Just try and pretend THIS isn’t the definition of awesomeness. In fact there is so much awesomeness in one place that if it was any more awesome it would collapse into an inescapable vortex of awesome that the entire universe would be sucked into. True story.
When the British naturalist George Shaw first saw the platypus in 1799 he thought it was a hoax.
Now a team of scientists has finally determined the platypus’s entire genetic code and its DNA is as odd as the animal’s exterior bearing genetic modules that are in turn mammalian, reptilian and avian.
The animal’s reptilian roots provide the genes for egg laying and for making snake venom (which the animal stores in its legs) but its mammalian genes provide for making milk (despite not having nipples).
Then there are the ten sex-determining chromosomes that scientists still don’t know what to make of. Most mammals have two sex chromosomes, X and Y but not only do platypuses have 10 instead of two, but some of those resemble the Z and W chromosomes of birds.
“It’s such a wacky organism,” said Richard Wilson, director of the genome center at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the two-year international effort, described online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Yet in its wackiness, Wilson said, the platypus genome offers an unprecedented glimpse of how evolution made its first stabs at producing mammals. It tells the tale of how early mammals learned to nurse their young; how they matched poisonous snakes at their own venomous game; and how they struggled to build a system of fertilization and gestation that would give rise to the first humans.
Update: There is a very informative video here from the journal Nature about this new finding.
Certain key figures in Bush’s torture team, including John Yoo and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, have finally agreed to testify about their role in authorizing torture. But, we’ll only get at the truth if tough questions are asked and enough of us demand that these questions be answered.
I just sent the House Judiciary Committee my questions to ask Bush’s torture team. Please click the link below to send your own questions and help show this administration that we will no longer stand by and let them disgrace our country by torturing prisoners and committing war crimes. Help restore some honor to this nation.
Theories abound, but some theories are based on evidence and others are just religious nonsense.
My previous post is maybe a year old, but this just aired April 12, 2008.
Ah yes, remember the good old days of summer camp and all the fun we had getting brain washed? Boy, if only there was a place we could send our kids to crush down their rational critical thinking skills and teach them to unquestionably follow dogma. Well get off your knees because your prayers have been answered my friend.
Brain washing at its best. Some very scary stuff.
Mr. Fish from Harper’s Magazine nails this one.
The only way to protect our right to free speech is to USE IT!
This recent video about the Freeway Blogger reminded me of another favorite political artist from the UK…Banksy Do check out this short news story about his work or you can see many of his pieces from all over the world HERE
I can’t tell you how much I wish Huckabee was still in the Republican race. When he opens his mouth the stream of absurdities that comes forth is simply joyous to behold.
So to be clear, 150 years of multidisciplinary scientific evidence means Evolution is just “dogma” while there is “growing evidence” in support of Intelligent Design…we just haven’t found any of it yet.
That is just fantastic…and by fantastic I mean astonishingly ignorant.
Not surprisingly our current president is in the same camp as this dim opportunist. But this begs the question of where do our current crop of presidential candidates stand on this litmus test of rational thinking faculties?
John McCain: (FAIL) In an August 2005 interview with Arizona Daily Star Sen. John McCain endorsed teaching “intelligent design” in the nation’s schools because like Bush he believes
“all points of view should be available to students studying the origins of mankind. The theory of intelligent design says life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and that a higher power must have had a hand in guiding it.”
Sorry John, just because you don’t understand evolution and the science behind it you don’t get to peddle whatever superstition is most popular in science class. FAIL!
Barack Obama: (PASS) In a recent interview Obama said
“I’m a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state. But I also believe our schools are there to teach worldly knowledge and science. I believe in evolution, and I believe there’s a difference between science and faith. That doesn’t make faith any less important than science. It just means they’re two different things. And I think it’s a mistake to try to cloud the teaching of science with theories that frankly don’t hold up to scientific inquiry.”
I can work with that. Teach whatever nuttiness you want to at home but science class is reserved for real science and not rebranded religion. PASS!
Hillary Clinton: (PASS and FAIL): While it was surprisingly difficult to find her position on this it wasn’t surprising that the best quote I found showed her being as vague as possible trying to play both sides of the issue. Following a speech critiquing the Bush administration’s science policies, Clinton said
“I believe in evolution, and I am shocked at some of the things that people in public life have been saying. I believe that our founders had faith in reason and they also had faith in God, and one of our gifts from God is the ability to reason.”
Ah yes, the old I believe we evolved over millions of years…but God the creator gave us reason. That type of parsing and equivocating is exactly why I cannot stand Hillary Clinton. Can you not take a stand on something as simple and clear cut as this? Either show us that you have the reasoning skills of a fifth grader or you let your religious freak flag fly…but please just pick one! I changed my mind…FAIL!
Bill’s guest Jeffrey Sachs pretty much summed up my feelings. Now if we could just get the election moved up a little so we could get on with an administration that isn’t hell bent on ruining this country planet even more.
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