That is actually a highly relevant point. We do know that toads on the vanguard are significantly larger than those in established populations, and it may have nothing to do with evolution but rather a lot to do with population dynamics.
The toads to first colonise an area will of course be the fittest, fastest toads; these are individuals that have eaten the most, grown the best, and able to move longer distances more quickly in search of new feeding areas. The motivation to move comes from competition in existing areas, and an abundance of "resources" (ie. food, space) in uncolonised areas. Less fit competitors take longer to move into new feeding areas because they are less able to do so. As far as the toads in the "older" established populations in Queensland go, they reached carrying capacity in the environment decades ago so there are no new areas to colonise, no abudant resources to lead to monsterous toads, and generally a much smaller average size given their short generation time.
I have not read Ben's paper yet so I'm not sure whether the claims of evolution are simply media spin, but I know enough about toad population dynamics (I research toad impacts on native species) to question the assumptions made in TFA. Without knowing more about the research, the conclusions seem to be explainable through standard population models.
It's been suggested that Palpatine was responsible for Anakin's "virgin birth". This does make sense, from a certain point of view. Darth Plagius (sp?) had the ability to create life. Plagius taught his apprentice all he knew. Palpatine strongly implies in Ep3 that he was Plaguis' apprentice. And given his grand ambitions it's not inconceivable that he might have engineered Anakin's fate right from the start. Though why he would choose a nobody from the arse end of the universe isn't exactly clear.
Do not be under the impression that I am trying in any way to justify The Phantom Menace! Desperate fans (or Lucas himself) will try to justify the craziest plot points. But I find that it does ease the pain. A little.
Gomek was 17.9 feet long (5.46 m) when he died. I know - I measured him! He was an awesome croc. George Craig still has Oscar at Green Island in Queensland. Oscar was caught with Gomek, and was less than 17 feet at the time. Now he's bigger than Gomek was by all appearances, but nobody is game to measure him!
Actually, the largest fossil crocodyliforms known are 35 to 40 feet long (eg. Sarcosuchus imperator, Deinosuchus, Rhamphosuchus) based on a very small number of specimens found.
As for Gustav, I seriously doubt he's over 20 feet long based on photos, video and descriptions I've seen. I've spoken with colleagues who've seen him and they acknowledge that he's a very big Nile Croc, but not a shred of evidence that he's anywhere near the monster size that's been mentioned like 25 feet. I hope someone catches him and proves me wrong, but Nile's greater than 17 feet are exceptional events. As far as I know he's still alive, but efforts to capture him have halted since the civil war in the region made it too dangerous to work there.
Croc sizes seem to go up by 5 to 10 feet with each retelling!
The shape of the snout is influenced by diet. Those species with strong bites for hard-shelled prey (eg. alligators, caimans) have wide, broad snouts that are reinforced and capable of withstanding higher bite pressures. Long snouts ("longirostrine") are more easily swept through the water - less resistance - and hence are found in species that eat aquatic prey, fish etc.
However, crocs are opportunistic predators and most longirostrine species will eat terrestrial prey if given half the chance. Even Indian Gharials - those classic slender snouted species - have been observed taken birds on rare occasions. Of course, you wouldn't find a gharial eating a turtle. Their jaws simply aren't strong enough.
The false gharial has a long snout, but it's relatively robust and hence explains why it can be seen taking mammals as large as primates (eg. macaques). Fossil crocs with long snouts, therefore, need to be interpreted with care!
Re:Not surprising, and not really "warm-blooded"
on
Warm-blooded Fish?
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· Score: 1
Actually, poikilothermic only applies to those animals whose body temperature varies with the environment. As most animals - even "cold blooded" ones - take steps to ensure they are at a slightly different temperature this term is rather inaccurate.
Heterothermic is probably a little better, as it implies a varying body temperature (relative to the environment) without necessarily being the same as the environment. But even that is inaccurate for most "cold blooded" animals which take steps to ensure their body temperature is fairly constant within a narror range.
Ok, let's try ectothermic! This is traditionally the most accurate description of "cold blooded" animals because it means they derive their body heat from the environment and not from their own metabolic processes. "Warm blooded" animals are hence endothermic because they generate heat from within.
But hey, even that doesn't work these days! Why? Well, because many metabolic processes generate heat, particularly muscle contraction. In reality all organisms should generate at least some heat, and hence technically be "endothermic" in some tiny way. I incubate crocodile eggs - those dastardly "cold blooded" reptiles - and they generate a lot of heat simply sitting there in the egg, so much so that it can alter the environmental temperature within the incubator if you have enough eggs! Amazing little critters.
Of course, that doesn't make them "warm blooded" but neither are they "cold blooded", and frankly the point of this post is to say that nothing is black and white in nature. We like to put restrictive definitions on animals because we like to have everything stacked neatly, but nature doesn't stack. The particularly physiological mechanism that each animal uses is ideally suited to that particular animal's mode of life. That's why finding that some fish use exothermically generated heat to increase swimming efficiency doesn't mean we should be reading too much into the wider applications of being warm or cold blooded. Let's call them something if you wish, but bear in mind that there's more to it than that.
As someone who's lost his office and everything in it to a fire, let me tell you - it smarts. The decades of data that you painstakingly helped to collect, even though you've written a few papers out of it, are worth countless human hours, blood, sweat and tears. They may still have a use, and they're worth a lot to you and your colleagues. To see them senselessly destroyed takes a few days to get over.
Of course, when you put it into perspective of the bigger human tragedies in the world, it suddenly seems rather inconsequential. But it still hurts... for a while.
Sorry, I screwed up the last post's formatting! Try again...
Go to the published research - far more informative than any news report. Yes I am writing a short article for my website which sets out the state of play. For now I'm cutting and pasting an email response I just wrote...
Most publications to date have come from Mark Merchant's lab based on his alligator research. The current croc work is being written up as various papers, the first of which is already in draft form, but it'll take several months for everything to be written up. I expect we'll be submitted them mostly to Comp. Biochem. and Physiol B.
I've attached an abstract we presented at a conference in 2002 based on the original pilot study. There was no paper at the time because my colleague didn't want anything published until the peptide had been sequenced. So it's a very "safe" abstract but the actual presentation was more thorough. Yes I would like to have submitted the initial finding to Nature for publication but the media pre-empted us, so we felt it was better to wait until we had the funds to do a proper follow-up study.
You might be interested in the following papers:
Merchant ME, Roche C, Elsey RM, et al.
Antibacterial properties of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 136 (3): 505-513 NOV 2003
Merchant M, Thibodeaux D, Loubser K, et al.
Amoebacidal effects of serum from the American alligator (alligator mississippiensis) JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY 90 (6): 1480-1483 DEC 2004
Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, et al.
Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH 66 (1): 35-38 APR 2005
Merchant ME, Verret B, Elsey RM
Role of divalent metal ions in serum complement activity of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 289-293 JUL 2005
Merchant ME, Roche CM, Thibodeaux D, et al.
Identification of alternative pathway serum complement activity in the blood of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 281-288 JUL 2005
Britton, A., Diamond, G., Laube, D. and Kaiser, V. (2002) ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY IN THE BLOOD OF THE SALTWATER CROCODILE, CROCODYLUS POROSUS. Proceedings of the 16th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, Gainesville, Florida (abstract & spoken presentation)
ABSTRACT: The saltwater crocodile shows a low incidence of infection from serious injuries sustained during intraspecific aggression, in spite of the microbe-laden environment in which it lives. This suggests a well-developed innate immune system, which provides a rapid, non-specific first line of host defense. In other aquatic species such as amphibians and fish, this defense is found in the mucous skin secretions as antimicrobial peptides. Due to the anatomy of the crocodile, we reasoned that a homologous defense would be found in the circulatory system, either as soluble factors or as agents expressed in phagocytic cells. To address the first hypothesis, we extracted serum from wild saltwater crocodiles to isolate naturally occurring antibiotics. The serum was maintained at -80C until fractionation. Serum was fractionated by Reverse-phase HPLC on a C-18 column with a 0-60% acetonitrile gradient, and fractions were assayed for antibiotic activity against E. coli in a modified radial diffusion assay. Preliminary results indicated strong antibiotic activity in several fractions. We have taken a single fraction, eluting at 13% acetonitrile, for further characterization. Based on our initial observations, we predict that the crocodile exhibits both peptide and non-peptide based antimicrobial activity in its blood.
Some people on Slashdot got the wrong end of the stick with that crazy news r
Go to the published research - far more informative than any news report. I'm cutting and pasting an email response I just wrote...
Most publications to date have come from Mark Merchant's lab based on his alligator research. The current croc work is being written up as various papers, the first of which is already in draft form, but it'll take several months for everything to be written up. I expect we'll be submitted them mostly to Comp. Biochem. and Physiol B.
I've attached an abstract we presented at a conference in 2002 based on the original pilot study. There was no paper at the time because my colleague didn't want anything published until the peptide had been sequenced. So it's a very "safe" abstract but the actual presentation was more thorough. Yes I would like to have submitted the initial finding to Nature for publication but the media pre-empted us, so we felt it was better to wait until we had the funds to do a proper follow-up study.
You might be interested in the following papers:
Merchant ME, Roche C, Elsey RM, et al.
Antibacterial properties of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 136 (3): 505-513 NOV 2003
Merchant M, Thibodeaux D, Loubser K, et al.
Amoebacidal effects of serum from the American alligator (alligator mississippiensis) JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY 90 (6): 1480-1483 DEC 2004
Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, et al.
Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH 66 (1): 35-38 APR 2005
Merchant ME, Verret B, Elsey RM
Role of divalent metal ions in serum complement activity of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 289-293 JUL 2005
Merchant ME, Roche CM, Thibodeaux D, et al.
Identification of alternative pathway serum complement activity in the blood of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 281-288 JUL 2005
Britton, A., Diamond, G., Laube, D. and Kaiser, V. (2002) ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY IN THE BLOOD OF THE SALTWATER CROCODILE, CROCODYLUS POROSUS. Proceedings of the 16th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, Gainesville, Florida (abstract & spoken presentation)
ABSTRACT: The saltwater crocodile shows a low incidence of infection from serious injuries sustained during intraspecific aggression, in spite of the microbe-laden environment in which it lives. This suggests a well-developed innate immune system, which provides a rapid, non-specific first line of host defense. In other aquatic species such as amphibians and fish, this defense is found in the mucous skin secretions as antimicrobial peptides. Due to the anatomy of the crocodile, we reasoned that a homologous defense would be found in the circulatory system, either as soluble factors or as agents expressed in phagocytic cells. To address the first hypothesis, we extracted serum from wild saltwater crocodiles to isolate naturally occurring antibiotics. The serum was maintained at -80C until fractionation. Serum was fractionated by Reverse-phase HPLC on a C-18 column with a 0-60% acetonitrile gradient, and fractions were assayed for antibiotic activity against E. coli in a modified radial diffusion assay. Preliminary results indicated strong antibiotic activity in several fractions. We have taken a single fraction, eluting at 13% acetonitrile, for further characterization. Based on our initial observations, we predict that the crocodile exhibits both peptide and non-peptide based antimicrobial activity in its blood.
Some people on Slashdot got the wrong end of the stick with that crazy news report. I hate print media sometimes - they interview you, selectively quote you out of context, mis-type what you actually said, put your statements out of order, and mix the whole mess up with silly errors that make you look like an idiot! Pity that Reuters was the agency that most other newspapers copied for their own stories. Ah well.
Best wishes,
Adam
One final comment on this - I need to vent! Bear in mind that these news reports are *way* off the mark in their reporting. The vast majority simply copied the Reuters article and diluted the facts yet further.
It was Reuters who picked up on the HIV aspect and blew it out of proportion. It was never the goal of the study to combat HIV - it was just an interesting test. They even managed to misquote me almost completely. The main focus has been the antibacterial properties of the blood.
Also, the part about the immune system being "too powerful" is something they pulled out of their cloaca. We're quite aware, as scientists, that it's far too early to start talking about marketable antibacterial drugs. The various factors that provide crocs with their powerful immune systems may not have any safe human medical use whatsoever. The fact that they *could*, however, is obviously interesting, but too many people here are taking this dodgy news report too literally. Don't get me wrong - this is exciting stuff and it could have health benefits down the line, but I don't like seeing this work getting misrepresented like this.
There are peer-reviewed papers out there (check Merchant, principal author) and this work is being written up at the moment (check Merchant and Britton). They'll be far more informative than anything you'll read in the paper.
Incidentally, we can't submit this to Nature because back in 1998 we did a pilot study, the lid of which was blown off from an unexpected source in a fit of excitement! So it's far too late for that - croc's out of the bag, etc...
This isn't my theory, and I can't seem to pull the appropriate citation up for you, but the gist of the paper was that the innate immune system is very much a secondary response in humans and hence has always been viewed as "primitive" (hence the quotes). Reptiles (and some other groups including fish) never developed a particularly effective adaptive immune response like mammals, but instead their innate immune system naturally evolved over time to become more effective than the innate system in mammals. The main advantage of the innate response seems to be its non-specificity. The results we're seeing in alligators, crocs, sharks etc seem to bear this out to a degree. Inferior? There's no such thing, in my opinion - each system is well-adapted for each user even though it's never perfect. If it was we'd never fall ill. So perhaps we can cheat a little and steal the good bits from our (very) distant relatives...?
Well Mr Angostura, you're as bitter as your namesake aren't you?
First of all, if it isn't clear that this news report is crammed full of factual errors, then perhaps it isn't obvious that what I said may have been completely misquoted? After all, the guy almost had me describing a new type of "crocodile antibodies"! This was "quoted" from a phone interview where I could hear the journalist typing in the background, so it's hardly a direct quote. The only part I definitely said word for word was the "gun to the head" line.
And I'm not Australian, by the way (not yet at least) so I have no idea how to operate a sheep dip.
Yes, we did discover an antimicrobial peptide (probably a defensin) several years ago. This is a continuation of that research.
Correct, this is what we're talking about primarily. The news article was wildly inaccurate and embarrassing to read quite frankly!
We don't talk about defensins because we're not sure yet that defensins are involved. We suspect they are, but until we purify and sequence the proteins we're looking at we can't be sure. Hopefully this is only weeks away.
Er, why is research only valid if it comes from an academic institution? Crocodylus Park (the name for the facility run by Wildlife Management International, of which I am an employee) is run by professional biologists who just happen to also run a tourism faclitity to get science across to the public. The fact that we're private doesn't have anything to do with the quality of our research - we still publish in peer-reviewed journals so it's open to international scrutiny like any other research.
We're also collaborating with McNeese State University in Louisiana for this project.
This scam fed off our initial pilot study findings, back in 1998. There was worldwide media exposure at the time because of the demonstrated ability of the croc serum against antibiotic-resistant bacteria (S. aureus). They used this media coverage in a weak attempt to add credibility to their product.
Yes, we have tried suing them (mainly for defamation, because they claim we endorse this crap) but it's very difficult to sue companies that apparently don't exist.
Ho, never thought I'd be the subject of a Slashdot news report.
Time to clarify things.
TFA contains a number of errors. First the statement I made about HIV is true, but as others have pointed out it does not mean we've found the cure for AIDS. It simply means that we've compared alligator serum and human serum and found the former significantly more effective at killing the HIV virus than human serum. It was intended to illustrate the overall efficacy of the crocodile / alligator immune system, that was all.
Second, these are not antibodies. Croc immune system works primarily through the innate or complement system, which does not involve antibodies. It's a simpler and more primitive immune response than the adaptive immune system that is key for mammals, but the advantage is that it's very direct and hence difficult for bacteria etc to evolve resistance to. It's "primitive" nature may be behind its effectiveness.
The main finding here is that the alligator / crocodile immune system is far more effective at killing a wider range of bacteria (gram +ve and gram -ve), viruses and fungi than our own immune system. When you've evolved over 235 million years, and your daily social behaviour involves biting limbs off other crocs, you need a good immune system! It clearly has potential medical implications down the line, but that's a long way off yet. First we have to fully understand what makes croc immunity tick. We are still trying to purify a protein which we believe is an antimicrobial peptide, but hopefully that will happen very soon after this recent work.
Eventually if anything does come of this, and we can isolate a "factor" that has human medical implications (and is safe for humans, unlike the far more effective chlorine bleach) it would indeed be synthesised.
Adam Britton
Well here in the Northern Territory there are - I've been told - currently 2 police speed cameras to cover the whole of the Darwin area. Basically this means speeding has become a very serious problem, with many motorists travelling at least 30kph over the speed limit in 80 and 100 kph zones. Believe me, I would gladly see more speed cameras in use if it stopped these idiots from believing that they had a right to endanger people's lives simply because they were prevented from travelling at whatever speed they wanted. I usually drive at 100-105 kph on the highway and count about 50 to 60 vehicles that pass me on a 10 km stretch of road. And they look at me as they pass as if to admonish my terrible driving skills.
Of course, I blame the driving instructors!
The trouble with Wikipedia is, while it might be a nice idea it's only going to be useful up to a certain level. I liken it to a coffee-table book - pretty pictures, easy to read, but you wouldn't cite it in a scientific paper. How many non-peer reviewed scientific journals do you know that are actually respected by the community? Sure, they're a useful means of sharing information, but the articles published that way have far less impact than those in peer-reviewed journals.
I've reviewed the entries in my specialist field (which involves wildlife ecology, behavior and management) and I can tell you that the quality of factual content is on a par with an Animal Planet documentary - obviously written by those with a shallow depth of knowledge of the subject, but usually passionate. Common errors, misconceptions and myths are rife - real science is sorely lacking, and I don't know any colleagues in my field who actually use it.
Although technology changes at a fair pace, popular embracing of that technology usually takes a lot longer. Looking at DVD, it's really only started to become a popular format in the last 2-3 years and it still hasn't completely supplanted VHS. Look at the resistance to widescreen formatting versus pan and scan! Many publishers still have to release dual format versions of films because there's a significant market out there who either don't understand widescreen, or don't have a widescreen TV.
I would be shocked if either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD doesn't take at least 5 years to establish itself in the marketplace, if either format can sustain itself for that long. For most people DVD was such a dramatic increase in quality that I doubt they'll see the advantage of upgrading their collection yet again because the industry tells them there's a new format they should be using.
I know I won't.
For those of us on a budget, format wars will need to run their course before we even consider upgrading. I can't afford a 1080i TV or a projector, and my standard widescreen TV still has a lot of life left in it. Those are my priorities, and I'm more of a geek than most people I know.
If I can hang my reputable advice on the back of the parent, I'd also encourage the use of proper carrying cases. Pelican make a number of excellent study, water- and dust-proof cases.
In other words, perhaps the enquirer doesn't need rugged hardware, but rather a better way of treating the equipment already being used. I've been using all kinds of equipment under taxing field conditions and never had them break down yet, but I look after them.
This is a very useful tool. Fossils give us vital clues that tell us how animal groups evolved (or how imaginative the Creator was, if you're a Creationist), and how their ecology worked. Knowing their sex gives us information about sex ratios, which can tell us a lot about population dynamics. This is as important to paleontologists as mapping distant galaxies is to astronomers - it's fundamental information (pure science) that doesn't necessarily affect Joe Public before Saturday's big game, but which adds to the database of human knowledge.
Applied research simply isn't possible without background knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
The toads to first colonise an area will of course be the fittest, fastest toads; these are individuals that have eaten the most, grown the best, and able to move longer distances more quickly in search of new feeding areas. The motivation to move comes from competition in existing areas, and an abundance of "resources" (ie. food, space) in uncolonised areas. Less fit competitors take longer to move into new feeding areas because they are less able to do so. As far as the toads in the "older" established populations in Queensland go, they reached carrying capacity in the environment decades ago so there are no new areas to colonise, no abudant resources to lead to monsterous toads, and generally a much smaller average size given their short generation time.
I have not read Ben's paper yet so I'm not sure whether the claims of evolution are simply media spin, but I know enough about toad population dynamics (I research toad impacts on native species) to question the assumptions made in TFA. Without knowing more about the research, the conclusions seem to be explainable through standard population models.
Do not be under the impression that I am trying in any way to justify The Phantom Menace! Desperate fans (or Lucas himself) will try to justify the craziest plot points. But I find that it does ease the pain. A little.
My dad always told me there were three types of currency in jobs:
1. Money
2. Power
3. Satisfaction
Having all three is a perfect job. Having two out of three is a damn good job. If you can only have one, at least try to enjoy it!
And if you don't have any, quit and try again.
Gomek was 17.9 feet long (5.46 m) when he died. I know - I measured him! He was an awesome croc. George Craig still has Oscar at Green Island in Queensland. Oscar was caught with Gomek, and was less than 17 feet at the time. Now he's bigger than Gomek was by all appearances, but nobody is game to measure him!
Actually, the largest fossil crocodyliforms known are 35 to 40 feet long (eg. Sarcosuchus imperator, Deinosuchus, Rhamphosuchus) based on a very small number of specimens found.
As for Gustav, I seriously doubt he's over 20 feet long based on photos, video and descriptions I've seen. I've spoken with colleagues who've seen him and they acknowledge that he's a very big Nile Croc, but not a shred of evidence that he's anywhere near the monster size that's been mentioned like 25 feet. I hope someone catches him and proves me wrong, but Nile's greater than 17 feet are exceptional events. As far as I know he's still alive, but efforts to capture him have halted since the civil war in the region made it too dangerous to work there.
Croc sizes seem to go up by 5 to 10 feet with each retelling!
The shape of the snout is influenced by diet. Those species with strong bites for hard-shelled prey (eg. alligators, caimans) have wide, broad snouts that are reinforced and capable of withstanding higher bite pressures. Long snouts ("longirostrine") are more easily swept through the water - less resistance - and hence are found in species that eat aquatic prey, fish etc.
However, crocs are opportunistic predators and most longirostrine species will eat terrestrial prey if given half the chance. Even Indian Gharials - those classic slender snouted species - have been observed taken birds on rare occasions. Of course, you wouldn't find a gharial eating a turtle. Their jaws simply aren't strong enough.
The false gharial has a long snout, but it's relatively robust and hence explains why it can be seen taking mammals as large as primates (eg. macaques). Fossil crocs with long snouts, therefore, need to be interpreted with care!
Actually, poikilothermic only applies to those animals whose body temperature varies with the environment. As most animals - even "cold blooded" ones - take steps to ensure they are at a slightly different temperature this term is rather inaccurate.
Heterothermic is probably a little better, as it implies a varying body temperature (relative to the environment) without necessarily being the same as the environment. But even that is inaccurate for most "cold blooded" animals which take steps to ensure their body temperature is fairly constant within a narror range.
Ok, let's try ectothermic! This is traditionally the most accurate description of "cold blooded" animals because it means they derive their body heat from the environment and not from their own metabolic processes. "Warm blooded" animals are hence endothermic because they generate heat from within.
But hey, even that doesn't work these days! Why? Well, because many metabolic processes generate heat, particularly muscle contraction. In reality all organisms should generate at least some heat, and hence technically be "endothermic" in some tiny way. I incubate crocodile eggs - those dastardly "cold blooded" reptiles - and they generate a lot of heat simply sitting there in the egg, so much so that it can alter the environmental temperature within the incubator if you have enough eggs! Amazing little critters.
Of course, that doesn't make them "warm blooded" but neither are they "cold blooded", and frankly the point of this post is to say that nothing is black and white in nature. We like to put restrictive definitions on animals because we like to have everything stacked neatly, but nature doesn't stack. The particularly physiological mechanism that each animal uses is ideally suited to that particular animal's mode of life. That's why finding that some fish use exothermically generated heat to increase swimming efficiency doesn't mean we should be reading too much into the wider applications of being warm or cold blooded. Let's call them something if you wish, but bear in mind that there's more to it than that.
As someone who's lost his office and everything in it to a fire, let me tell you - it smarts. The decades of data that you painstakingly helped to collect, even though you've written a few papers out of it, are worth countless human hours, blood, sweat and tears. They may still have a use, and they're worth a lot to you and your colleagues. To see them senselessly destroyed takes a few days to get over.
Of course, when you put it into perspective of the bigger human tragedies in the world, it suddenly seems rather inconsequential. But it still hurts... for a while.
Sorry, I screwed up the last post's formatting! Try again...
Go to the published research - far more informative than any news report. Yes I am writing a short article for my website which sets out the state of play. For now I'm cutting and pasting an email response I just wrote...
Most publications to date have come from Mark Merchant's lab based on his alligator research. The current croc work is being written up as various papers, the first of which is already in draft form, but it'll take several months for everything to be written up. I expect we'll be submitted them mostly to Comp. Biochem. and Physiol B.
I've attached an abstract we presented at a conference in 2002 based on the original pilot study. There was no paper at the time because my colleague didn't want anything published until the peptide had been sequenced. So it's a very "safe" abstract but the actual presentation was more thorough. Yes I would like to have submitted the initial finding to Nature for publication but the media pre-empted us, so we felt it was better to wait until we had the funds to do a proper follow-up study.
You might be interested in the following papers:
Merchant ME, Roche C, Elsey RM, et al. Antibacterial properties of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 136 (3): 505-513 NOV 2003
Merchant M, Thibodeaux D, Loubser K, et al. Amoebacidal effects of serum from the American alligator (alligator mississippiensis) JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY 90 (6): 1480-1483 DEC 2004
Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, et al. Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH 66 (1): 35-38 APR 2005
Merchant ME, Verret B, Elsey RM Role of divalent metal ions in serum complement activity of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 289-293 JUL 2005
Merchant ME, Roche CM, Thibodeaux D, et al. Identification of alternative pathway serum complement activity in the blood of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 281-288 JUL 2005
Britton, A., Diamond, G., Laube, D. and Kaiser, V. (2002) ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY IN THE BLOOD OF THE SALTWATER CROCODILE, CROCODYLUS POROSUS. Proceedings of the 16th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, Gainesville, Florida (abstract & spoken presentation)
ABSTRACT: The saltwater crocodile shows a low incidence of infection from serious injuries sustained during intraspecific aggression, in spite of the microbe-laden environment in which it lives. This suggests a well-developed innate immune system, which provides a rapid, non-specific first line of host defense. In other aquatic species such as amphibians and fish, this defense is found in the mucous skin secretions as antimicrobial peptides. Due to the anatomy of the crocodile, we reasoned that a homologous defense would be found in the circulatory system, either as soluble factors or as agents expressed in phagocytic cells. To address the first hypothesis, we extracted serum from wild saltwater crocodiles to isolate naturally occurring antibiotics. The serum was maintained at -80C until fractionation. Serum was fractionated by Reverse-phase HPLC on a C-18 column with a 0-60% acetonitrile gradient, and fractions were assayed for antibiotic activity against E. coli in a modified radial diffusion assay. Preliminary results indicated strong antibiotic activity in several fractions. We have taken a single fraction, eluting at 13% acetonitrile, for further characterization. Based on our initial observations, we predict that the crocodile exhibits both peptide and non-peptide based antimicrobial activity in its blood.
Some people on Slashdot got the wrong end of the stick with that crazy news r
Go to the published research - far more informative than any news report. I'm cutting and pasting an email response I just wrote... Most publications to date have come from Mark Merchant's lab based on his alligator research. The current croc work is being written up as various papers, the first of which is already in draft form, but it'll take several months for everything to be written up. I expect we'll be submitted them mostly to Comp. Biochem. and Physiol B. I've attached an abstract we presented at a conference in 2002 based on the original pilot study. There was no paper at the time because my colleague didn't want anything published until the peptide had been sequenced. So it's a very "safe" abstract but the actual presentation was more thorough. Yes I would like to have submitted the initial finding to Nature for publication but the media pre-empted us, so we felt it was better to wait until we had the funds to do a proper follow-up study. You might be interested in the following papers: Merchant ME, Roche C, Elsey RM, et al. Antibacterial properties of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 136 (3): 505-513 NOV 2003 Merchant M, Thibodeaux D, Loubser K, et al. Amoebacidal effects of serum from the American alligator (alligator mississippiensis) JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY 90 (6): 1480-1483 DEC 2004 Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, et al. Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) ANTIVIRAL RESEARCH 66 (1): 35-38 APR 2005 Merchant ME, Verret B, Elsey RM Role of divalent metal ions in serum complement activity of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 289-293 JUL 2005 Merchant ME, Roche CM, Thibodeaux D, et al. Identification of alternative pathway serum complement activity in the blood of the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) COMPARATIVE BIOCHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY B-BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 141 (3): 281-288 JUL 2005 Britton, A., Diamond, G., Laube, D. and Kaiser, V. (2002) ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY IN THE BLOOD OF THE SALTWATER CROCODILE, CROCODYLUS POROSUS. Proceedings of the 16th Working Meeting of the IUCN-SSC Crocodile Specialist Group, Gainesville, Florida (abstract & spoken presentation) ABSTRACT: The saltwater crocodile shows a low incidence of infection from serious injuries sustained during intraspecific aggression, in spite of the microbe-laden environment in which it lives. This suggests a well-developed innate immune system, which provides a rapid, non-specific first line of host defense. In other aquatic species such as amphibians and fish, this defense is found in the mucous skin secretions as antimicrobial peptides. Due to the anatomy of the crocodile, we reasoned that a homologous defense would be found in the circulatory system, either as soluble factors or as agents expressed in phagocytic cells. To address the first hypothesis, we extracted serum from wild saltwater crocodiles to isolate naturally occurring antibiotics. The serum was maintained at -80C until fractionation. Serum was fractionated by Reverse-phase HPLC on a C-18 column with a 0-60% acetonitrile gradient, and fractions were assayed for antibiotic activity against E. coli in a modified radial diffusion assay. Preliminary results indicated strong antibiotic activity in several fractions. We have taken a single fraction, eluting at 13% acetonitrile, for further characterization. Based on our initial observations, we predict that the crocodile exhibits both peptide and non-peptide based antimicrobial activity in its blood. Some people on Slashdot got the wrong end of the stick with that crazy news report. I hate print media sometimes - they interview you, selectively quote you out of context, mis-type what you actually said, put your statements out of order, and mix the whole mess up with silly errors that make you look like an idiot! Pity that Reuters was the agency that most other newspapers copied for their own stories. Ah well. Best wishes, Adam
One final comment on this - I need to vent! Bear in mind that these news reports are *way* off the mark in their reporting. The vast majority simply copied the Reuters article and diluted the facts yet further.
It was Reuters who picked up on the HIV aspect and blew it out of proportion. It was never the goal of the study to combat HIV - it was just an interesting test. They even managed to misquote me almost completely. The main focus has been the antibacterial properties of the blood.
Also, the part about the immune system being "too powerful" is something they pulled out of their cloaca. We're quite aware, as scientists, that it's far too early to start talking about marketable antibacterial drugs. The various factors that provide crocs with their powerful immune systems may not have any safe human medical use whatsoever. The fact that they *could*, however, is obviously interesting, but too many people here are taking this dodgy news report too literally. Don't get me wrong - this is exciting stuff and it could have health benefits down the line, but I don't like seeing this work getting misrepresented like this.
There are peer-reviewed papers out there (check Merchant, principal author) and this work is being written up at the moment (check Merchant and Britton). They'll be far more informative than anything you'll read in the paper.
Incidentally, we can't submit this to Nature because back in 1998 we did a pilot study, the lid of which was blown off from an unexpected source in a fit of excitement! So it's far too late for that - croc's out of the bag, etc...
Adam Britton
This isn't my theory, and I can't seem to pull the appropriate citation up for you, but the gist of the paper was that the innate immune system is very much a secondary response in humans and hence has always been viewed as "primitive" (hence the quotes). Reptiles (and some other groups including fish) never developed a particularly effective adaptive immune response like mammals, but instead their innate immune system naturally evolved over time to become more effective than the innate system in mammals. The main advantage of the innate response seems to be its non-specificity. The results we're seeing in alligators, crocs, sharks etc seem to bear this out to a degree. Inferior? There's no such thing, in my opinion - each system is well-adapted for each user even though it's never perfect. If it was we'd never fall ill. So perhaps we can cheat a little and steal the good bits from our (very) distant relatives...?
Adam Britton
Well Mr Angostura, you're as bitter as your namesake aren't you?
First of all, if it isn't clear that this news report is crammed full of factual errors, then perhaps it isn't obvious that what I said may have been completely misquoted? After all, the guy almost had me describing a new type of "crocodile antibodies"! This was "quoted" from a phone interview where I could hear the journalist typing in the background, so it's hardly a direct quote. The only part I definitely said word for word was the "gun to the head" line.
And I'm not Australian, by the way (not yet at least) so I have no idea how to operate a sheep dip.
Yes, we did discover an antimicrobial peptide (probably a defensin) several years ago. This is a continuation of that research.
Adam Britton
Correct, this is what we're talking about primarily. The news article was wildly inaccurate and embarrassing to read quite frankly!
We don't talk about defensins because we're not sure yet that defensins are involved. We suspect they are, but until we purify and sequence the proteins we're looking at we can't be sure. Hopefully this is only weeks away.
Er, why is research only valid if it comes from an academic institution? Crocodylus Park (the name for the facility run by Wildlife Management International, of which I am an employee) is run by professional biologists who just happen to also run a tourism faclitity to get science across to the public. The fact that we're private doesn't have anything to do with the quality of our research - we still publish in peer-reviewed journals so it's open to international scrutiny like any other research.
We're also collaborating with McNeese State University in Louisiana for this project.
Adam Britton
This scam fed off our initial pilot study findings, back in 1998. There was worldwide media exposure at the time because of the demonstrated ability of the croc serum against antibiotic-resistant bacteria (S. aureus). They used this media coverage in a weak attempt to add credibility to their product.
Yes, we have tried suing them (mainly for defamation, because they claim we endorse this crap) but it's very difficult to sue companies that apparently don't exist.
Adam Britton
Ho, never thought I'd be the subject of a Slashdot news report.
Time to clarify things.
TFA contains a number of errors. First the statement I made about HIV is true, but as others have pointed out it does not mean we've found the cure for AIDS. It simply means that we've compared alligator serum and human serum and found the former significantly more effective at killing the HIV virus than human serum. It was intended to illustrate the overall efficacy of the crocodile / alligator immune system, that was all.
Second, these are not antibodies. Croc immune system works primarily through the innate or complement system, which does not involve antibodies. It's a simpler and more primitive immune response than the adaptive immune system that is key for mammals, but the advantage is that it's very direct and hence difficult for bacteria etc to evolve resistance to. It's "primitive" nature may be behind its effectiveness.
The main finding here is that the alligator / crocodile immune system is far more effective at killing a wider range of bacteria (gram +ve and gram -ve), viruses and fungi than our own immune system. When you've evolved over 235 million years, and your daily social behaviour involves biting limbs off other crocs, you need a good immune system! It clearly has potential medical implications down the line, but that's a long way off yet. First we have to fully understand what makes croc immunity tick. We are still trying to purify a protein which we believe is an antimicrobial peptide, but hopefully that will happen very soon after this recent work.
Eventually if anything does come of this, and we can isolate a "factor" that has human medical implications (and is safe for humans, unlike the far more effective chlorine bleach) it would indeed be synthesised. Adam Britton
Well here in the Northern Territory there are - I've been told - currently 2 police speed cameras to cover the whole of the Darwin area. Basically this means speeding has become a very serious problem, with many motorists travelling at least 30kph over the speed limit in 80 and 100 kph zones. Believe me, I would gladly see more speed cameras in use if it stopped these idiots from believing that they had a right to endanger people's lives simply because they were prevented from travelling at whatever speed they wanted. I usually drive at 100-105 kph on the highway and count about 50 to 60 vehicles that pass me on a 10 km stretch of road. And they look at me as they pass as if to admonish my terrible driving skills. Of course, I blame the driving instructors!
The trouble with Wikipedia is, while it might be a nice idea it's only going to be useful up to a certain level. I liken it to a coffee-table book - pretty pictures, easy to read, but you wouldn't cite it in a scientific paper. How many non-peer reviewed scientific journals do you know that are actually respected by the community? Sure, they're a useful means of sharing information, but the articles published that way have far less impact than those in peer-reviewed journals.
I've reviewed the entries in my specialist field (which involves wildlife ecology, behavior and management) and I can tell you that the quality of factual content is on a par with an Animal Planet documentary - obviously written by those with a shallow depth of knowledge of the subject, but usually passionate. Common errors, misconceptions and myths are rife - real science is sorely lacking, and I don't know any colleagues in my field who actually use it.
Although technology changes at a fair pace, popular embracing of that technology usually takes a lot longer. Looking at DVD, it's really only started to become a popular format in the last 2-3 years and it still hasn't completely supplanted VHS. Look at the resistance to widescreen formatting versus pan and scan! Many publishers still have to release dual format versions of films because there's a significant market out there who either don't understand widescreen, or don't have a widescreen TV. I would be shocked if either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD doesn't take at least 5 years to establish itself in the marketplace, if either format can sustain itself for that long. For most people DVD was such a dramatic increase in quality that I doubt they'll see the advantage of upgrading their collection yet again because the industry tells them there's a new format they should be using. I know I won't. For those of us on a budget, format wars will need to run their course before we even consider upgrading. I can't afford a 1080i TV or a projector, and my standard widescreen TV still has a lot of life left in it. Those are my priorities, and I'm more of a geek than most people I know.
If I can hang my reputable advice on the back of the parent, I'd also encourage the use of proper carrying cases. Pelican make a number of excellent study, water- and dust-proof cases. In other words, perhaps the enquirer doesn't need rugged hardware, but rather a better way of treating the equipment already being used. I've been using all kinds of equipment under taxing field conditions and never had them break down yet, but I look after them.
This is a very useful tool. Fossils give us vital clues that tell us how animal groups evolved (or how imaginative the Creator was, if you're a Creationist), and how their ecology worked. Knowing their sex gives us information about sex ratios, which can tell us a lot about population dynamics. This is as important to paleontologists as mapping distant galaxies is to astronomers - it's fundamental information (pure science) that doesn't necessarily affect Joe Public before Saturday's big game, but which adds to the database of human knowledge. Applied research simply isn't possible without background knowledge.