials? Why don't
you have a Federal election aparatus that can distribute
identical Presidential ballots to every American?
Why are those local officials chosen based on their party
loyalty, not their objectivity, and their knowledge of voting
technology?
Is it true that the election committees in those counties
that used risky voting machines were controlled by
Democrats? I listened to the US news during this time, and
it was my impression that both Republican and Democratic
appointees signed off on the defective ballots. I'd welcome
correction from someone who knows a source on this.
Re:The reason for sterility == odd chromosomes?
on
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· Score: 2
I am not suggesting that the hybrid of an Ass with 62 chromosomes and
a Przewalski's Horse with 66 would breed true just because it would have
64 chromosomes. I was just giving an example of a possible cross
where the infertility would not be due to having an odd number of
chromosomes.
Pairing of the chromosomes being the most important part of genetic structure.
Is it? Can you explain this to me?
First, let me restate this, so I am sure we mean the same thing. You are
saying that paired chromosomes are necessary for an animal to breed true
with its peers, is this correct? You are not saying that having paired
chromosomes are necessary for an offspring to be born, because mules
obviously don't fulfill this condition.
So, how did the proto-equid, that was the ancestor of both Asses and
the Horse split into two species with different numbers of chromosomes?
So, what about Down's syndrome individuals, who have an extra copy
of chromosome 21? They don't fulfill your requirement for an
even number of chromosomes. Yet I don't believe they are sterile.
I heard a lecture about this, when I was in high school. So this
info may be incorrect, and I would welcome correction. That
lecture included slides of individuals born with chromosome
abnormalities. Our chromosomes vary in size. And they are
numbered in order of size. The lecturer showed some individuals
with an abnormality on a larger chromosome. She said that these
individuals were more profoundly affected and had more health
problems and more profound cognitive challenges than Down's
Syndrome individuals. She said that abnormalities on the larger
chromosomes result in problemso profound that the children
are spontaneously aborted before they come to term.
Then there are chromosome abnormality of the X and Y.
Turner's syndrome women lack
a sex chromosome. They have a single X and no Y. They are of normal
intelligence. But they never go through puberty, so they can't have
children. There are people who have XXY and XYY. I don't believe
they are sterile either. Another slashdotter said something about
XXX women - women with three X chromosomes.
Since that lecture I have heard that some Down's symdrome individuals
have only a fraction of the extra 21, and that there are less
profoundly affected than individuals with a full extra chromosome
21.
Genes slip around. They slip from chromosome to chromosome.
I saw a science documentary about how genes were slipping from
the Y to the X. I am not a molecular biologist, but I imagine
that 61 of the 62 chromomosomes of Horses and Asses correspond,
and that sometime after they split into different species one
of the chromosomes split in two. If this was the case, there
would be genes for the same traits in the chromosomes from both
parents, even though they had them on different chromosomes.
There was an article in Scientific American, on mule fertility
about 45 years ago. It advanced a theory about Mule fertility,
that Mules produce gametes, eggs and sperm, but that almost all
of them contain a mixture of Ass and Horse chromosomes. And
those would be no
good. But occasionally a gamete is produced that has all the
gametes from a single parent. IIRC the theory was that that
gamete could be fertilized and brought to term. That offspring
would be pure Horse or pure Ass. "One in million" is the estimate
of how often a mule brings an offspring to term. Check my math.
If this theory is correct
Here is something I don't understand. That documentary said
that some of the genes on the Y are duplicated dozens of times.
So, why does the mere single extra copy of genes in chromosome
21 cause the profound manifestations of Down's? Does each gene
contain the molecular equivalent of an instruction pointer, or
a map of bad sectors?
Hanging chad, pregnant chad? If you haven't read
Douglas Jones's account
of his disassembly and experimentation with you don't
really understand the last US presidential election.
My
interpretation is that he found that the massive undercounting
of Al Gore's votes was a predictable artifact of the machines
chosen and the ballot layout.
If a partisan person, who knew about this defect of the machine,
was designing the layout of the ballot, they could take advantage
of this flaw to skew the election results.
I was under the impression that eight wheel steering greatly
assisted the driver doing things like parallel parking.
I read an article on all-wheel steering about 20 years ago.
It talked about experimental vehicles which switched steering
algorithms depending on what speed you were travelling. At
low speeds steering changed the orientation of the front and
rear wheels in opposite directions. At highway speeds all the
wheels changed direction at once. That could take some
getting used to.
near a big city... your freeway probably has an express section, likely separated from the remainder of the road by concrete barriers. Typically the express lanes of the 401 travel at speeds in excess of 160KPH. Blowing out a tire in one of these lanes is a Very Bad Thing, especially if you happen to be in the middle lane. Getting off to a shoulder is a laudable goal and all, but even that can be one of the most harrowing and dangerous experiences of a motorist's day. When quarter tonne vehicles are travelling past you at that rate of speed...
My city, Toronto, has a highway 401. My experience is that the typical speed in the express lanes is around 120 kph. I don't believe I have ever seen
anyone ever drive at 160 kph, in the city. Early AM? Maybe. And I have
seen people do 160 kph on the inter-city portions however.
The speed limit on expressways here is 100 kph. That is something like
62 mph for you Americans.
Only a madman would drive 160 kph, in the city. Here is a
picture
I just snapped from the traffic camera, at one of the wider
spots. The ministry of Transport says it is a minimum of 12 lanes.
What does this have to do with the electric car? I'd rather have
my tax dollars make sure we had an energy efficient mass transit
system, than enhancing the highway infrastructure.
And, on another point, Longitudinal bench seats seem less safe
for passengers, in a crash. Maybe that is why you need a
professional limousine driver?
Mules are by definition the product of a male donkey and a female horse. You can make the opposite cross (pony stallion + female donkey) but then its called a "jennet".
Close.
With horses, the male is a stallion, the female is the mare.
With donkeys, also known as the ass, the female is the jennet or jenny.
The hybrid of a stallion and a jenny is a "hinny".
Yes, mules come in both male and female. Male mules are almost always
gelded, prior to puberty. There is no advantage to keeping them
intact. And, if they are not gelded they get very aggressive.
Horse mother, donkey sire - offspring is a mule. Donkey mother, horse
sire - offspring is a hinny. Genetically indistinguishable from a mule.
I presume the two different names predate modern genetics.
Mules are stronger, and more intelligent than horses.
Like mules, a hybrid of a zebra and a horse, or a zebra and a donkey, is
infertile. Or a hybrid between any of the three species of zebra.
Fans of breeding exotic hybrids have dreamed up all kinds of "cute" names
for the different crosses. Seems annoying to me.
Breeding exotic hybrids of endangered species seems very irresponsible
to me. But there are people who do it. It seems to me that breeding
a Liger or Tigon means you are wasting the reproductive potential of
the parents. The Quagga is a recently extinct subspecies of Plains
Zebra. There is a project to find Plains Zebras with the most Quagga
like characteristics, and breed them, to try to restore them.
This seems like a bad idea to me too. It seems to me that it makes
more sense to husband the remaing genetic heritage of the Plains Zebra.
The sixth surviving equid is the very rare Przewalskis' Horse.
Extinct in the wild. 150 survive in zoos. Originally found in
Mongolia. It is not too late to try to preserve this animal's genetic
heritage.
Przewalski;s Horse and the three species of zebras
on
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· Score: 2
Przewalski's Horse
is pretty interesting. Something like 150 of these
equids survive. All in zoos. There are people dedicated to trying
to re-introduce them to the wild.
There are three different species of Zebra, including the
Quagga, which genetic analysis shows to be a subspecies
of the Plains zebra.
Re:The reason for sterility == odd chromosomes?
on
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The reason for sterility given in the article has to do with if the hybrid creature has an even number of chromosomes.
The beeb and the British Mule org may have said mules are infertile
because they have an odd number of chromosomes. But I am
skeptical.
Some authorities feel strongly that the Przewalski horse is the ancestor of all modern breeds. Others point out that it is a different species from the domesticated horse, having 66 chromosomes as compared to the 64 of the domestic horse. They further point out that while crosses between the Przewalski and domestic horses result in a fertile hybrid, the offspring has 65 chromosomes. Subsequent crosses result in 64 chromosomes and bear little resemblance to the Przewalski. The Foundation for the preservation and protection of the Przewalski's Horse, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, report that only a few Przewalski horses are tamable, in proportions similar to a Zebra.
So, even if this site is mistaken to say that the 65 chromosome hybrid
is fertile, what if you crossed a 62 chromosome Ass with a 66 chromosome
Przewalski's Horse? That hybrid would have 64 chromosomes. Would that
make it fertile?
No explanation != failure of Science != a miracle
on
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· Score: 5, Funny
Let me tell you about another miracle.
My parents met in Venezuala, working for shell oil, in the late 1940s.
Shell had a company store where the North American employees could buy
stuff you couldn't normally get in Venezuala. They had North American
bungaloes for the North American employees. They had a little school
with a North American teacher (my mom) for their children.
Like other North Americans
my parents had a local cleaning lady. Unlike some of the other North
Americans my parents learned Spanish.
My mom told how she taught Dahlia, how to prepare potatoes North
American style. Including baking them. You peirce the skin so the
steam can escape. I know most people do this by poking them with
a fork. But in my family we cut a small X in the skin.
My mom's spanish wasn't yet sufficient to explain why you cut an
X however.
A couple of days later there was an explosion in the kitchen. Dahlia
is standing over the oven door, covered with exploded baked potatoe.
She was hysterical, and very apologetic. She told my mother that she
realized she must have been very religious. But, she was in a hurry,
and just this once, she thought that God would forgive her if she
blessed the potatoes by putting the sign of the cross in them after
they were baked, not before.
Dahlia couldn't explain this explosion, except to think it was a
miracle. God punished her for not blessing the potatoe with a cross.
So, was it really a miracle? Of course not. Does an inability to
explain a phenomenon mean that it is the reuslt of supernatural
intervention? Of course not.
Not with exploding potatoes, or with unexplained births.
So what is really interesting is whether the offspring are fertile. If so, then we can start breeding mules from mules, and we have a new species.
And where does the infertility in mules normally lie? Is it a male thing or a female thing? Or both?
I looked into this when we discussed
cloning Mammoths, or harvesting
frozen Siberian Mammoth sperm a few months ago.
It was my impression that the very rare offspring of a mule mare and
a horse sire, or a mule mare and a donkey sire, are the same species
as the father. The mule has a mixture of donkey and horse chromosomes.
Sperm and ovum are haploid cells -- they have one chromosome, not a
pair. That is how sexual reproduction works. It was my impression
that most ovum will have a mixture of horse and donkey chromosomes.
But very occasionally, by chance, an ovum will have entirely horse
chromosomes or donkey chromosomes.
Male mules are almost always gelded, to curb their agressiveness.
Hobbyists cross donkeys with zebras. They call the offspring "golden
zebras". Hobbyists cross lions and tigers. These crosses are,
apparently, a bit nuts. Lions are, of course, social. And tigers
are, of course, solitary. The hybrid is drawn both ways.
The Moroccan foal looks a bit like a baby donkey and a bit like a
baby mule - but not exactly like either.
The site I found about crossing cats talked about the differences
between lion tiger crosses where the lion was the mother and when
the tiger was the mother. When the tiger was the mother the hybrid
is larger than a tiger. The maternal influence on the foal's
embryonic environment has an influence on how the genotype is expressed.
Another anecdote. You can tell whether a mule's mother was a horse
or a donkey by putting it in a corral that contained both donkeys
and horses. The mule will go hang out with the kind of animals it
was raised with.
You make a valid point. Arguments of this importance should be based upon the merits of the arguments and not demagoguery. But that takes much more work, and tends to be less fun.
It does take a lot more work. I imagine sosedada spent less than
30 seconds on his proof by assertion. Hunting down those links, and
writing my article, took me half an hour. But it is a worthwhile cause.
Also, your links provide some support to the previous poster's assertion that ozone hole data is meaningless. Your links claim 8 years of fundamentally flawed data. Obviously, there is other, more sound evidence, but your case would be much stronger if you cited different evidence.
After half an hour I decided showing that there was no certainty
was enough.
Dialogue is, I believe, the important thing. Dubya is the person I
would most like to see have his views on Kyoto challenged. Dubya
too, is asserting certainty, based not on knowledge, but on
short term expediency and wishful thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
According to this link the ship was the USS Truxton. Here is a link to a radio show about Lanier Phillips.
I think there is a modern conceit that we are wiser than people in the past. We look at their strange beliefs, and they are obviously strange. We still believe in "progress".
Look at the strange beliefs of the past. Experts thought blood-letting would purge your body of bad humours. Experts thought flagellation would purge your soul of sin. Experts though you could measure a person's talents and character traits by fondling the bumps on your head. Experts thought masturbation would drive you insane.
Set the time machine forward a couple of generations, my prediction is that our generation will be seen as possessing just as many goofy foibles as past generations.
I know it is just a movie, but look at films like " Back to the Future ", and look at how they portray the modern visitor as innately wiser and more insightful than they guys from the past.
His answer was a very polite, gracious one. So, I doubt he would be gloating.
And, as an earlier poster pointed out, support for minix in Xfree86 doesn't mean it is dead. Operating systems can be used for useful stuff, without X.
Why shouldn't minix users just continue to use older versions of XFree86? Won't most minix users be using it on really old hardware, with really old ISA video cards? I can't think of a reason for the minix user to upgrade to the latest version of XFree86.
Here is a link to 2001 KX76 last year's big Kuiper belt object. And here is some more background infor on the Kuiper belt in general.
What I find was that he said he is close to finishing his last novel, that he was going to give up writing.
I found another interview from a few years ago, where he said his recent accident had reduced his writing output by about 50%.
That is an amazing stat. This is the raw ore you are talking about?
Economic Brinksmanship == free trade? Hmmm.
Your view, that free trade represents the pinnacle of human acheivement is a depressingly widely held one. And, in my opinion, one based on faith and wishful thinking. As you have observed, there is a vast gap between the ideal of free trade, and the corporate cronyism practiced in the first world. It seems to me that the gap is so vast it could as easily be cited to prove the exact opposite of your belief.
If you can believe things on no evidence, then so can I. I predict a day will come when the current faith in free trade will be seen as a quaint superstition.
About the Reagan administration's brinksmanship? They were lucky. They gambled with our lives. Was it a safe bet? That doesn't matter. Because they deceived the public.
The USA had bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union. Including the ABM treaty. SDI would have violated the ABM treaty. If one believed the hype about SDI its completion would have been indistinguishable from preparing for a first strike. It would have been a far more blatant real example of what the Bush junior adminstration is accusing Saddam.
That SDI would have been in violation of the ABM was pointed out repeatedly. And this is the lie -- Reagan administration officials kept saying, "that is only true if you use a strict interpretation of the ABM treaty."
It still makes me mad to think of it. A bilateral treaty is not like a civil contract. There is no higher authority to whom you can appeal if you think the other party is cheating. It only works to the extent the two parties trust one another. Changing the rules in mid-play is a real trust destructor.
Okay, there is a big gap between the ideal of "free trade" and the reality found in the First World. Consider this example. If you have been following slashdot you have had an opportunity to learn about the Recording Industry's attempts to retain the status quo, where the middlemen who stand between artists and the public collect all the loot. How do they do that? Do they get Alicia Keys to appear before Congress? Yes they do.
Do they have her sit and answer questions before a Congressional Committee. No, they host a private concert for congress critters!
Look at this picture of your congress-critters rooting at the trough. Hands up if you think they paid for those drinks you see them imbibing at this "night club style event".
Is it fair or equitable that congress-critters get offered and accept freebies from special interests like the RIAA?
This is my opinion of why the old Soviet Union collapsed. In theory, in the old Soviet Union, everyone was supposed to be really equal. But, from my reading, I gather that Communist Party members were extremely privileged.
The Party members rooted at the trough, just like First World politicians who accept gifts from special interests. Only more so. Other institutions, like organized religion, which could have helped balance were destroyed.
The rationalizations that allow someone in power to accept corrupting freebies is clearly not a quality unique to either Capitalism or Socialism. There are forces fighting this kind of corruption. All of you Americans who think this is wrong should write a letter to your congress-critter telling them so. Explain that you think they should ignore the blandishments of the RIAA. Tell them you support the efforts of guys like John McCain.
Let me say something, in this final paragraph, in favour of Socialism. When I was a kid I was fascinated by cavemen. I read about the Neanderthal people, and Peking man. And I remember reading about the discovery of earlier hominids who buried their dead. I read about how early Anthropologist found these graves contained individuals whose bones showed they had recovered from crippling wounds. They had been cared for when they were no longer able to fully contribute to their group's economy. I read how these graves contained gifts, and flowers, showing that they had been loved. I read the interpretation that showing love and concern for others illustrated a leap of culture from barbarism to full humanity. And I was convinced. In this interpretation the naked greed, power-mongering, opportunism and deceit that come with free trade represent a slide back into barbarism.
The thing that grates on my ear is when people refer to "other Solar systems". I think it should be "other stellar systems".
Here is an example . Most of the most widely used cereals are hybrids that breed true. However, from memory, I think that the number of chromosomes of triticale and similar hybrids is the sum of the number of chromosomes in the parent stock, not the average.
If the name triticale rings a bell it may be because Captain Kirk had to make an emergency delivery of QuadroTriticale in an old Star Trek episode.
Could you post your source for this info for the rest of us to read?
Okay, I am not an American, so maybe someone can explain this to me?
Why are Federal elections run by local officials? Why don't you have a Federal election aparatus that can distribute identical Presidential ballots to every American?
Why are those local officials chosen based on their party loyalty, not their objectivity, and their knowledge of voting technology?
Is it true that the election committees in those counties that used risky voting machines were controlled by Democrats? I listened to the US news during this time, and it was my impression that both Republican and Democratic appointees signed off on the defective ballots. I'd welcome correction from someone who knows a source on this.
Is it? Can you explain this to me?
First, let me restate this, so I am sure we mean the same thing. You are saying that paired chromosomes are necessary for an animal to breed true with its peers, is this correct? You are not saying that having paired chromosomes are necessary for an offspring to be born, because mules obviously don't fulfill this condition.
So, how did the proto-equid, that was the ancestor of both Asses and the Horse split into two species with different numbers of chromosomes?
So, what about Down's syndrome individuals, who have an extra copy of chromosome 21? They don't fulfill your requirement for an even number of chromosomes. Yet I don't believe they are sterile.
Like MS-Windows programs, our chromosomes contain a lot of code bloat.
I heard a lecture about this, when I was in high school. So this info may be incorrect, and I would welcome correction. That lecture included slides of individuals born with chromosome abnormalities. Our chromosomes vary in size. And they are numbered in order of size. The lecturer showed some individuals with an abnormality on a larger chromosome. She said that these individuals were more profoundly affected and had more health problems and more profound cognitive challenges than Down's Syndrome individuals. She said that abnormalities on the larger chromosomes result in problemso profound that the children are spontaneously aborted before they come to term.
Then there are chromosome abnormality of the X and Y. Turner's syndrome women lack a sex chromosome. They have a single X and no Y. They are of normal intelligence. But they never go through puberty, so they can't have children. There are people who have XXY and XYY. I don't believe they are sterile either. Another slashdotter said something about XXX women - women with three X chromosomes.
Since that lecture I have heard that some Down's symdrome individuals have only a fraction of the extra 21, and that there are less profoundly affected than individuals with a full extra chromosome 21.
Genes slip around. They slip from chromosome to chromosome. I saw a science documentary about how genes were slipping from the Y to the X. I am not a molecular biologist, but I imagine that 61 of the 62 chromomosomes of Horses and Asses correspond, and that sometime after they split into different species one of the chromosomes split in two. If this was the case, there would be genes for the same traits in the chromosomes from both parents, even though they had them on different chromosomes.
There was an article in Scientific American, on mule fertility about 45 years ago. It advanced a theory about Mule fertility, that Mules produce gametes, eggs and sperm, but that almost all of them contain a mixture of Ass and Horse chromosomes. And those would be no good. But occasionally a gamete is produced that has all the gametes from a single parent. IIRC the theory was that that gamete could be fertilized and brought to term. That offspring would be pure Horse or pure Ass. "One in million" is the estimate of how often a mule brings an offspring to term. Check my math. If this theory is correct
Here is something I don't understand. That documentary said that some of the genes on the Y are duplicated dozens of times. So, why does the mere single extra copy of genes in chromosome 21 cause the profound manifestations of Down's? Does each gene contain the molecular equivalent of an instruction pointer, or a map of bad sectors?
My interpretation is that he found that the massive undercounting of Al Gore's votes was a predictable artifact of the machines chosen and the ballot layout.
If a partisan person, who knew about this defect of the machine, was designing the layout of the ballot, they could take advantage of this flaw to skew the election results.
I read an article on all-wheel steering about 20 years ago. It talked about experimental vehicles which switched steering algorithms depending on what speed you were travelling. At low speeds steering changed the orientation of the front and rear wheels in opposite directions. At highway speeds all the wheels changed direction at once. That could take some getting used to.
My city, Toronto, has a highway 401. My experience is that the typical speed in the express lanes is around 120 kph. I don't believe I have ever seen anyone ever drive at 160 kph, in the city. Early AM? Maybe. And I have seen people do 160 kph on the inter-city portions however.
The speed limit on expressways here is 100 kph. That is something like 62 mph for you Americans.
Only a madman would drive 160 kph, in the city. Here is a picture I just snapped from the traffic camera, at one of the wider spots. The ministry of Transport says it is a minimum of 12 lanes.
What does this have to do with the electric car? I'd rather have my tax dollars make sure we had an energy efficient mass transit system, than enhancing the highway infrastructure.
And, on another point, Longitudinal bench seats seem less safe for passengers, in a crash. Maybe that is why you need a professional limousine driver?
Deterministic Finite Botany?
Close.
With horses, the male is a stallion, the female is the mare. With donkeys, also known as the ass, the female is the jennet or jenny.
The hybrid of a stallion and a jenny is a "hinny".
Horse mother, donkey sire - offspring is a mule. Donkey mother, horse sire - offspring is a hinny. Genetically indistinguishable from a mule. I presume the two different names predate modern genetics.
Mules are stronger, and more intelligent than horses.
Like mules, a hybrid of a zebra and a horse, or a zebra and a donkey, is infertile. Or a hybrid between any of the three species of zebra.
Fans of breeding exotic hybrids have dreamed up all kinds of "cute" names for the different crosses. Seems annoying to me.
Breeding exotic hybrids of endangered species seems very irresponsible to me. But there are people who do it. It seems to me that breeding a Liger or Tigon means you are wasting the reproductive potential of the parents. The Quagga is a recently extinct subspecies of Plains Zebra. There is a project to find Plains Zebras with the most Quagga like characteristics, and breed them, to try to restore them.
This seems like a bad idea to me too. It seems to me that it makes more sense to husband the remaing genetic heritage of the Plains Zebra.
The sixth surviving equid is the very rare Przewalskis' Horse. Extinct in the wild. 150 survive in zoos. Originally found in Mongolia. It is not too late to try to preserve this animal's genetic heritage.
There are three different species of Zebra, including the Quagga , which genetic analysis shows to be a subspecies of the Plains zebra.
The beeb and the British Mule org may have said mules are infertile because they have an odd number of chromosomes. But I am skeptical.
Here is an excerpt from a page about the Przewalski Horse
So, even if this site is mistaken to say that the 65 chromosome hybrid is fertile, what if you crossed a 62 chromosome Ass with a 66 chromosome Przewalski's Horse? That hybrid would have 64 chromosomes. Would that make it fertile?
My parents met in Venezuala, working for shell oil, in the late 1940s. Shell had a company store where the North American employees could buy stuff you couldn't normally get in Venezuala. They had North American bungaloes for the North American employees. They had a little school with a North American teacher (my mom) for their children.
Like other North Americans my parents had a local cleaning lady. Unlike some of the other North Americans my parents learned Spanish.
My mom told how she taught Dahlia, how to prepare potatoes North American style. Including baking them. You peirce the skin so the steam can escape. I know most people do this by poking them with a fork. But in my family we cut a small X in the skin.
My mom's spanish wasn't yet sufficient to explain why you cut an X however.
A couple of days later there was an explosion in the kitchen. Dahlia is standing over the oven door, covered with exploded baked potatoe.
She was hysterical, and very apologetic. She told my mother that she realized she must have been very religious. But, she was in a hurry, and just this once, she thought that God would forgive her if she blessed the potatoes by putting the sign of the cross in them after they were baked, not before.
Dahlia couldn't explain this explosion, except to think it was a miracle. God punished her for not blessing the potatoe with a cross.
So, was it really a miracle? Of course not. Does an inability to explain a phenomenon mean that it is the reuslt of supernatural intervention? Of course not. Not with exploding potatoes, or with unexplained births.
I looked into this when we discussed cloning Mammoths, or harvesting frozen Siberian Mammoth sperm a few months ago.
It was my impression that the very rare offspring of a mule mare and a horse sire, or a mule mare and a donkey sire, are the same species as the father. The mule has a mixture of donkey and horse chromosomes. Sperm and ovum are haploid cells -- they have one chromosome, not a pair. That is how sexual reproduction works. It was my impression that most ovum will have a mixture of horse and donkey chromosomes. But very occasionally, by chance, an ovum will have entirely horse chromosomes or donkey chromosomes.
Male mules are almost always gelded, to curb their agressiveness.
Hobbyists cross donkeys with zebras. They call the offspring "golden zebras". Hobbyists cross lions and tigers. These crosses are, apparently, a bit nuts. Lions are, of course, social. And tigers are, of course, solitary. The hybrid is drawn both ways.
The site I found about crossing cats talked about the differences between lion tiger crosses where the lion was the mother and when the tiger was the mother. When the tiger was the mother the hybrid is larger than a tiger. The maternal influence on the foal's embryonic environment has an influence on how the genotype is expressed.
Another anecdote. You can tell whether a mule's mother was a horse or a donkey by putting it in a corral that contained both donkeys and horses. The mule will go hang out with the kind of animals it was raised with.
It does take a lot more work. I imagine sosedada spent less than 30 seconds on his proof by assertion. Hunting down those links, and writing my article, took me half an hour. But it is a worthwhile cause.
After half an hour I decided showing that there was no certainty was enough.
Dialogue is, I believe, the important thing. Dubya is the person I would most like to see have his views on Kyoto challenged. Dubya too, is asserting certainty, based not on knowledge, but on short term expediency and wishful thinking.
The Yuri Rubinski award was worth $10,000.