Pinky: "Gee, Brain, what should we do tonight?"
Brain: "The same thing we do every night Pinky."
Pinky: "What's that Brain?"
Brain: "Try to take over the world!"... WITH MY TOY CAR!!!
They should have constructed a mini treadmill (complete with moving walls) --seriously-- to see if the ants with normal legs still walk the same distance for a reward. That would really drive there point home.
Thank you for your detailed response. However, I'm not sure you address the question that I posed in full, "What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?"" Unfortunately, I think my title was a little too attention-getting for its own good and seemed to derail the discussion into the pros and cons of DDT with almost no attention being given to mutant mosquitoes vs DDT. Poor wording on my part.
Although it is interesting to me that you consider "use DDT or have malaria" a false dilemma. It's true that from a scientific perspective it is a false dilemma. However, this is precisely the dilemma that Tanzania seems to be wrapped up in. Or at least some officials within their government consider it a true dilemma. I mean, it isn't like they changed its usage label, they have moved it from a banned substance and then reversed their earlier decision. Why? Are the other methods not working without it?
I love Tanzania, I have a friend in Arusha. I understand what you are saying. My question, expectedly, lit a fire under some people. This was exactly the response I was planning for. I think it is all too easy for the "western world" to forget about what diseases have the greatest toll on our world's population and cause us the most collective misery. With the Tanzanian government seeming unsure about what to do and how to proceed, I was thinking it might be healthy to stir up debate (as best as I can) and maybe get some people who care to act. I am more than willing to take the punches if it does nothing more than improves an awareness of the issue. Seemed worth a try.
Everyone is well aware of the impact malaria has on our planet. Tanzania has been flip-flopping back and forth on whether or not to use DDT even though a lot of their citizens have died and are dying from it. My question and is, "What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?" The bias in my question is more in line with my skeptical feelings toward genetically modified mosquitoes. I probably could have given it a better title. But, frankly, I wasn't too confident that slash was even going to post it. I think, and not too surprisingly, that most readers didn't go past the title. Oh well.
Man... It was just a question. And, I thought, a timely one at that. By the way I'm an entomologist and I'm interested in what these readers think and less about what their opinion is.
I don't shop at any X-marts. Still many of the products that make it into my home are not "made in the US". And besides, even if the label says "made in USA" I'm not entirely sure what that means anymore. My point is that most "fair trade" arguments don't carry much salt in my book because there is no such thing. I've never studied international trade formally, but I say that much trade is leveraged trade not "free trade". Probably trade has always been that way, it's just on a larger scale now. Example, in the US (using crops as an example again), we spend a lot of money to ensure that carnal bunt is kept out of our wheat supply because many countries do not have the disease and they want to keep it out of their country. That is fair. What is not fair is the fact that carnal bunt has no impact on the yield or quality of the grain. It's sort of like not allowing people into your country because they have bread mold on the bottom of their shoes. The disease is just used as a leverage point in trade relations. Trade is very tightly controlled by all governments in some fashion.
Dude, have you looked at the "made in... " make label on just about anything lately. China makes most of the things we consume! You don't slap anyone who makes most of the things you like to use. And besides, not that I'm keeping a tally or defending China, but we pay our farmers pretty well to grow important plants. Is that fair?
Maybe, but I never did find them for my invertebrate collection back in my undergrad days. What about nematode cysts? Or yeast, yeast is everywhere all the time!
Well, I havn't used ImageMagik for batch processing (although I'd like to). However, I have used Photoshop batch processing to perform serveral preprocessing steps for leaf-area analysis for entomological reasons. Also, I've used batch processing a lot for signing copyright information and watermarks for photographs and to downsize photos for posting on the web. If you deal with bulk images and have a painfully repetative task to perform on them, then batch processing is great!
Let's see...off the top of my head... Eukaryota:Animalia:Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Unirami a:Hexapoda:Insecta:Neoptera:Polyphaga:Coleoptera:C hrysomelidae:Chrysomelinae:Ceratoma trifurcata
These are the units that have been most useful to me (I know I'm missing a few, but again these are group names that have been useful to me). Not necessarily for my study of bean leaf beetles but for the biological relationships that are represented by these levels of organization. I agree that most of these terms are useless for most people. When I think of the Neoptera I think of a more modern group of insects that are able to do a lot of cool things just because they can fold their wings horizontally over their bodies -- a luxury that the Paleoptera do not have. However, If I started talking about the Uniramia at a field day at a research farm, I would get a lot of blank stares from growers and someone would probably yell out, "who cares". However, start talking about different families of insects: Noctuidae, Aphidae, and Chrysomelidae and they will be a little more interested. So, again, I think it is a matter of what is more useful to you, but I would guard against dismissing all higher level classification just because it's old and doesn't fit well across the board. I think as we understand more about the way things relate at lower-level classifications that the higher-level classification will sort itself out -- but we are a long way from that still.
It isn't so much that I care about what level these groups are at and whether an order in the Insecta is equivalent to the Order Rodentia in mammals, but if (as in the article) your going to assign a name to something and claim that it belongs to some group, then you should spell it right! That was my point.
By the way, English Porter (particularly St. Peter's Old English Porter) must be the beer of the gods!!
If the statement is a quote from the researchers it is a typo. If it were a subfamily the taxonomic unit would end in "-inae" (and superfamilies=odea, tribes=ini, etc). Furthermore, all of the other lobster families use the suffix; -idae. I don't know which "they" you are referring to but a majority of taxonomists still use the Linnaean system. Just look up the most recent species description and there you will find the old Linnaean system in use (often a brief of the taxonomic relationship is in the title). However, there is some debate with a minority of taxonomists favoring alternative systems. There is a taxonomic code that you should be familiar with called the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature and it has set the standard for taxonomic nomenclature for a long time. "The code" attempts to standardize nomenclature for, mostly, taxonomic units at the level of superfamily on down to species. Most Slashdotters should be appreciative of the joy of standardized code. The point of using standard names is to facilitate communication. "The hierarchy" does make sense if you organize related species in nested groups. It doesn't matter if you use unrooted clades or dendrograms to represent relationships between organisms people are always going to want to group things and communicate about such groups. Don't ya think? These unimportant rules do help organize biological relatedness for some of us. As an invertebrate biologist I have spend much time learning what things are called, understanding their biology, and teaching others about them. You may not think these nomenclatural rules are important for you, but if you work with these critters on a regular basis you learn to appreciate why these rules are there. Of course some group names are used much more than others, but that doesn't mean the rules are any less important. Also, I would challenge you to name some of your "exceptions" or animals that have been described, post 1895, having a family name that is commonly accepted and doesn't use -idae as an ending. But, even if you did dig up an exception, I hardly think that something that is an exception should push out a rule that works a majority of the time. By the way some folks pronounce "-idae" as (-iday); however, I don't. I grant you that there are problems with the code, but not so much with animals (try applying the code to viruses -- hehe).
The classification for lobster goes something like: Arthropoda;Crustacea;Decopoda (for phylum, class, and order, respectively). All family names of all animals on the planet end in -idae. Therefore, the family name of "Kiwaida" is incorrect and should be "Kiwaidae". However, it is also possible that a new family wasn't named but a new suborder or order -- in this case the spelling would be correct. The AP has multiplied an apparent mispelling around the world at lightning speed, congratulations!
Dicrocoelium dendriticum (a type of liver fluke) has been known to do this for a long time. One of its life stages is ingested by an ant and at some point causes the ant to climb up onto the tips of grasses and grab on (with its mandibles) to the tip of the grass blade. Then when certain grazing animals (such as sheep) come by they inadvertently consume the ant and the grazer can then become infected. There are lots of other freak-stories in any parasitology book -- check one out at your local library!
Phages, by definition, are anti-bacterial viruses! Many bacteria have such enemies -- part of the circle of life don't ya know. Anyway, "scientists" don't need to create their own-- they just need to learn about the phages that are out there now and manage them as needed. This is an old concept known as biological control.
Slashdot Mirror
...But the entire submission reads to me like; 1, 2, 3, 4, lets have a flame war! Ah, But, bloggers do love there soap boxes.
Bwa hahaha ha HAaaaaaaaa...
... WITH MY TOY CAR!!!
Pinky: "Gee, Brain, what should we do tonight?"
Brain: "The same thing we do every night Pinky."
Pinky: "What's that Brain?"
Brain: "Try to take over the world!"
I like to ride my bike,
I like to ride my bicycle.
I like to ride it where I like.
They should have constructed a mini treadmill (complete with moving walls) --seriously-- to see if the ants with normal legs still walk the same distance for a reward. That would really drive there point home.
One of the few zoological fields were you can chop off your subjects legs without needing to sign any legal paperwork!
..And they are supplied a 3.5 liter engine. So, it's basically a hacked lawnmower.
[enters as James Earl Jones]... In space nobody can hear you cut it...
Certainly! Giant olives with big seeds in them. ;-)
Dirt?? Have you ever been to Argentina? The sandwich would be the best cut of beaf on Earth topped with bean sprouts. And a side of rice of course!
Thank you for your detailed response. However, I'm not sure you address the question that I posed in full, "What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?"" Unfortunately, I think my title was a little too attention-getting for its own good and seemed to derail the discussion into the pros and cons of DDT with almost no attention being given to mutant mosquitoes vs DDT. Poor wording on my part. Although it is interesting to me that you consider "use DDT or have malaria" a false dilemma. It's true that from a scientific perspective it is a false dilemma. However, this is precisely the dilemma that Tanzania seems to be wrapped up in. Or at least some officials within their government consider it a true dilemma. I mean, it isn't like they changed its usage label, they have moved it from a banned substance and then reversed their earlier decision. Why? Are the other methods not working without it?
I love Tanzania, I have a friend in Arusha. I understand what you are saying. My question, expectedly, lit a fire under some people. This was exactly the response I was planning for. I think it is all too easy for the "western world" to forget about what diseases have the greatest toll on our world's population and cause us the most collective misery. With the Tanzanian government seeming unsure about what to do and how to proceed, I was thinking it might be healthy to stir up debate (as best as I can) and maybe get some people who care to act. I am more than willing to take the punches if it does nothing more than improves an awareness of the issue. Seemed worth a try.
Everyone is well aware of the impact malaria has on our planet. Tanzania has been flip-flopping back and forth on whether or not to use DDT even though a lot of their citizens have died and are dying from it. My question and is, "What is the Slashdot community's opinion regarding the use of DDT for mosquito control versus genetically modified mosquitoes?" The bias in my question is more in line with my skeptical feelings toward genetically modified mosquitoes. I probably could have given it a better title. But, frankly, I wasn't too confident that slash was even going to post it. I think, and not too surprisingly, that most readers didn't go past the title. Oh well.
Man... It was just a question. And, I thought, a timely one at that. By the way I'm an entomologist and I'm interested in what these readers think and less about what their opinion is.
It is linked in the post... but you have to actually click on the link for it to work. ;-p
I don't shop at any X-marts. Still many of the products that make it into my home are not "made in the US". And besides, even if the label says "made in USA" I'm not entirely sure what that means anymore. My point is that most "fair trade" arguments don't carry much salt in my book because there is no such thing. I've never studied international trade formally, but I say that much trade is leveraged trade not "free trade". Probably trade has always been that way, it's just on a larger scale now. Example, in the US (using crops as an example again), we spend a lot of money to ensure that carnal bunt is kept out of our wheat supply because many countries do not have the disease and they want to keep it out of their country. That is fair. What is not fair is the fact that carnal bunt has no impact on the yield or quality of the grain. It's sort of like not allowing people into your country because they have bread mold on the bottom of their shoes. The disease is just used as a leverage point in trade relations. Trade is very tightly controlled by all governments in some fashion.
Dude, have you looked at the "made in ... " make label on just about anything lately. China makes most of the things we consume! You don't slap anyone who makes most of the things you like to use. And besides, not that I'm keeping a tally or defending China, but we pay our farmers pretty well to grow important plants. Is that fair?
Maybe, but I never did find them for my invertebrate collection back in my undergrad days. What about nematode cysts? Or yeast, yeast is everywhere all the time!
Heh. He got his phylogenies crossed-wired with his ontogenies.
Well, I havn't used ImageMagik for batch processing (although I'd like to). However, I have used Photoshop batch processing to perform serveral preprocessing steps for leaf-area analysis for entomological reasons. Also, I've used batch processing a lot for signing copyright information and watermarks for photographs and to downsize photos for posting on the web. If you deal with bulk images and have a painfully repetative task to perform on them, then batch processing is great!
Let's see...off the top of my head... Eukaryota:Animalia:Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Unirami a:Hexapoda:Insecta:Neoptera:Polyphaga:Coleoptera:C hrysomelidae:Chrysomelinae:Ceratoma trifurcata
These are the units that have been most useful to me (I know I'm missing a few, but again these are group names that have been useful to me). Not necessarily for my study of bean leaf beetles but for the biological relationships that are represented by these levels of organization. I agree that most of these terms are useless for most people. When I think of the Neoptera I think of a more modern group of insects that are able to do a lot of cool things just because they can fold their wings horizontally over their bodies -- a luxury that the Paleoptera do not have. However, If I started talking about the Uniramia at a field day at a research farm, I would get a lot of blank stares from growers and someone would probably yell out, "who cares". However, start talking about different families of insects: Noctuidae, Aphidae, and Chrysomelidae and they will be a little more interested. So, again, I think it is a matter of what is more useful to you, but I would guard against dismissing all higher level classification just because it's old and doesn't fit well across the board. I think as we understand more about the way things relate at lower-level classifications that the higher-level classification will sort itself out -- but we are a long way from that still.
It isn't so much that I care about what level these groups are at and whether an order in the Insecta is equivalent to the Order Rodentia in mammals, but if (as in the article) your going to assign a name to something and claim that it belongs to some group, then you should spell it right! That was my point.
By the way, English Porter (particularly St. Peter's Old English Porter) must be the beer of the gods!!
If the statement is a quote from the researchers it is a typo. If it were a subfamily the taxonomic unit would end in "-inae" (and superfamilies=odea, tribes=ini, etc). Furthermore, all of the other lobster families use the suffix; -idae. I don't know which "they" you are referring to but a majority of taxonomists still use the Linnaean system. Just look up the most recent species description and there you will find the old Linnaean system in use (often a brief of the taxonomic relationship is in the title). However, there is some debate with a minority of taxonomists favoring alternative systems. There is a taxonomic code that you should be familiar with called the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature and it has set the standard for taxonomic nomenclature for a long time. "The code" attempts to standardize nomenclature for, mostly, taxonomic units at the level of superfamily on down to species. Most Slashdotters should be appreciative of the joy of standardized code. The point of using standard names is to facilitate communication. "The hierarchy" does make sense if you organize related species in nested groups. It doesn't matter if you use unrooted clades or dendrograms to represent relationships between organisms people are always going to want to group things and communicate about such groups. Don't ya think? These unimportant rules do help organize biological relatedness for some of us. As an invertebrate biologist I have spend much time learning what things are called, understanding their biology, and teaching others about them. You may not think these nomenclatural rules are important for you, but if you work with these critters on a regular basis you learn to appreciate why these rules are there. Of course some group names are used much more than others, but that doesn't mean the rules are any less important. Also, I would challenge you to name some of your "exceptions" or animals that have been described, post 1895, having a family name that is commonly accepted and doesn't use -idae as an ending. But, even if you did dig up an exception, I hardly think that something that is an exception should push out a rule that works a majority of the time. By the way some folks pronounce "-idae" as (-iday); however, I don't. I grant you that there are problems with the code, but not so much with animals (try applying the code to viruses -- hehe).
The classification for lobster goes something like: Arthropoda;Crustacea;Decopoda (for phylum, class, and order, respectively). All family names of all animals on the planet end in -idae. Therefore, the family name of "Kiwaida" is incorrect and should be "Kiwaidae". However, it is also possible that a new family wasn't named but a new suborder or order -- in this case the spelling would be correct. The AP has multiplied an apparent mispelling around the world at lightning speed, congratulations!
Dicrocoelium dendriticum (a type of liver fluke) has been known to do this for a long time. One of its life stages is ingested by an ant and at some point causes the ant to climb up onto the tips of grasses and grab on (with its mandibles) to the tip of the grass blade. Then when certain grazing animals (such as sheep) come by they inadvertently consume the ant and the grazer can then become infected. There are lots of other freak-stories in any parasitology book -- check one out at your local library!
Phages, by definition, are anti-bacterial viruses! Many bacteria have such enemies -- part of the circle of life don't ya know. Anyway, "scientists" don't need to create their own-- they just need to learn about the phages that are out there now and manage them as needed. This is an old concept known as biological control.
How about GnuGoo?