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Post #223,818
9/9/05 3:54:41 AM
8/21/07 12:41:15 PM
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Aren't feathers same as fur with really bad split ends?
"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein
"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
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Post #223,896
9/9/05 12:32:41 PM
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Not really. It's topology at work.
I recall a biologist explaining the difference between the evolution of feathers and hair this way:
You have a planar surface interface between the animal and the environment. The plane can change in 2 ways. It can locally bend up or or it can locally bend down. From that basic starting point, skin coverings evolved 2 ways. If the skin bends up, you have feathers or scales. If it bends down, you have hair.
[link|http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~cmchuong/2003JEZAdapt.pdf|This] 15 page .pdf discusses these issues in more detail with lots of pretty pictures.
Cheers, Scott.
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Whew! That's big! 68 kB .img
- (
Another Scott)
- (14)
- Sept. 8, 2005, 11:14:12 PM EDT
I see they've update sufficiently . . .
- (
Andrew Grygus)
- (3)
- Sept. 8, 2005, 11:35:37 PM EDT
I guess Todd was just a few 100,000,000 years off then.
- (
Another Scott)
- (2)
- Sept. 8, 2005, 11:40:22 PM EDT
Aren't feathers same as fur with really bad split ends?
-NT
- (
tuberculosis)
- (1)
- Aug. 21, 2007, 12:41:15 PM EDT
Not really. It's topology at work.
- (
Another Scott)
- Sept. 9, 2005, 12:32:41 PM EDT
That looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie
- (
bionerd)
- (9)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 11:43:10 AM EDT
Oh, they look pretty efficient . . .
- (
Andrew Grygus)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 12:23:38 PM EDT
Re: evolutionary design flaw
- (
hnick)
- (7)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 02:02:05 PM EDT
But . . .
- (
Andrew Grygus)
- (6)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 02:27:26 PM EDT
A meteor will help with that
-NT
- (
ben_tilly)
- (1)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 04:39:45 PM EDT
As will volcanos.
- (
Andrew Grygus)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 06:55:54 PM EDT
Good point.
- (
bionerd)
- (3)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 07:02:31 PM EDT
I imagine they were used in some courtship ritual too.
- (
Another Scott)
- (2)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 08:40:40 PM EDT
'Dear Diary: today my heart leapt when Agent Scully
- (
Ashton)
- Sept. 10, 2005, 11:16:49 PM EDT
Makes me glad the only thing I have to contend with
- (
bionerd)
- Sept. 11, 2005, 11:09:59 AM EDT
Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure.
They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS... None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about.
79 ms