NOAA Response, Deepwater Horizon
Village of Islands/Islamorada, Florida Keys: VI
All those tourists covered with oil...? Tar balls in paradise...?
Tar balls have been found at Key West, broken oil sheens have been seen pulled into the loop current from the eddy towards the Gulf stream between the Keys and Cuba
Time for the ARC to investigate the British Petroleum crude oil slick at the Gulf coast, possibly an opportunity to do some good...
[Potential transport funding being arranged via official channels, preliminary destination is the village of islands, awaiting further information and confirmation]
DDeden, Director
Aquamarine Research Center
Eureka-Arcata, Humboldt Bay, northern California
Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecology. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Hair mats & booms & Oil spill
Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, caused by Mississippi River effluents of Nitrates, Phosphates, Sulfates, from rural agricultural run-off and urban sewers producing eutrophication, overgrowth of algae blooms and reduced oxygen.
dead zone of Gulf
Below: massive crude oil spill in Gulf from offshore rig explosion, ongoing
article
Must see this video
Hair & fur sponge up oil in water, a lb. of hair retains a quart of oil from water.
video: how to make a hair boom
The ottimat and hair boom use the principle of high surface area of hair/fur adsorbs oil but not water. Synthetic product mats absorb the oil and can't be reused, while hair mats can be wrung out into oil barrels and reused 100 times.
volunteers needed at Florida Keys to protect mangroves
"Locks for Keys" donate locks of hair and pet fur to save the coastal regions of the Florida Keys and other island reefs from the second worst oil spill ever, the Deepwater Gulf spill, which is expected to be pulled into the Gulf loop current towards the Keys and Florida coastal mangroves.
mangroves
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/topic_subtopic_entry.php?RECORD_KEY(entry_subtopic_topic)=entry_id,subtopic_id,topic_id&entry_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=8&subtopic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=13&topic_id(entry_subtopic_topic)=1
If you want to construct a building you must file an Environmental Impact Statement, but British Petroleum did not file an EIS for their huge deepwater oil project, and they bypassed numerous safety measures.
Perhaps its time for another tea party? What say you, oil addicts? Care for a spot of petrol?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sloths & jitterbugging heart & earth & dive foraging
marine sloth
outhouse sloth
-
layers of the heart
rotary venticular blood flow & torsion of heart muscle similar to VE jitterbug transform, with opposing heart muscle groups (123 45 678) :
article
Note pic 14, similar to tao/dau symbol or rolling surf wave, and general similar form of heart to a marine snail, which filter feeds and breathes by pumping seawater through gills and gut tissue.
"Pettigrew14 performed careful dissection of the heart of mammals and man, demonstrating 7 muscle layers. The three outer layers spiral with an increasing angle from the perpendicular, while the fourth layer is horizontal. The three inner layers spiral in the opposite direction, increasing toward the vertical. The layers are arranged in opposition so that 1 opposes 7, 2 opposes 6, and 3 opposes 5, with the fourth layer being a connecting layer (tensional frame?)."
jitterbug
-
6,000 year old human artifacts contains indications of 3/4 protein from marine diet
Quantitative evaluation of marine protein contribution in ancient diets
based on nitrogen isotope ratios of individual amino acids in bone collagen:
An investigation at the Kitakogane Jomon site
YI Naito, NV Honch, Y Chikaraishi, N Ohkouchi, M Yoneda 2010 AJPA
Nitrogen stable isotopes analysis of individual bone collagen amino acids
was applied to archeological samples as a new tool for assessing the
composition of ancient human diets and calibrating radiocarbon dates. We
used this technique to investigate human and faunal samples from the
Kitakogane shell midden in Hokkaido, Japan (5,300-6,000 cal BP). Using
compound-specific nitrogen isotope analysis of individual amino acids, we
aimed to estimate i) the quantitative contribution of marine and terrestrial
protein to the human diet, and ii) the mean trophic level (TL) from which
dietary protein was derived from marine ecosystems. Data were interpreted
with reference to the amino acid trophic level (TLAA) model, which uses
empirical amino acid 15N from modern marine fauna to construct mathematical
equations that predict the trophic position of organisms. The TLAA model
produced realistic TL estimates for the Kitakogane marine animals. However,
this model was not appropriate for the interpretation of human amino acid
15N, as dietary protein is derived from both marine and terrestrial
environments. Hence, we developed a series of relevant equations that
considered the consumption of dietary resources from both ecosystems. Using
these equations, the mean percentage of marine protein in the Kitakogane
human diet was estimated to be 74%.
-
Diaphragmatic contractions pump oxygen to the brain during hypoxia, increasing the cerebral blood flow volume. Involuntary breathing movements improve cerebral o... [J Appl Physiol. 2009] - PubMed result
We investigated whether the involuntary breathing movements (IBM) during the struggle phase of breath holding, together with peripheral vasoconstriction and progressive hypercapnia, have a positive effect in maintaining cerebral blood volume. The central hemodynamics, arterial oxygen saturation, brain regional oxyhemoglobin (bHbO(2)), deoxyhemoglobin, and total hemoglobin changes and IBM were monitored during maximal dry breath holds in eight elite divers. The frequency of IBM increased (by approximately 100%), and their duration decreased ( approximately 30%), toward the end of the struggle phase, whereas the amplitude was unchanged (compared with the beginning of the struggle phase). In all subjects, a consistent increase in brain regional deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin was also found during struggle phase, whereas bHbO(2) changed biphasically: it initially increased until the middle of the struggle phase, with the subsequent relative decline at the end of the breath hold. Mean arterial pressure was elevated during the struggle phase, although there was no further rise in the peripheral resistance, suggesting unchanged peripheral vasoconstriction and implying the beneficial influence of the IBM on the cardiac output recovery (primarily by restoration of the stroke volume). The IBM-induced short-lasting, sudden increases in mean arterial pressure were followed by similar oscillations in bHbO(2). These results suggest that an increase in the cerebral blood volume observed during the struggle phase of dry apnea is most likely caused by the IBM at the time of the hypercapnia-induced cerebral vasodilatation and peripheral vasoconstriction.
-
Levant 800ka - (Hula/Jordan, fire, food prep) African Rift drought
doi 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.03.007
The paleoclimate of the Eastern Mediterranean during the transition from
early to mid Pleistocene (900 to 700 ka) based on marine and non-marine
records: an integrated overview
Ahuva Almogi-Labin 2010 JHE
Climate change is frequently considered an important driver of hominin
evolution and dispersal patterns. The role of climate change in the last
phase (900700 ka) of the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) in the Levant
and northeast Africa was examined, using marine and non-marine records.
During the MPT the global climate system shifted from a linear 41 k.yr. into
a highly non-linear 100 k.yr. system, considerably changing its global
modulation. Northeast Africa aridity further intensified around 950 ka, as
indicated by a sharp increase in dust flux, and a jump to overall higher
levels thereafter, coinciding with a lack of sapropels in the deep eastern
Mediterranean (930690 ka). The increased dust flux centering at 800 ka
corresponds to the minima in 400 k.yr. eccentricity, a minima in 65 °N solar
forcing and in the weakest African monsoon precession periodicity. This
resulted in expansion of hyper-arid conditions across North Africa, the
lowest lake levels in eastern Africa and the lowest rainfall in the Nile
River headwaters. In the eastern Mediterranean an increasing continental
signature is seen in glacial stages 22 (880 ka) and 20 (800 ka). Lower
arboreal pollen values also indicate arid conditions during these glacial
stages. The southern and eastern parts of the Negev Desert, unlike its
northern part, were hyper-arid during the MPT, making them highly
unsustainable. The fluctuations in the stands of Lake Amora follow global
climate variability but were more moderate than those of its last glacial
Lake Lisan successor. In the northern Jordan-Valley Hula Lake, frequent
fluctuations in lake level coincide with both global climate changes and
minor changes in water salinity varying from fresh to oligohaline. It
appears therefore that the most pronounced and widespread deterioration in
climate occurred in northeast Africa from 900 to 700 ka, whereas in the
Levant the corresponding climatic changes were more moderate.
-
Warmbloodedness & respiration in dinosaurs and mammoths
A Clarke & H-O Poertner 2010 Biol.Rev.PRESS
Temperature, metabolic power, and the evolution of endothermy
Endothermy has evolved at least twice, in the precursors to modern mammals
and birds. The most widely accepted explanation for the evolution of
endothermy has been selection for enhanced aerobic capacity. We review this
hypothesis in the light of advances in our understanding of ATP generation
by mitochondria and muscle performance. Together with the development of
isotope-based techniques for the measurement of metabolic rate in
free-ranging vertebrates, these have confirmed the importance of aerobic
scope in the evolution of endothermy: absolute aerobic scope, ATP generation
by mitochondria, and muscle power output are all strongly
temperature-dependent, indicating that there would have been significant
improvement in whole-organism locomotor ability with a warmer body. New data
on mitochondrial ATP generation and proton leak suggest that the thermal
physiology of mitochondria may differ between organisms of contrasting
ecology and thermal flexibility. Together with recent biophysical modelling,
this strengthens the long-held view that endothermy originated in smaller,
active eurythermal ectotherms living in a cool but variable thermal
environment. We propose that rather than being a secondary consequence of
the evolution of an enhanced aerobic scope, a warmer body was the means by
which that enhanced aerobic scope was achieved. This modified hypothesis
requires that the rise in metabolic rate, and the insulation necessary to
retain metabolic heat, arose early in the lineages leading to birds and
mammals. Large dinosaurs were warm, but were not endotherms, and the
metabolic status of pterosaurs remains unresolved.
KL Campbell cs 2010 Nature Genetics PRESS
Substitutions in woolly mammoth hemoglobin confer biochemical properties
adaptive for cold tolerance
We have genetically retrieved, resurrected and performed detailed
structure-function analyses on authentic woolly mammoth hemoglobin to reveal
for the first time both the evolutionary origins and the structural
underpinnings of a key adaptive physiochemical trait in an extinct species.
Hemoglobin binds and carries O2; however, its ability to offload O2 to
respiring cells is hampered at low temperatures, as heme deoxygenation is
inherently endothermic (that is, hemoglobin-O2 affinity increases as
temperature decreases). We identify amino acid substitutions with large
phenotypic effect on the chimeric ¦Â/¦Ä-globin subunit of mammoth
hemoglobin
that provide a unique solution to this problem and thereby minimize
energetically costly heat loss. This biochemical specialization may have
been involved in the exploitation of high-latitude environments by this
African-derived elephantid lineage during the Pleistocene period. This
powerful new approach to directly analyze the genetic and structural basis
of physiological adaptations in an extinct species adds an important new
dimension to the study of natural selection.
outhouse sloth
-
layers of the heart
rotary venticular blood flow & torsion of heart muscle similar to VE jitterbug transform, with opposing heart muscle groups (123 45 678) :
article
Note pic 14, similar to tao/dau symbol or rolling surf wave, and general similar form of heart to a marine snail, which filter feeds and breathes by pumping seawater through gills and gut tissue.
"Pettigrew14 performed careful dissection of the heart of mammals and man, demonstrating 7 muscle layers. The three outer layers spiral with an increasing angle from the perpendicular, while the fourth layer is horizontal. The three inner layers spiral in the opposite direction, increasing toward the vertical. The layers are arranged in opposition so that 1 opposes 7, 2 opposes 6, and 3 opposes 5, with the fourth layer being a connecting layer (tensional frame?)."
jitterbug
-
6,000 year old human artifacts contains indications of 3/4 protein from marine diet
Quantitative evaluation of marine protein contribution in ancient diets
based on nitrogen isotope ratios of individual amino acids in bone collagen:
An investigation at the Kitakogane Jomon site
YI Naito, NV Honch, Y Chikaraishi, N Ohkouchi, M Yoneda 2010 AJPA
Nitrogen stable isotopes analysis of individual bone collagen amino acids
was applied to archeological samples as a new tool for assessing the
composition of ancient human diets and calibrating radiocarbon dates. We
used this technique to investigate human and faunal samples from the
Kitakogane shell midden in Hokkaido, Japan (5,300-6,000 cal BP). Using
compound-specific nitrogen isotope analysis of individual amino acids, we
aimed to estimate i) the quantitative contribution of marine and terrestrial
protein to the human diet, and ii) the mean trophic level (TL) from which
dietary protein was derived from marine ecosystems. Data were interpreted
with reference to the amino acid trophic level (TLAA) model, which uses
empirical amino acid 15N from modern marine fauna to construct mathematical
equations that predict the trophic position of organisms. The TLAA model
produced realistic TL estimates for the Kitakogane marine animals. However,
this model was not appropriate for the interpretation of human amino acid
15N, as dietary protein is derived from both marine and terrestrial
environments. Hence, we developed a series of relevant equations that
considered the consumption of dietary resources from both ecosystems. Using
these equations, the mean percentage of marine protein in the Kitakogane
human diet was estimated to be 74%.
-
Diaphragmatic contractions pump oxygen to the brain during hypoxia, increasing the cerebral blood flow volume. Involuntary breathing movements improve cerebral o... [J Appl Physiol. 2009] - PubMed result
We investigated whether the involuntary breathing movements (IBM) during the struggle phase of breath holding, together with peripheral vasoconstriction and progressive hypercapnia, have a positive effect in maintaining cerebral blood volume. The central hemodynamics, arterial oxygen saturation, brain regional oxyhemoglobin (bHbO(2)), deoxyhemoglobin, and total hemoglobin changes and IBM were monitored during maximal dry breath holds in eight elite divers. The frequency of IBM increased (by approximately 100%), and their duration decreased ( approximately 30%), toward the end of the struggle phase, whereas the amplitude was unchanged (compared with the beginning of the struggle phase). In all subjects, a consistent increase in brain regional deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin was also found during struggle phase, whereas bHbO(2) changed biphasically: it initially increased until the middle of the struggle phase, with the subsequent relative decline at the end of the breath hold. Mean arterial pressure was elevated during the struggle phase, although there was no further rise in the peripheral resistance, suggesting unchanged peripheral vasoconstriction and implying the beneficial influence of the IBM on the cardiac output recovery (primarily by restoration of the stroke volume). The IBM-induced short-lasting, sudden increases in mean arterial pressure were followed by similar oscillations in bHbO(2). These results suggest that an increase in the cerebral blood volume observed during the struggle phase of dry apnea is most likely caused by the IBM at the time of the hypercapnia-induced cerebral vasodilatation and peripheral vasoconstriction.
-
Levant 800ka - (Hula/Jordan, fire, food prep) African Rift drought
doi 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.03.007
The paleoclimate of the Eastern Mediterranean during the transition from
early to mid Pleistocene (900 to 700 ka) based on marine and non-marine
records: an integrated overview
Ahuva Almogi-Labin 2010 JHE
Climate change is frequently considered an important driver of hominin
evolution and dispersal patterns. The role of climate change in the last
phase (900700 ka) of the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT) in the Levant
and northeast Africa was examined, using marine and non-marine records.
During the MPT the global climate system shifted from a linear 41 k.yr. into
a highly non-linear 100 k.yr. system, considerably changing its global
modulation. Northeast Africa aridity further intensified around 950 ka, as
indicated by a sharp increase in dust flux, and a jump to overall higher
levels thereafter, coinciding with a lack of sapropels in the deep eastern
Mediterranean (930690 ka). The increased dust flux centering at 800 ka
corresponds to the minima in 400 k.yr. eccentricity, a minima in 65 °N solar
forcing and in the weakest African monsoon precession periodicity. This
resulted in expansion of hyper-arid conditions across North Africa, the
lowest lake levels in eastern Africa and the lowest rainfall in the Nile
River headwaters. In the eastern Mediterranean an increasing continental
signature is seen in glacial stages 22 (880 ka) and 20 (800 ka). Lower
arboreal pollen values also indicate arid conditions during these glacial
stages. The southern and eastern parts of the Negev Desert, unlike its
northern part, were hyper-arid during the MPT, making them highly
unsustainable. The fluctuations in the stands of Lake Amora follow global
climate variability but were more moderate than those of its last glacial
Lake Lisan successor. In the northern Jordan-Valley Hula Lake, frequent
fluctuations in lake level coincide with both global climate changes and
minor changes in water salinity varying from fresh to oligohaline. It
appears therefore that the most pronounced and widespread deterioration in
climate occurred in northeast Africa from 900 to 700 ka, whereas in the
Levant the corresponding climatic changes were more moderate.
-
Warmbloodedness & respiration in dinosaurs and mammoths
A Clarke & H-O Poertner 2010 Biol.Rev.PRESS
Temperature, metabolic power, and the evolution of endothermy
Endothermy has evolved at least twice, in the precursors to modern mammals
and birds. The most widely accepted explanation for the evolution of
endothermy has been selection for enhanced aerobic capacity. We review this
hypothesis in the light of advances in our understanding of ATP generation
by mitochondria and muscle performance. Together with the development of
isotope-based techniques for the measurement of metabolic rate in
free-ranging vertebrates, these have confirmed the importance of aerobic
scope in the evolution of endothermy: absolute aerobic scope, ATP generation
by mitochondria, and muscle power output are all strongly
temperature-dependent, indicating that there would have been significant
improvement in whole-organism locomotor ability with a warmer body. New data
on mitochondrial ATP generation and proton leak suggest that the thermal
physiology of mitochondria may differ between organisms of contrasting
ecology and thermal flexibility. Together with recent biophysical modelling,
this strengthens the long-held view that endothermy originated in smaller,
active eurythermal ectotherms living in a cool but variable thermal
environment. We propose that rather than being a secondary consequence of
the evolution of an enhanced aerobic scope, a warmer body was the means by
which that enhanced aerobic scope was achieved. This modified hypothesis
requires that the rise in metabolic rate, and the insulation necessary to
retain metabolic heat, arose early in the lineages leading to birds and
mammals. Large dinosaurs were warm, but were not endotherms, and the
metabolic status of pterosaurs remains unresolved.
KL Campbell cs 2010 Nature Genetics PRESS
Substitutions in woolly mammoth hemoglobin confer biochemical properties
adaptive for cold tolerance
We have genetically retrieved, resurrected and performed detailed
structure-function analyses on authentic woolly mammoth hemoglobin to reveal
for the first time both the evolutionary origins and the structural
underpinnings of a key adaptive physiochemical trait in an extinct species.
Hemoglobin binds and carries O2; however, its ability to offload O2 to
respiring cells is hampered at low temperatures, as heme deoxygenation is
inherently endothermic (that is, hemoglobin-O2 affinity increases as
temperature decreases). We identify amino acid substitutions with large
phenotypic effect on the chimeric ¦Â/¦Ä-globin subunit of mammoth
hemoglobin
that provide a unique solution to this problem and thereby minimize
energetically costly heat loss. This biochemical specialization may have
been involved in the exploitation of high-latitude environments by this
African-derived elephantid lineage during the Pleistocene period. This
powerful new approach to directly analyze the genetic and structural basis
of physiological adaptations in an extinct species adds an important new
dimension to the study of natural selection.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
"Archae-tecture"
Some thoughts on how housing developed:
I had puzzled over what happened many many thousands of years ago when some humans switched from semi-nomadic hunting and gathering housed in round tensional hut village dwellings to sedentary semi-agricultural square/rectilinear town housing. Although caves and rockshelters have always provided some forms of shelter, they were not often conveniently located, and probably used more for special activities (meeting place, food stores, art studios, temples, quarries) than regular domestic housing. I think simple dome piles, originally like beaver lodges, of stacked circular sedges & interwoven branches/saplings, may have been long employed for housing, and gradually they became more vertical and with thinner walls, transforming into the typical round hut, which then differentiated depending on the seasonal climate and migratory patterns of the people and various associated flora and fauna, and the increasing level of resource control and sedentary community development.
from (^) ( ^ ) (^)
to (^^) and {^ X ^} and [^^]
to [^^x^^]
to-- ^
- / _X_ \
/_____\
_____
to
====================
____________________
____________________
____________________
I 'knew' it was due to population concentration around a wellspring, a semi-controllable "domesticated" resource, where freshwater was always available and semi-domesticated animals were kept safe from predators by a wall or thorn fence.
But I didn't know how the dome huts converted to pyramid-roofed cube/rectilinear housing. Domes are stronger, stabler, roomier, better airflow control. Why change to a "worse" arrangement?
I think as populations grew, instead of enlarging the outer perimeter fence, they tightened their domes to fit more in, making them from hemisphere dome to round house to square house, then added a patio on top, then added a roof on top, which then became a second story house, which then became a 3 story apartment building.
It was hard to understand why didn't they just expand the perimeter fence, and keep making more domes outwardly. I think partly this was due to generations spent enclosed in the "permanent" compound, the children were told not to mess with the fences to prevent breaking it which would allow night-time predators to sneak in, and when the children grew they subconsciously continued to maintain that rule, repairing when necessary but not altering it. Only when subgroups moved in or out would the fence perimeter become a bit flexible, as part of a change in social order.
Also, to avoid polluting the well, all the food scraps & waste would be deposited outside the fence, resulting in a ring around, with only paths radiating from the center well, so people wouldn't want to build a house just outside the fence in the fertile wasteland, (better to move beyond to a "suburban" colony).
So the result was a concentric but discontinous ring of dome huts that evolved over generations to a series of rectangular huts in interconnected arcs (but split by paths/roads) radiating out from the center. Over time, 2nd and 3rd floors were added, which depended on both the house below and the neighboring house structural strength, while domes changed from houses to central social buildings like temples, later they also became more rectilinear due to population concentrations, canals and road congestion.
So, I'm glad to finally make sense of this prehistorical transition from dome structure housing to multiple unit subdivision blocks/longhouses. Interestingly, I figured it out by thinking about bubbles! A single bubble on a pond surface is a dome, but two combined bubbles form an adjoining vertical plane, and a ring of pond-floating bubbles produce rectilinear radiating vertical inner walls and horizontal floors (lacking only entrance/exit paths). I recall some Chinese traditional ring housing, 3 stories, vertical walls, around a central well. The residents said it was to protect them from predatory bandits, it may be a stage of social structural development which some cultures already passed through (like huge modern hyperpopulated rectilinear-imposed-grid cities) while others went through a parallel but distinctly different route (like feudal castles). DDeden
-
Brief add: post-hole artifacts probably derived from a period after dome huts were 'tightened' into roundhouses by tensional fence/wall effect on population density as function of social-physical concentration/compression; self-stabilized domes replaced by roundhouses with ground soil friction supporting post foundation (indicating shovels/drills used in well digging in soil).
-
Interesting information on theoretical structural architecture archaeology:
theoretical structural archaeology
-
Brief on housing in nature, in reference to Bucky Fuller (geodesic domes, isotropic vector matrix IVM):
Also, in a general sense, in nature, many animals tend to distribute their burrows/nests in an IVM pattern, not perfectly since the terrain contains many different local features (hills, ponds, dry spots) but in a generalized ecosystematic way. This depends on a lot of other factors, but holds true for many very different species, excluding highly social types (honeybees pack em in tight in hexagonal packing). I was thinking about how beaver families in small streams stay apart from other families (topographically descending knotted rope), but in large swampy lakes they tend to be horizontally equidistanced, that is, vectorially equilibrium distributed in a horizontal space-conserving fashion, (topographically planar crystal).
-
Etymology: commercial, merchant, marchand, mercantile, market, marine, mire/moor/mer
mer - sumer/meru/meroe/samar...,
cent/kent/zehn/ten/centum-satum
Malay: satu, Uzbek(?): sato
Why did Greek use thalassa for sea? thalassa sounds like Arab Selasa/thelatha (wednesday/3), did "thalassa = sea" come from salt-aqua/sal-akwa/thal-acca?
Malacca/malaga/malaya from mal-aqua?
-
update:
"Oddly, all tent-based cultures that evolved to locational permanency and more sophisticated materials use, seem to have rather naturally adopted the vertical-walls method." JB
Not so likely, since tents were specialized implements and derivative of dog domestication, long after generalized dome huts had been in use. Until then, skins and hides were food wraps and scraps, the whole furry carcass burned, just as in nature after wildfires.
Post-holes are found only after dome huts got (fence-tensionally) squeezed into ("vertical") roundhouses and longhouses with triangular roofs (from which nomads derived tipis, yurts, tents), and are associated with improved well-digging and early irrigation, which then encouraged vertical wall construction. DD
article on 10,000ka lakeside roundhouse:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100810101724.htm
Pygmies & bushmen: dome hut = mongolu (igloo, bungalo/buffalo, ger, geodesic, judaic, masjid?)
http://music000001.blogspot.com/2009/10/222-deconstructing-postmodern-condition.html
Slovenian marsh: veneti, oldest (square circle/merkaba) axle & wheel, wood canoe
http://www.angelfire.com/country/veneti/AmerDomoOldestWheel.html
I had puzzled over what happened many many thousands of years ago when some humans switched from semi-nomadic hunting and gathering housed in round tensional hut village dwellings to sedentary semi-agricultural square/rectilinear town housing. Although caves and rockshelters have always provided some forms of shelter, they were not often conveniently located, and probably used more for special activities (meeting place, food stores, art studios, temples, quarries) than regular domestic housing. I think simple dome piles, originally like beaver lodges, of stacked circular sedges & interwoven branches/saplings, may have been long employed for housing, and gradually they became more vertical and with thinner walls, transforming into the typical round hut, which then differentiated depending on the seasonal climate and migratory patterns of the people and various associated flora and fauna, and the increasing level of resource control and sedentary community development.
from (^) ( ^ ) (^)
to (^^) and {^ X ^} and [^^]
to [^^x^^]
to-- ^
- / _X_ \
/_____\
_____
to
====================
____________________
____________________
____________________
I 'knew' it was due to population concentration around a wellspring, a semi-controllable "domesticated" resource, where freshwater was always available and semi-domesticated animals were kept safe from predators by a wall or thorn fence.
But I didn't know how the dome huts converted to pyramid-roofed cube/rectilinear housing. Domes are stronger, stabler, roomier, better airflow control. Why change to a "worse" arrangement?
I think as populations grew, instead of enlarging the outer perimeter fence, they tightened their domes to fit more in, making them from hemisphere dome to round house to square house, then added a patio on top, then added a roof on top, which then became a second story house, which then became a 3 story apartment building.
It was hard to understand why didn't they just expand the perimeter fence, and keep making more domes outwardly. I think partly this was due to generations spent enclosed in the "permanent" compound, the children were told not to mess with the fences to prevent breaking it which would allow night-time predators to sneak in, and when the children grew they subconsciously continued to maintain that rule, repairing when necessary but not altering it. Only when subgroups moved in or out would the fence perimeter become a bit flexible, as part of a change in social order.
Also, to avoid polluting the well, all the food scraps & waste would be deposited outside the fence, resulting in a ring around, with only paths radiating from the center well, so people wouldn't want to build a house just outside the fence in the fertile wasteland, (better to move beyond to a "suburban" colony).
So the result was a concentric but discontinous ring of dome huts that evolved over generations to a series of rectangular huts in interconnected arcs (but split by paths/roads) radiating out from the center. Over time, 2nd and 3rd floors were added, which depended on both the house below and the neighboring house structural strength, while domes changed from houses to central social buildings like temples, later they also became more rectilinear due to population concentrations, canals and road congestion.
So, I'm glad to finally make sense of this prehistorical transition from dome structure housing to multiple unit subdivision blocks/longhouses. Interestingly, I figured it out by thinking about bubbles! A single bubble on a pond surface is a dome, but two combined bubbles form an adjoining vertical plane, and a ring of pond-floating bubbles produce rectilinear radiating vertical inner walls and horizontal floors (lacking only entrance/exit paths). I recall some Chinese traditional ring housing, 3 stories, vertical walls, around a central well. The residents said it was to protect them from predatory bandits, it may be a stage of social structural development which some cultures already passed through (like huge modern hyperpopulated rectilinear-imposed-grid cities) while others went through a parallel but distinctly different route (like feudal castles). DDeden
-
Brief add: post-hole artifacts probably derived from a period after dome huts were 'tightened' into roundhouses by tensional fence/wall effect on population density as function of social-physical concentration/compression; self-stabilized domes replaced by roundhouses with ground soil friction supporting post foundation (indicating shovels/drills used in well digging in soil).
-
Interesting information on theoretical structural architecture archaeology:
theoretical structural archaeology
-
Brief on housing in nature, in reference to Bucky Fuller (geodesic domes, isotropic vector matrix IVM):
Also, in a general sense, in nature, many animals tend to distribute their burrows/nests in an IVM pattern, not perfectly since the terrain contains many different local features (hills, ponds, dry spots) but in a generalized ecosystematic way. This depends on a lot of other factors, but holds true for many very different species, excluding highly social types (honeybees pack em in tight in hexagonal packing). I was thinking about how beaver families in small streams stay apart from other families (topographically descending knotted rope), but in large swampy lakes they tend to be horizontally equidistanced, that is, vectorially equilibrium distributed in a horizontal space-conserving fashion, (topographically planar crystal).
-
Etymology: commercial, merchant, marchand, mercantile, market, marine, mire/moor/mer
mer - sumer/meru/meroe/samar...,
cent/kent/zehn/ten/centum-satum
Malay: satu, Uzbek(?): sato
Why did Greek use thalassa for sea? thalassa sounds like Arab Selasa/thelatha (wednesday/3), did "thalassa = sea" come from salt-aqua/sal-akwa/thal-acca?
Malacca/malaga/malaya from mal-aqua?
-
update:
"Oddly, all tent-based cultures that evolved to locational permanency and more sophisticated materials use, seem to have rather naturally adopted the vertical-walls method." JB
Not so likely, since tents were specialized implements and derivative of dog domestication, long after generalized dome huts had been in use. Until then, skins and hides were food wraps and scraps, the whole furry carcass burned, just as in nature after wildfires.
Post-holes are found only after dome huts got (fence-tensionally) squeezed into ("vertical") roundhouses and longhouses with triangular roofs (from which nomads derived tipis, yurts, tents), and are associated with improved well-digging and early irrigation, which then encouraged vertical wall construction. DD
article on 10,000ka lakeside roundhouse:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100810101724.htm
Pygmies & bushmen: dome hut = mongolu (igloo, bungalo/buffalo, ger, geodesic, judaic, masjid?)
http://music000001.blogspot.com/2009/10/222-deconstructing-postmodern-condition.html
Slovenian marsh: veneti, oldest (square circle/merkaba) axle & wheel, wood canoe
http://www.angelfire.com/country/veneti/AmerDomoOldestWheel.html
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Stingrays, mollusks, humans in African Rift Valley 1.5ma
First, mangrove, mollusk econiche evolution via tectonic plate rift activity at Tethys shoreline, why SE Asian/west Pacific mangroves more diverse than Africa or So. America mangroves (Ellison):
here
-
African Rift, Lake Turkana - Ileret footprints in mud 1.5ma, shellfish harvesting
picture
Apiths may have dug/finger-raked and consumed floating vegetation, shallow-shore tubers and shallow benthic invertebrates. But only genus Homo submerged fully while foraging, losing the laryngeal air sac and developing oral breathing and flatter hands and longer feet with short toes.
site habitat
"In 1984, the most complete hominin skeleton to date, KNM-WT 15000, was discovered eroding from a hillside at NK III. The specimen, which retained the skull and almost entire postcranial skeleton, belonged to a juvenile male Homo erectus/ergaster. Nicknamed the “Turkana Boy,” the specimen was determined to be 1.5 ma.
NK III site: Turkana Boy and fossil taxa include the freshwater stingray, Dasyatis Africana; the catfish, Synodontis; the extinct pig, Metrodiocherus; two extinct species of hippopotamus, Hippopotamus gorgops and H. aethiopicus; chelonian carapaces (turtle shells); some avian limb bones and phalanges; two species of bovid; sponge spicules; several species of ostracod (a crustacean); cichlids (a family of perciform fish); cyprinids (carps and minnows); and several varanids (monitor lizards). The paleoenvironment of the Nariokotome region during the time of the Turkana Boy has been reconstructed as a temporary marshland formed by the annual flooding of the Omo River with interspersed grassland and patches of woodland. One or more lakes were probably present as well."
anthro site history
-
Archaic Humans: Beavers & cleavers, sea waters & sea otters
Bilzingsleben, Germany, 325,000 years ago, microlith, pebble tools
Hoxne, England, 325,000 years ago - handaxes, extinct beaver, otter
Furze Platt, England, 325,000 years ago - large pointed handaxes, cleavers
Tan Tan, Morocco, 325,000 years ago - Mid Acheulian tools, female figurine
-
Beavers modify their habitat like humans do: Logging, Damming, Lodging
beavers arrested
-
here
A waterway linked the East African Rift Valley with the Indian Ocean 1.9ma, freshwater stingrays evolved there between 1.9 and 1.3ma after a marine incursion, the H erectus/ergaster skeleton Turkana boy was found there at waterside region. Probably Homo species, stingrays and 3 species of mollusks moved from Indian Ocean estuaries into the Rift valley lakes then, during a wet/high sea level period. The same time, Dmanisi, Georgia had H erectus/georgicus occupants living between the Caspian and Black seas. Tectonic plate collisions have uplifted the area since 1.8ma.
-
This site of early hominins is in Republic of Georgia, south of the Caucasus Mountains, east of the Black Sea, west of the Caspian Sea, on a wooded promontory surrounded by steep cliffs and water on three sides, that might have provided an ideal place to drive and ambush game.
Did they speak? Most likely they clicked & hummed/sang:
"
Meyer and his colleagues — David Lordkipanidze and Abesalom Vekua, both of the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi — compared the size, shape, and volume of the Dmanisi vertebrae with more than 2 200 corresponding bones from people, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
"The Dmanisi spinal column falls within the human range and would have comfortably accommodated a modern human spinal cord," Meyer says.
Moreover, the fossil vertebrae would have provided ample structural support for the respiratory muscles needed to articulate words, he asserts. Although it's impossible to confirm that our prehistoric ancestors talked, Meyer notes, H. erectus at Dmanisi faced no respiratory limitations on speech.
In contrast, the 1984 discovery in Kenya of a boy's 1.6-million-year-old skeleton, identified by some researchers as H. erectus and by others as Homo ergaster, yielded small, chimplike vertebrae. Researchers initially suspected that the ancient youth and his presumably small-spined comrades lacked the respiratory control to talk as people do today." http://www.donsmaps.com/dmanisi.html
Old man with one tooth, cooking or shellfish food?
In the new work, David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi and his colleagues describe a skull and jawbone from a hominid male who had lost all but one tooth. The tooth sockets had been resorbed into the skull, suggesting that he had lost the teeth several years before dying. The discovery represents the earliest case of severe masticatory impairment in the fossil record yet found, the researchers say.
Near the site of their latest find, the scientists also uncovered stone artifacts and animal bones with toolmarks on them. In order to survive without the ability to chew or bite meat, the gummy individual would have needed to collect sufficient soft food, including bone marrow, brain matter or soft plant food. Such gathering or processing could have been done alone, but the scientists posit that other individuals may have helped because of the individual's advanced age or illness, either of which could have been responsible for the loss of his teeth. The discovery, the authors conclude, "raises interesting questions regarding social structure, life history and subsistence strategies of early Homo that warrant further investigation." --Sarah Graham
Dmanisi site had both African ostriches, Kudaro macaques and short-necked giraffes and EurAsian wolves, sabercats and EurAsian beavers (skull wider than neolithic Polish beaver which were larger and faster growing than modern EurAsian beavers).
Simple stone pebble tools were used, probably with stick tools. http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/16.5/697-705.pdf
BUR CZAK-ABRAMOWICZ N. The beaver and some other interesting animals in Caucasus. Przegląd Zool. 8, 51, 1964. [in Polish]
Dmanisi seems to have dried out after the pliocene/pleistocene border.
Black Sea beaver species plentiful from Miocene to Pleistocene:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:r7qdVn9-DEwJ:www.isez.pan.krakow.pl/journals/azc_v/pdf/52A(1-2)/52A(1-2)_05.pdf+caucasus+beaver+fossil&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShIHf6nddQWt5r5GQUHg1EpZtgR9lM5aujcurYqi6cwb_4Dx8GUHzXvAW6i5F_x9scKtiMZ-vgjm_PlJvLL8BFK1LhjPFoZpbgUifI-4kzwMxehiRhHHKFM6LGzuo_FxWDPRuwr&sig=AHIEtbTUnw9qk40z-qG1csiS_SzfF0K1TQ
Conjecture: ARC Diving was synchronized tandem Aqua-photic Respiratory Cycle dive foraging, when one partner dove down to the benthos the other backfloated above, communication was retained via clicks (at depth) and tones (at surface) which eventually merged to become uniquely human click-consonant tonal speech. ARC diving included in complement the Mammalian Diving Reflex (MDR), engaged upon submergence optimally conserving oxygen, the Photic Sneeze (or Surfacing) Reflex (PSR), engaged upon emergence at the surface, optimally exchanged carbon dioxide and oxygen-rich air. The combination of descent and ascent reflexes allowed sustained dive foraging for coastal seafood in sub/tropical lagoons, while seasonal inland freshwater herbs/rhyzomes were harvested by shoreside shallow wading, especially around Eurasian beaver-dammed woodland/wetland ponds and Peri-Tethyan estuaries. Caves and rockshelters offered sleeping sites in addition to wood-stick and reed-plastered dome huts.
-
Chicken pox can be spread by humans to apes, per a zoo account. Unknown if mumps are uniquely human, as I conjectured earlier.
-
Borneo frog breathes through skin, lost lungs, better hydrodynamics and less ascents.
A frog that breathes through its skin because it has no lungs, which makes it appear flat. This aerodynamic shape allows the frogs to move swiftly in fast flowing streams.
Neandertal face long, modern human face short: http://www.pnas.org/content/100/14/8142.abstract
here
-
African Rift, Lake Turkana - Ileret footprints in mud 1.5ma, shellfish harvesting
picture
Apiths may have dug/finger-raked and consumed floating vegetation, shallow-shore tubers and shallow benthic invertebrates. But only genus Homo submerged fully while foraging, losing the laryngeal air sac and developing oral breathing and flatter hands and longer feet with short toes.
site habitat
"In 1984, the most complete hominin skeleton to date, KNM-WT 15000, was discovered eroding from a hillside at NK III. The specimen, which retained the skull and almost entire postcranial skeleton, belonged to a juvenile male Homo erectus/ergaster. Nicknamed the “Turkana Boy,” the specimen was determined to be 1.5 ma.
NK III site: Turkana Boy and fossil taxa include the freshwater stingray, Dasyatis Africana; the catfish, Synodontis; the extinct pig, Metrodiocherus; two extinct species of hippopotamus, Hippopotamus gorgops and H. aethiopicus; chelonian carapaces (turtle shells); some avian limb bones and phalanges; two species of bovid; sponge spicules; several species of ostracod (a crustacean); cichlids (a family of perciform fish); cyprinids (carps and minnows); and several varanids (monitor lizards). The paleoenvironment of the Nariokotome region during the time of the Turkana Boy has been reconstructed as a temporary marshland formed by the annual flooding of the Omo River with interspersed grassland and patches of woodland. One or more lakes were probably present as well."
anthro site history
-
Archaic Humans: Beavers & cleavers, sea waters & sea otters
Bilzingsleben, Germany, 325,000 years ago, microlith, pebble tools
Hoxne, England, 325,000 years ago - handaxes, extinct beaver, otter
Furze Platt, England, 325,000 years ago - large pointed handaxes, cleavers
Tan Tan, Morocco, 325,000 years ago - Mid Acheulian tools, female figurine
-
Beavers modify their habitat like humans do: Logging, Damming, Lodging
beavers arrested
-
here
A waterway linked the East African Rift Valley with the Indian Ocean 1.9ma, freshwater stingrays evolved there between 1.9 and 1.3ma after a marine incursion, the H erectus/ergaster skeleton Turkana boy was found there at waterside region. Probably Homo species, stingrays and 3 species of mollusks moved from Indian Ocean estuaries into the Rift valley lakes then, during a wet/high sea level period. The same time, Dmanisi, Georgia had H erectus/georgicus occupants living between the Caspian and Black seas. Tectonic plate collisions have uplifted the area since 1.8ma.
-
This site of early hominins is in Republic of Georgia, south of the Caucasus Mountains, east of the Black Sea, west of the Caspian Sea, on a wooded promontory surrounded by steep cliffs and water on three sides, that might have provided an ideal place to drive and ambush game.
Did they speak? Most likely they clicked & hummed/sang:
"
Meyer and his colleagues — David Lordkipanidze and Abesalom Vekua, both of the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi — compared the size, shape, and volume of the Dmanisi vertebrae with more than 2 200 corresponding bones from people, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
"The Dmanisi spinal column falls within the human range and would have comfortably accommodated a modern human spinal cord," Meyer says.
Moreover, the fossil vertebrae would have provided ample structural support for the respiratory muscles needed to articulate words, he asserts. Although it's impossible to confirm that our prehistoric ancestors talked, Meyer notes, H. erectus at Dmanisi faced no respiratory limitations on speech.
In contrast, the 1984 discovery in Kenya of a boy's 1.6-million-year-old skeleton, identified by some researchers as H. erectus and by others as Homo ergaster, yielded small, chimplike vertebrae. Researchers initially suspected that the ancient youth and his presumably small-spined comrades lacked the respiratory control to talk as people do today." http://www.donsmaps.com/dmanisi.html
Old man with one tooth, cooking or shellfish food?
In the new work, David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi and his colleagues describe a skull and jawbone from a hominid male who had lost all but one tooth. The tooth sockets had been resorbed into the skull, suggesting that he had lost the teeth several years before dying. The discovery represents the earliest case of severe masticatory impairment in the fossil record yet found, the researchers say.
Near the site of their latest find, the scientists also uncovered stone artifacts and animal bones with toolmarks on them. In order to survive without the ability to chew or bite meat, the gummy individual would have needed to collect sufficient soft food, including bone marrow, brain matter or soft plant food. Such gathering or processing could have been done alone, but the scientists posit that other individuals may have helped because of the individual's advanced age or illness, either of which could have been responsible for the loss of his teeth. The discovery, the authors conclude, "raises interesting questions regarding social structure, life history and subsistence strategies of early Homo that warrant further investigation." --Sarah Graham
Dmanisi site had both African ostriches, Kudaro macaques and short-necked giraffes and EurAsian wolves, sabercats and EurAsian beavers (skull wider than neolithic Polish beaver which were larger and faster growing than modern EurAsian beavers).
Simple stone pebble tools were used, probably with stick tools. http://www.pjoes.com/pdf/16.5/697-705.pdf
BUR CZAK-ABRAMOWICZ N. The beaver and some other interesting animals in Caucasus. Przegląd Zool. 8, 51, 1964. [in Polish]
Dmanisi seems to have dried out after the pliocene/pleistocene border.
Black Sea beaver species plentiful from Miocene to Pleistocene:
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:r7qdVn9-DEwJ:www.isez.pan.krakow.pl/journals/azc_v/pdf/52A(1-2)/52A(1-2)_05.pdf+caucasus+beaver+fossil&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShIHf6nddQWt5r5GQUHg1EpZtgR9lM5aujcurYqi6cwb_4Dx8GUHzXvAW6i5F_x9scKtiMZ-vgjm_PlJvLL8BFK1LhjPFoZpbgUifI-4kzwMxehiRhHHKFM6LGzuo_FxWDPRuwr&sig=AHIEtbTUnw9qk40z-qG1csiS_SzfF0K1TQ
Conjecture: ARC Diving was synchronized tandem Aqua-photic Respiratory Cycle dive foraging, when one partner dove down to the benthos the other backfloated above, communication was retained via clicks (at depth) and tones (at surface) which eventually merged to become uniquely human click-consonant tonal speech. ARC diving included in complement the Mammalian Diving Reflex (MDR), engaged upon submergence optimally conserving oxygen, the Photic Sneeze (or Surfacing) Reflex (PSR), engaged upon emergence at the surface, optimally exchanged carbon dioxide and oxygen-rich air. The combination of descent and ascent reflexes allowed sustained dive foraging for coastal seafood in sub/tropical lagoons, while seasonal inland freshwater herbs/rhyzomes were harvested by shoreside shallow wading, especially around Eurasian beaver-dammed woodland/wetland ponds and Peri-Tethyan estuaries. Caves and rockshelters offered sleeping sites in addition to wood-stick and reed-plastered dome huts.
-
Chicken pox can be spread by humans to apes, per a zoo account. Unknown if mumps are uniquely human, as I conjectured earlier.
-
Borneo frog breathes through skin, lost lungs, better hydrodynamics and less ascents.
A frog that breathes through its skin because it has no lungs, which makes it appear flat. This aerodynamic shape allows the frogs to move swiftly in fast flowing streams.
Neandertal face long, modern human face short: http://www.pnas.org/content/100/14/8142.abstract
Monday, April 5, 2010
Cybernetics, Synergetics, Synarctics
The top diagram is mine, entitled 'Trident Earth' (Earth as nuclear sphere surrounded by partially stellated duo-cuboctahedron with incidental owl imagery due to unfolding the top and bottom tets like flower petals opening), the next image is Bucky Fullers 'Cosmic Hierarchy' without the relative volume data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetic#Overview
"The term cybernetics stems from the Greek (kybernetes, steersman, governor,
pilot, or rudder — the same root as government)."
Does that mean Trim-Tab?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
"Systems theory is an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex
systems in nature, society, and science, and is a framework by which one can
investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work together to produce
some result."
Is that Synergetics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergetics
Synarctics: supplement to Synergetics by Bucky Fuller
-
Reciprocal relative volume calculation, conversion constant:: {via ku @ Synergeo}
XYZ -> IVM: sqrt (9/8)
IVM -> XYZ: sqrt (8/9)
-
Synergetics, tet cube
Fig. 986.210 Diagonal of Cube as Unity in Synergetic Geometry: In synergetic geometry mensural unity commences with the tetra edge as prime vector. Unity is taken not from the cube edge but from the edge of one of the two tetra that structure it. (Compare Fig. 463.01.) Proportionality exactly known to us is not required in nature's structuring. Parts have no existence independent of the polyhedra they constitute.
Synergetics, chefs' hat
fig 16
fig 17
416.02 If you next take two triangles, each made of three balls in closest packing, and twist one of the triangles 60 degrees around its center hole axis, the two triangular groups now may be nested into one another with the three spheres of one nesting in the three intersphere tangency valleys of the other. We now have six spheres in symmetrical closest packing, and they form the six vertexes of the octahedron. This twisting of one set to register it closepackedly with the other, is the first instance of two pairs internested to form the tetrahedron, and in the next case of the two triangles twisted to internestability as an octahedron, is called interprecessing of one set by its complementary set.
416.03 Two pairs of two-layer, seven-ball triangular sets of closestpacked spheres precess in a 60-degree twist to associate as the cube. (See Fig. A, illustration 416.01.) This 14-sphere cube is the minimum cube that may be stably produced by closest-packed spheres. While eight spheres temporarily may be tangentially glued into a cubical array with six square hole facades, they are not triangulated; ergo, are unstructured; ergo, as a cube are utterly unstable and will collapse; ergo, no eight-ball cube can be included in a structural hierarchy.
416.04 The two-frequency (three spheres to an edge), two-layer tetrahedron may also be formed into a cube through 90-degree interprecessional effect. (See Fig. A.)
417.00 Precession of Two Sets of 60 Closest-Packed Spheres
Fig. 417.01 417.01 Two identical sets of 60 spheres in closest packing precess in 90 degree action to form a seven-frequency, eight-ball-to-the-edge tetrahedron with a total of 120 spheres; exactly 100 spheres are on the outer shell, exactly 20 spheres are in theinner shell, and there is no sphere at the nucleus. This is the largest possible double-shelled tetrahedral aggregation of closest-packed spheres having no nuclear sphere. As long as it has the 20- sphere tetrahedron of the inner shell, it will never acquire a nucleus at any frequency.
417.02 The 120 spheres of this non-nuclear tetrahedron correspond to the 120 basic triangles that describe unity on a sphere. They correspond to the 120 identical right- spherical triangles that result from symmetrical subdividing of the 20 identical, equilateral, equiangular triangles of either the spherical or planar-faceted icosahedron accomplished by the most economical connectors from the icosahedron's 12 vertexes to the mid-edges of the opposite edges of their respective triangles, which connectors are inherently perpendicular to the edges and pass through one another at the equitriangles' center and divide each of the equilaterals into six similar right triangles. These 120 triangles constitute the highest common multiple of system surface division by a single module unit area, as these 30º , 60º , 90º triangles are not further divisible into identical parts.
417.03 When we first look at the two unprecessed 60-ball halves of the 120-sphere tetrahedron, our eyes tend to be deceived. We tend to look at them "three-dimensionally," i.e., in the terms of exclusively rectilinear and perpendicular symmetry of potential associability and closure upon one another. Thus we do not immediately see how we could bring two oblong quadrangular facets together with their long axes crossing one another at right angles.
417.04 Our sense of exclusively perpendicular approach to one another precludes our recognition that in 60-degree (versus 90-degree) coordination, these two sets precess in 60-degree angular convergence and not in parallel-edged congruence. This 60-degree convergence and divergence of mass-attracted associabilities is characteristic of the four- dimensional system.
418.00 Analogy of Closest Packing, Periodic Table, and Atomic Structure
418.01 The number of closest-packed spheres in any complete layer around any nuclear group of layers always terminates with the digit 2. First layer, 12; second, 42; third, 92 . . . 162, 252, 362, and so on. The digit 2 is always preceded by a number that corresponds to the second power of the number of layers surrounding the nucleus. The third layer's number of 92 is comprised of the 3 multiplied by itself (i.e., 3 to the second power), which is 9, with the digit 2 as a suffix.
418.02 This third layer is the outermost of the symmetrically unique, nuclear-system patterns and may be identified with the 92 unique, selfregenerative, chemical-element systems, and with the 92nd such element__ uranium.
418.03 The closest-sphere-packing system's first three layers of 12, 42, and 92 add to 146, which is the number of neutrons in uranium__which has the highest nucleon population of all the self-regenerative chemical elements; these 146 neutrons, plus the 92 unengaged mass-attracting protons of the outer layer, give the predominant uranium of 238 nucleons, from whose outer layer the excess two of each layer (which functions as a neutral axis of spin) can be disengaged without distorting the structural integrity of the symmetrical aggregate, which leaves the chain-reacting Uranium 236.
418.04 All the first 92 chemical elements are the finitely comprehensive set of purely abstract physical principles governing all the fundamental cases of dynamically symmetrical, vectorial geometries and their systematically self-knotting, i.e., precessionally self-interfered, regenerative, inwardly shunting events.
418.05 The chemical elements are each unique pattern integrities formed by their self-knotting, inwardly precessing, periodically synchronized selfinterferences. Unique pattern evolvement constitutes elementality. What is unique about each of the 92 self- regenerative chemical elements is their nonrepetitive pattern evolvement, which terminates with the third layer of 92.
Small duotet 1.5tv, small int octa .5tv, small cube 3tv
Large duotet 12tv, large int octa 4tv, large cube 24tv
Double Duo-tet = includes VE w/o 1/2-octas, in IVM and cubic matrix
4F tet (slightly offset)
Cubes ahoy!
1 F tet, volume 1, surface area 4 (triangle faces).
2 F tet, volume 8, surface area 16.
3 F tet, volume 27, surface area 36.
4 F tet, volume 64, surface area 64.
5 F tet, volume 125, surface area 100.
6 F tet, volume 216, surface area 144.
What about the oddball relative volumes of the icosa and vector edge cube? (cont'd)
18.51 + 8.49 = 27. 8 icosas in 2F cube pattern has central vector edge cube
27 = 3 x 3 x 3 (3 Freq small cube). 8 = 2 x 2 x 2 (2 Freq small cube)
3 layers of a cube of 9 spheres/cubes
01.02.03. + 04.05.06. + 07.08.09.
10.11.12. + 13.14.15. + 16.17.18.
19.20.21. + 22.23.24. + 25.26.27.
000+000+000
000+000+000
000+000+000
000+000+000x000+000+000x000+000+000
27 + 27 = 54 (2 cubes)
54 - 42 = 12 (2 cubes - 2nd freq VE vertices = 1st freq VE 12 vertices)
54 - 12 = 42 (2 cubes - 1st freq icosa vertices = 2nd freq icosa vertices)
92 = 90 + 2 where 2 is suffix, 90 is 9 x 10, 9 is the full set.
Wonky watercube: foam has 14 sided cells of minimal surface area
here
involution, revolution, evolution A geodesic hemispheric dome of aluminium tubing and fabric with congruent torus with central funnel column as supporting mast, wind turbine, tracking solar collector, chimney, water spout reservoir, air conditioning.
. In single symmetrical systems, all the vertexes are equidistant radially from their common volumetric centers, and the centers of area of all their triangular facets are also equidistant from the system's common volumetric center.
400.41 The minimum single symmetrical system is the regular tetrahedron, which contains the least volume with the most surface as compared to all other symmetrical single systems. There are only three single symmetrical systems: the regular tetrahedron, with a "unit" volume-to-skin ratio of 1 to l; the regular octahedron, with a volume-to- surface ratio of 2 to 1; and the regular icosahedron, with a volume-to-surface ratio of 3.7 to 1. Single asymmetrical systems contain less volume per surface area of containment than do symmetrical or regular tetrahedra. The more asymmetrical, the less the volume-to- surface ratio. Since the structural strength is expressed by the vector edges, the more asymmetrical, the greater is the containment strength per unit of volumetric content.
VE to octa showing icosa phases
Flexible polyhedra, VE, golden icosa/tetra, the Arc: red curve at upper left at page 12 includes the Synergetics jitterbug transformation from VE cuboctahedron through the various icosahedral phases to the octahedron. The Synarctics full jitterbug actually continues through to the tetrahedron and triangle without stopping, though it can reverse at any click-stop phase.
The Synarctic version of structural dimensionality of the jitterbug transformation, with decrease in bond distribution:
Dimension | Single Jitterbug | Dual Jitterbugs | Int plane polygons |
| 6th Dimension | VE non-nuclear cuboctahedron | Dual non-nuc cuboctahedra | hexagon |
| 5th Dimension | fluid icosahedra | rigid icosahedron | pentagon |
| 4th Dimension | octahedron | cube faced w/ 6 octamids | square |
| 3rd Dimension | tetrahedron | tri prism w/ 3 octamids & 2 tetramids | triangle |
| 2nd Dimension | 2 Freq triangle | "winged" octahedron | triangle |
| 1st Dimension | equil triangle 8 layer non-Z "prism" | octa? tet? SoD? triangle? non-Z "anti-prism" | triangle |
internal flat planar polygon defines dimension:
cuboctahedron = 6 dimension, hexagon, dynamic cycle
icosahedron = 5 dimension, pentagon, static shell
octahedron/cube/triprism = 4 dimension, square, matrix
tetrahedron = 3 dimension, triangle, structure, crystal
2 Freq triangle = 2 dimension, triangle, system, tile
1 Freq triangle = 1 dimension, triangle, unit, cell
Note on Synarctic Jitterbug:
VE vertex single bond pin hinged, (compress able)
octa double bond edge hinged, (torque able)
tetra tri bond cirumferentially hinged (squish able)
triangle 8 plane full face hinged (coplanar polar layerable)
SoD nuclear plane face hinged (noncoplanar neutral layerable)
12, 42, 92
12 = 6 x 2, 3 x 4
42 = 6 x 7, 6 is non-nuc hexagon, 7 is nuc hexagon
42 = 3 x 14, 3 is prime triangle, 14 is VE & foam faces
92 = 90 degrees/surface spheres + polarity suffix
am: A regular octahedron can be cumulated so that it is either a rhombic
dodecahedron or a stella octangula.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Cumulation.html
Math World won't admit this, but if you cumulate an octahedron, then
you can get the rhombic dodecahedron, just as if you cumulate the cube.
A stella octangula and rhombic dodecahedron are identical on a spherical surface AFAICT.
-
VE as 5tv
VE**5 = 160tv
Table: Initial Frequencies of Vector Equilibrium
Close-packed
Spheres Freq Tetravolumes
Radius 1 VE0/2 2 1/2
Radius 1 VE0 5
Radius 2 VE1 20
Radius 4 VE2 160
patern(pattern/path/pith/pathos) matern(matrix/matter/material/math/method)
Friday, April 2, 2010
Monogamy in treefrogs & humans
Monogamy in humans, hominoids and tree frogs
here
Air sac in a puddle frog species used for visual gesture more than vocalization, probably due to a 'tuned-in' aural predator abundance similar to Hawaiian crickets which lost their song due to predation:
here
Some frogs lack vocal sacs, such as those from the genera Heleioporus and Neobatrachus, but these species can still produce a loud call. Their buccal cavity is enlarged and dome-shaped, acting as a resonance chamber that amplifies their call. The noise of flowing water overpowers any call, so some river frogs communicate by other means.
The main reason for calling is to allow males to attract a mate. Males call either individually or in a group called a chorus. Females of many frog species, for example Polypedates leucomystax, produce calls reciprocal to the males', which act as the catalyst for the enhancement of reproductive activity in a breeding colony.[39] A male frog emits a release call when mounted by another male. Tropical species also have a rain call that they make on the basis of humidity cues prior to a rain shower. Many species also have a territorial call that is used to chase away other males. All of these calls are emitted with the mouth of the frog closed.
A distress call, emitted by some frogs when they are in danger, is produced with the mouth open, resulting in a higher-pitched call. The effectiveness of the call is unknown; however, it is suspected the call intrigues the predator until another animal is attracted, distracting them enough for its escape.
Many species of frog have deep calls, or croaks. The English onomatopoeic spelling is "ribbit". wikipedia
Nature by number: spatial geometry in natural growth patterns
here
New apith skeletons found
here
Air sac in a puddle frog species used for visual gesture more than vocalization, probably due to a 'tuned-in' aural predator abundance similar to Hawaiian crickets which lost their song due to predation:
here
Some frogs lack vocal sacs, such as those from the genera Heleioporus and Neobatrachus, but these species can still produce a loud call. Their buccal cavity is enlarged and dome-shaped, acting as a resonance chamber that amplifies their call. The noise of flowing water overpowers any call, so some river frogs communicate by other means.
The main reason for calling is to allow males to attract a mate. Males call either individually or in a group called a chorus. Females of many frog species, for example Polypedates leucomystax, produce calls reciprocal to the males', which act as the catalyst for the enhancement of reproductive activity in a breeding colony.[39] A male frog emits a release call when mounted by another male. Tropical species also have a rain call that they make on the basis of humidity cues prior to a rain shower. Many species also have a territorial call that is used to chase away other males. All of these calls are emitted with the mouth of the frog closed.
A distress call, emitted by some frogs when they are in danger, is produced with the mouth open, resulting in a higher-pitched call. The effectiveness of the call is unknown; however, it is suspected the call intrigues the predator until another animal is attracted, distracting them enough for its escape.
Many species of frog have deep calls, or croaks. The English onomatopoeic spelling is "ribbit". wikipedia
Nature by number: spatial geometry in natural growth patterns
here
New apith skeletons found
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Dinosaur-Avian evolution
see my comments
Early bird-dino types had long straight bony tails used to prop upright while static on ground and perch upright on tree branches. Their long necks allowed them to sleep with the head swivelled back between the arms/wings, giving them ability to see behind & above while resting, advantage against predators which normally attack from the rear or above. This tucked-back posture (seen also in giraffes & geese) has resulted in many fossil birdinos found in this position, the "death pose", because they died asleep on the ground, perhaps in buried hollows or underbrush during sandstorms.
When these 'birdinos' developed bristle filament protofeathers on the caudal ventral surface, it allowed better perching while on branches, the feather tips and edges acting like velcro or fingertip ridges, the long fan of feathers giving part-circumferential anchorage, from bone to bark, while the long curved hyperextended toes were above the branch, the other toes clamped from below. Eventually a side toe moved sidewards, then reversed, giving better traction and reducing need for a long heavy tail, so they replaced the bony tail with long tail feathers and short pygostyle, while shrinking the long neck (except in waders/surface feeders) and replacing teeth with lightweight beaks, improving aerial traits. Non-aquatic arboreal birds greatly shortened the body axis, grounded birds less so.
Compare arboreal (carni-frugi?) birdinos to tupaia tree shrews:
Nocturnal pen-tailed tree shrew (Ptilocercus lowi) with bony feather-fan tail which drinks wine from bertram palm and hops when on the ground (compare to early birdinos with long bony tail with feather fans):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93001529
http://weirdimals.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/pen-tailed-tree-shrew/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugeissona
(Tree shrews are very small insectivore/frugivore/nectarivores, close cousins to primates, niche habits similar to early birdinos? (cf drunken monkey hypothesis and Asian Flush reaction to nectar-fruit-yeast alcohol consumption on metabolism re sugar/carb/aldehyde/diabetes.)
Diurnal mountain tree shrew with fluffy squirrel tail which after feeding on pitcher plant nectar exudates then deposits Nitrogenous poo into the loo, the bowl of the pitcher plant, and runs swiftly while on the ground:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/5/632
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090623-tree-shrew-lavatory.html
Coelecanth - dinosaur fish that swam on 4 legs, uses trimtab tail rudder
dinofish
-
Petro city Monstrosity: Cities have become havens for engines, not humans.
http://www.beyondtheedge.org/automotive/a-world-without-cars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BeyondTheEdge+(Beyond+The+Edge)
Early bird-dino types had long straight bony tails used to prop upright while static on ground and perch upright on tree branches. Their long necks allowed them to sleep with the head swivelled back between the arms/wings, giving them ability to see behind & above while resting, advantage against predators which normally attack from the rear or above. This tucked-back posture (seen also in giraffes & geese) has resulted in many fossil birdinos found in this position, the "death pose", because they died asleep on the ground, perhaps in buried hollows or underbrush during sandstorms.
When these 'birdinos' developed bristle filament protofeathers on the caudal ventral surface, it allowed better perching while on branches, the feather tips and edges acting like velcro or fingertip ridges, the long fan of feathers giving part-circumferential anchorage, from bone to bark, while the long curved hyperextended toes were above the branch, the other toes clamped from below. Eventually a side toe moved sidewards, then reversed, giving better traction and reducing need for a long heavy tail, so they replaced the bony tail with long tail feathers and short pygostyle, while shrinking the long neck (except in waders/surface feeders) and replacing teeth with lightweight beaks, improving aerial traits. Non-aquatic arboreal birds greatly shortened the body axis, grounded birds less so.
Compare arboreal (carni-frugi?) birdinos to tupaia tree shrews:
Nocturnal pen-tailed tree shrew (Ptilocercus lowi) with bony feather-fan tail which drinks wine from bertram palm and hops when on the ground (compare to early birdinos with long bony tail with feather fans):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93001529
http://weirdimals.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/pen-tailed-tree-shrew/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugeissona
(Tree shrews are very small insectivore/frugivore/nectarivores, close cousins to primates, niche habits similar to early birdinos? (cf drunken monkey hypothesis and Asian Flush reaction to nectar-fruit-yeast alcohol consumption on metabolism re sugar/carb/aldehyde/diabetes.)
Diurnal mountain tree shrew with fluffy squirrel tail which after feeding on pitcher plant nectar exudates then deposits Nitrogenous poo into the loo, the bowl of the pitcher plant, and runs swiftly while on the ground:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/5/5/632
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/090623-tree-shrew-lavatory.html
Coelecanth - dinosaur fish that swam on 4 legs, uses trimtab tail rudder
dinofish
-
Petro city Monstrosity: Cities have become havens for engines, not humans.
http://www.beyondtheedge.org/automotive/a-world-without-cars/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BeyondTheEdge+(Beyond+The+Edge)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tetrapods: 400ma coral lagoon ancestors
Tetrapod tracks
"Another key surprise from the research is the recognition that these tetrapods lived in a marine environment, perhaps a coral lagoon. The favoured origin before now for the emergence of tetrapods had been marshy environments, such as deltas or lakes where freshwater dominated. The team behind the latest research said the new explanation made sense because it would have allowed marine ancestors of tetrapods gradually to acquire terrestrial competence while accessing a new and essentially untouched resource of food washed up with the tides.
"In the intertidal setting, you've got a smorgasbord laid out twice a day," said Dr Ahlberg. "Every time the tide goes out, it leaves behind this drift-line of dead and moribund animals. All this was just left there for vertebrates - our ancestors - to emerge on to land and pick them off."
-
Cape clawless otter vs cape clawed toad?
Definition of Toads versus Frogs from the " Encyclopedia of Animals A complete Visual Guide"
Univ of Cal Press ISBN 0-520-24406-0
Toads family ( Bufonidae) have short legs for hopping, dry warty skin and are terrestrial. Frogs( Family Ranidae) have long, slender legs for leaping great distances, moist skin, and are aquatic. The use of the term "Toad" depends on the region of the world you are in. in Africa, the smooth and moist- skinned aquatic Cape clawed frog ( Xenopus gilli) is called a clawed Toad."
-
Sea otter: note similarity to human backfloating with arms behind head
sea otter
-
Swimming sloths: aqua-arboreal sloths
-
Size of eyes, Snake eyes
"The habits of Snakes can be seen in their eyes: small degenerate eyes suggest burrowers, vertical elliptical pupils are nocturnal/[crepuscular] species, large round eyes are active diurnal/[crepuscular?] predators that chase down their prey"
Posted by: Bob Michaels at Tet zoo
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/01/micropechis_ikaheka_snake.php
Neandertal eyes vs sapien eyes
Neandertal orbits were larger than modern human orbits, is this due to more nocturnal activity, as parallel in new world tarsier-like nocturnal owl monkeys vs other new world monkeys? Did neandertals specialize in crepuscular (early morning/late evening) ambushes at waterside? Was dark adaptation an aquatic feature, as seen in seals and sea lions with large orbits? See page 15 of this pdf:
them and us article
Perhaps erectines were more shellfish gatherers (dive partners at tropical lagoons) and only opportunistic hunters/scavengers, neandertals were more waterside ambushers (groups with jabbing spears in cooler climates) and sapiens were high-tech fishermen and trappers (including herding into traps/canyons).
Did neandertals have slit pupil eyes, like cats and some nocturnal primates (galagos, owl monkey)? The large orbit and occipital bun might indicate that. Note that aquatic animals do not have slit eyes, despite their dark hunting environment, since the refractive value of light in water differs from air.
Did neandertals retain a fur coat, growing longer in winter and shedding in spring, as in other paleoarctic fauna? Did only erectines lose this fur, due to basking on tropical shorelines? Did sapiens develop clothes and animal furs only as they moved away from the tropics, or in addition/substitution to body paints/perfumes for insect repellants?
Convergent evolution of echolocation in bats and whales
high freq hearing
"Another key surprise from the research is the recognition that these tetrapods lived in a marine environment, perhaps a coral lagoon. The favoured origin before now for the emergence of tetrapods had been marshy environments, such as deltas or lakes where freshwater dominated. The team behind the latest research said the new explanation made sense because it would have allowed marine ancestors of tetrapods gradually to acquire terrestrial competence while accessing a new and essentially untouched resource of food washed up with the tides.
"In the intertidal setting, you've got a smorgasbord laid out twice a day," said Dr Ahlberg. "Every time the tide goes out, it leaves behind this drift-line of dead and moribund animals. All this was just left there for vertebrates - our ancestors - to emerge on to land and pick them off."
-
Cape clawless otter vs cape clawed toad?
Definition of Toads versus Frogs from the " Encyclopedia of Animals A complete Visual Guide"
Univ of Cal Press ISBN 0-520-24406-0
Toads family ( Bufonidae) have short legs for hopping, dry warty skin and are terrestrial. Frogs( Family Ranidae) have long, slender legs for leaping great distances, moist skin, and are aquatic. The use of the term "Toad" depends on the region of the world you are in. in Africa, the smooth and moist- skinned aquatic Cape clawed frog ( Xenopus gilli) is called a clawed Toad."
-
Sea otter: note similarity to human backfloating with arms behind head
sea otter
-
Swimming sloths: aqua-arboreal sloths
-
Size of eyes, Snake eyes
"The habits of Snakes can be seen in their eyes: small degenerate eyes suggest burrowers, vertical elliptical pupils are nocturnal/[crepuscular] species, large round eyes are active diurnal/[crepuscular?] predators that chase down their prey"
Posted by: Bob Michaels at Tet zoo
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2010/01/micropechis_ikaheka_snake.php
Neandertal eyes vs sapien eyes
Neandertal orbits were larger than modern human orbits, is this due to more nocturnal activity, as parallel in new world tarsier-like nocturnal owl monkeys vs other new world monkeys? Did neandertals specialize in crepuscular (early morning/late evening) ambushes at waterside? Was dark adaptation an aquatic feature, as seen in seals and sea lions with large orbits? See page 15 of this pdf:
them and us article
Perhaps erectines were more shellfish gatherers (dive partners at tropical lagoons) and only opportunistic hunters/scavengers, neandertals were more waterside ambushers (groups with jabbing spears in cooler climates) and sapiens were high-tech fishermen and trappers (including herding into traps/canyons).
Did neandertals have slit pupil eyes, like cats and some nocturnal primates (galagos, owl monkey)? The large orbit and occipital bun might indicate that. Note that aquatic animals do not have slit eyes, despite their dark hunting environment, since the refractive value of light in water differs from air.
Did neandertals retain a fur coat, growing longer in winter and shedding in spring, as in other paleoarctic fauna? Did only erectines lose this fur, due to basking on tropical shorelines? Did sapiens develop clothes and animal furs only as they moved away from the tropics, or in addition/substitution to body paints/perfumes for insect repellants?
Convergent evolution of echolocation in bats and whales
high freq hearing
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Skull density in hominids
Gauld SC 1996 AJPA 100:411-426
Allometric patterns of cranial bone thickness in fossil hominids
Skull thickness in He is more than twice that of other primates of
comparable body size, Hn is intermediate, Hs is still above most other
primates, and A.africanus is somewhat above other equally-sized primates,
but I need more figures of other apiths, esp. robust ones.
Extraordinarily thick skull vaults are typically (AFAIK exclusively) seen in
shallow slow parttime diving animals. Slow divers in sea water (density c
1.024) are expected to have much thicker skulls than those in freshwater.
Alan Shabel found that in dentitions & enamel thickness apiths resembled
mungoes & other carnivores that fed (partly) on hard-shelled invertebrates.
Might africanus (& other apiths??) have parttime dived (or ducked) for
bottom shell+crayfish in the wetlands & swamp forests where they lived??
We need a lot more measurements of skull thicknesses esp. of fossil
hominids, but also of other animals.
I made a graph (somebody did it for me) with
- x-axis = the cubic root of the body weight of different primate spp,
- y-axis = their skull thickness.
It was almost a straight line, with small spp a bit below that line,
medium-sized a bit above (esp.orang & chimp), and very large ones (gorilla)
a bit lower.
But there were 3 obvious exceptions:
- He was far above that line (but it might have been heavier than the usual
estimation of c 50 kg),
- Hs was clearly above it,
- A.africanus was also clearly above it (depending on its body weight, which
might be a bit higher IMO than usu.estimated).
Other data suggest Hn was intermediate between He & Hn, but I still lack
enough comparable data on apiths, Ardipith etc.
Does anybody know where to find more data? MV @ AAT
-
This fits the pattern -
early hominoid, foraging on pond surface AHV aquatic herbs, congo lowland gorillas raking high-protein hydrocharis and yanking up sedges for their rhyzomes, not dunking their faces nor seeking benthic foods, with large inflatable laryngeal air sacs for partial flotation, with lightweight skulls. Apith afarensis similar, but in Rift valley, less fruit trees, more sedges.
Apith africanus ate more water lily rhyzomes, reaching below water so smaller air sacs and denser skull, more invertebrate foods crayfish/snails and small vertebrates, more high fruit trees. Rift - So. Africa shallow lakes?
Human ancestors similar, but more tidal saltwater, lost air sacs and gained dense skull, ate tidal mangrove oysters at lagoons, more shrub berries, less high fruit trees, Medit. zone?
-
Myrica gale is a flowering plant native to Europe, with sweet resinous scent, and is a traditional insect repellent, used by campers to keep biting insects out of tents. Sweet Gale can grow in a narrow band in the intertidal zone, especially if it has some logs, washed down into the estuary on which to establish itself. It is a favorite food of beavers and low beaver dams can be found in the intertidal zone if sufficient sweet gale is present. The ponds thus formed are often completely submerged at high tide but retain water at low tide and provide deep enough water to provide a refuge for fish, including juvenile salmon where the water is too deep for predation by wading birds. wiki
-
Ear wax & Scent: Difference of appocrine sweat glands in Europeans, Africans and Asians
scent, ear wax
rice, milk, alcohol in ancient Eurasians
-
Gorilla hybrids, Ardi party @ Lawnchair anthropology
-
Molars in hominoids
Gorilla and chimp molars evert earlier than orang and human due to more forest ground foraging (parallel with knucklewalking), orang probably has primitive hominoid condition, human also but even more so do to beaver lodge - hut/cave nesting & aquatic foraging & mainly food processing & cooking.
Speaking of dense bones and waterside herbivores, article on neolithic dugong & fishing rituals:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/excavation-uncovers-ritual-site-1.523925
Allometric patterns of cranial bone thickness in fossil hominids
Skull thickness in He is more than twice that of other primates of
comparable body size, Hn is intermediate, Hs is still above most other
primates, and A.africanus is somewhat above other equally-sized primates,
but I need more figures of other apiths, esp. robust ones.
Extraordinarily thick skull vaults are typically (AFAIK exclusively) seen in
shallow slow parttime diving animals. Slow divers in sea water (density c
1.024) are expected to have much thicker skulls than those in freshwater.
Alan Shabel found that in dentitions & enamel thickness apiths resembled
mungoes & other carnivores that fed (partly) on hard-shelled invertebrates.
Might africanus (& other apiths??) have parttime dived (or ducked) for
bottom shell+crayfish in the wetlands & swamp forests where they lived??
We need a lot more measurements of skull thicknesses esp. of fossil
hominids, but also of other animals.
I made a graph (somebody did it for me) with
- x-axis = the cubic root of the body weight of different primate spp,
- y-axis = their skull thickness.
It was almost a straight line, with small spp a bit below that line,
medium-sized a bit above (esp.orang & chimp), and very large ones (gorilla)
a bit lower.
But there were 3 obvious exceptions:
- He was far above that line (but it might have been heavier than the usual
estimation of c 50 kg),
- Hs was clearly above it,
- A.africanus was also clearly above it (depending on its body weight, which
might be a bit higher IMO than usu.estimated).
Other data suggest Hn was intermediate between He & Hn, but I still lack
enough comparable data on apiths, Ardipith etc.
Does anybody know where to find more data? MV @ AAT
-
This fits the pattern -
early hominoid, foraging on pond surface AHV aquatic herbs, congo lowland gorillas raking high-protein hydrocharis and yanking up sedges for their rhyzomes, not dunking their faces nor seeking benthic foods, with large inflatable laryngeal air sacs for partial flotation, with lightweight skulls. Apith afarensis similar, but in Rift valley, less fruit trees, more sedges.
Apith africanus ate more water lily rhyzomes, reaching below water so smaller air sacs and denser skull, more invertebrate foods crayfish/snails and small vertebrates, more high fruit trees. Rift - So. Africa shallow lakes?
Human ancestors similar, but more tidal saltwater, lost air sacs and gained dense skull, ate tidal mangrove oysters at lagoons, more shrub berries, less high fruit trees, Medit. zone?
-
Myrica gale is a flowering plant native to Europe, with sweet resinous scent, and is a traditional insect repellent, used by campers to keep biting insects out of tents. Sweet Gale can grow in a narrow band in the intertidal zone, especially if it has some logs, washed down into the estuary on which to establish itself. It is a favorite food of beavers and low beaver dams can be found in the intertidal zone if sufficient sweet gale is present. The ponds thus formed are often completely submerged at high tide but retain water at low tide and provide deep enough water to provide a refuge for fish, including juvenile salmon where the water is too deep for predation by wading birds. wiki
-
Ear wax & Scent: Difference of appocrine sweat glands in Europeans, Africans and Asians
scent, ear wax
rice, milk, alcohol in ancient Eurasians
-
Gorilla hybrids, Ardi party @ Lawnchair anthropology
-
Molars in hominoids
Gorilla and chimp molars evert earlier than orang and human due to more forest ground foraging (parallel with knucklewalking), orang probably has primitive hominoid condition, human also but even more so do to beaver lodge - hut/cave nesting & aquatic foraging & mainly food processing & cooking.
Speaking of dense bones and waterside herbivores, article on neolithic dugong & fishing rituals:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/excavation-uncovers-ritual-site-1.523925
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Flower-fruit plants => Flying fauna! CO2, O2, N2
Green plants can't uptake carbon from soil, because they use water to move nutrients, water + carbon = carbonic acid (eats limestone -> caves). Soil fungi do decompose carbs, as do animals, and exude CO2. Plant leaves "breathe" O2 just like animals and fungi. Plant leaves "eat" CO2, using solar energy to decompose it into O2 & C, the C is then combined with H et al to make carbs for plant tissue. Plants (grasses) require wind to reduce stratification of gases (gas stratification starves them of C or chokes them of O2), tropical rainforests need mobile animals not only for fruit dissemination but also gas mixing (flying insects/fruit bats/fruit birds), this is the major advantage of angiosperm flora over non-fruiting gymnosperms (seeded but non-fruiting conifers) and the reason that flowering plants and symbiotic fauna "won" the competitive war against cycads, conifers, ferns, etc. Biological textbooks say little about gas stratification prevention, but it is critical in closed-canopy ecosystems (same reason that sealife comes in both mobile jetsam (tail/fin) & immobile photosynthetic flotsam). [my comment@]
flowers + fruit induce faunal flight to mix gas
-
flower origin
-
ancient scorpionflies pollinating gymnosperms?
ResearchBlogging.org
"The first flowering plants evolved more than a hundred million years ago, while dinosaurs were still on the scene. Since then, they’ve come to dominate the world, largely outcompeting the plants that were there before, such as conifers, cycads, and ginkgoes...The reason for showy flowers is to attract pollinators, most commonly insects. Today, the majority of flowering plants use insects to carry their pollen, whereas most gymnosperms (the older group of plants, including conifers) are pollinated by the wind. Insects have one clear advantage over the wind: they can track down another flower of the same species...From insect fossils, it looks like there were pollinators (scorpionflies) around in the Jurassic, which had evolved together with the gymnosperms that were around at the time...some fossil gymnosperms weren't well adapted for wind pollination."
http://takluyver.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/carbon-dioxide-and-nitrogen-not-such-a-double-whammy/
"Nitrogen makes up nearly 80% of the atmosphere, but pure nitrogen (aka N2) isn’t very easy to get at. What counts is ‘reactive nitrogen’, especially dissolved nitrate (NO3-) and ammonia (NH4+). Plants can readily take this up and use it, helping them to grow faster (NPK fert). In fact, over half of the reactive nitrogen being made each year now comes from human activities.
Ecologists know quite well that adding nitrogen often leads to fewer species living together. And a recent experiment neatly showed why that might be: when plants’ roots are battling it out for nutrients (like nitrogen), it’s a relatively fair fight. But add nitrogen, and the fight moves above the ground, for the light plants need to grow. Here, bigger plants can quickly shade out smaller ones and kill (some of) them off... carbon dioxide and nitrogen have different effects on plants, and they seem to balance out to some extent. Although the effect of light wasn’t clear cut in this experiment, I think it might also be important that higher carbon dioxide lets plants grow in deeper shade."
-
leaf veins
http://ecographica.blogspot.com/2009/12/evolution-is-in-veins-of-our-captors.html
"...primitive ancestors of the tyrannical angiosperms underwent adaptation to feed on the then abundant atmospheric carbon dioxide. Through undertaking a process known as photosynthesis, some early plant-forms gained reproductive advantage and quickly out-competed their rivals. In time, their numbers became so great that oxygen – a byproduct of photosynthesis - accumulated in the biosphere to such extent that it triggered a catastrophic transition to an oxygenated planet. In hindsight, this rapid transition, called the ‘Great Oxygenation Event,’ can be viewed as a first step in the angiosperms’ selfish remaking of the Earth, and as foreshadowing the eventual enslavement of all humankind.
Initially, constrained anatomy affectively limited the plants’ ability to channel the xylem tissues required for harnessing the sun’s rays. Xylem tissues are essential to photosynthesis because it is their job to convey water and nutrients throughout the plant. Early plants lacked sufficient internal structure and architecture to serve as pathways for xylem transport; this physically restricted the amount of energy that could be generated through photosynthesis. In other words, because of a lack of adequate venation, the radiation of angiosperms was kept in-check. However, this all changed during the Cretaceous Period.
Over the course of evolutionary history, natural selection tinkered at the physiology of the angiosperms, incrementally improving their clumsy and inefficient application of photosynthesis until eventually, about 120,000,000 years ago, the density of the angiosperms’ veins dramatically increased by 300-400%. The upsurge in venation meant that the plants’ xylem tissues more frequently made contact with individual plant cells; this pushed the capacity of the angiosperms’ energetic processes far beyond what they could achieve previously. Newly acquired energy surpluses were promptly invested in reproduction and as a result angiosperm populations exploded the world over."
Marine CO2 effects on shellfish, crustaceans, calcific algae:
crabs & CO2
(compare to green plants in soil which can't absorb carbonic acid through roots, so must consume CO2 in air via photosynthesis.)
eco-web-tet: ants, fungi, bacteria, plant in 4 way symbiotic relationship
plants & ants
Game theory: bacteria and human in decision making in stress
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uoc--bpn121109.php
flowers + fruit induce faunal flight to mix gas
-
flower origin
-
ancient scorpionflies pollinating gymnosperms?
ResearchBlogging.org
"The first flowering plants evolved more than a hundred million years ago, while dinosaurs were still on the scene. Since then, they’ve come to dominate the world, largely outcompeting the plants that were there before, such as conifers, cycads, and ginkgoes...The reason for showy flowers is to attract pollinators, most commonly insects. Today, the majority of flowering plants use insects to carry their pollen, whereas most gymnosperms (the older group of plants, including conifers) are pollinated by the wind. Insects have one clear advantage over the wind: they can track down another flower of the same species...From insect fossils, it looks like there were pollinators (scorpionflies) around in the Jurassic, which had evolved together with the gymnosperms that were around at the time...some fossil gymnosperms weren't well adapted for wind pollination."
http://takluyver.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/carbon-dioxide-and-nitrogen-not-such-a-double-whammy/
"Nitrogen makes up nearly 80% of the atmosphere, but pure nitrogen (aka N2) isn’t very easy to get at. What counts is ‘reactive nitrogen’, especially dissolved nitrate (NO3-) and ammonia (NH4+). Plants can readily take this up and use it, helping them to grow faster (NPK fert). In fact, over half of the reactive nitrogen being made each year now comes from human activities.
Ecologists know quite well that adding nitrogen often leads to fewer species living together. And a recent experiment neatly showed why that might be: when plants’ roots are battling it out for nutrients (like nitrogen), it’s a relatively fair fight. But add nitrogen, and the fight moves above the ground, for the light plants need to grow. Here, bigger plants can quickly shade out smaller ones and kill (some of) them off... carbon dioxide and nitrogen have different effects on plants, and they seem to balance out to some extent. Although the effect of light wasn’t clear cut in this experiment, I think it might also be important that higher carbon dioxide lets plants grow in deeper shade."
-
leaf veins
http://ecographica.blogspot.com/2009/12/evolution-is-in-veins-of-our-captors.html
"...primitive ancestors of the tyrannical angiosperms underwent adaptation to feed on the then abundant atmospheric carbon dioxide. Through undertaking a process known as photosynthesis, some early plant-forms gained reproductive advantage and quickly out-competed their rivals. In time, their numbers became so great that oxygen – a byproduct of photosynthesis - accumulated in the biosphere to such extent that it triggered a catastrophic transition to an oxygenated planet. In hindsight, this rapid transition, called the ‘Great Oxygenation Event,’ can be viewed as a first step in the angiosperms’ selfish remaking of the Earth, and as foreshadowing the eventual enslavement of all humankind.
Initially, constrained anatomy affectively limited the plants’ ability to channel the xylem tissues required for harnessing the sun’s rays. Xylem tissues are essential to photosynthesis because it is their job to convey water and nutrients throughout the plant. Early plants lacked sufficient internal structure and architecture to serve as pathways for xylem transport; this physically restricted the amount of energy that could be generated through photosynthesis. In other words, because of a lack of adequate venation, the radiation of angiosperms was kept in-check. However, this all changed during the Cretaceous Period.
Over the course of evolutionary history, natural selection tinkered at the physiology of the angiosperms, incrementally improving their clumsy and inefficient application of photosynthesis until eventually, about 120,000,000 years ago, the density of the angiosperms’ veins dramatically increased by 300-400%. The upsurge in venation meant that the plants’ xylem tissues more frequently made contact with individual plant cells; this pushed the capacity of the angiosperms’ energetic processes far beyond what they could achieve previously. Newly acquired energy surpluses were promptly invested in reproduction and as a result angiosperm populations exploded the world over."
Marine CO2 effects on shellfish, crustaceans, calcific algae:
crabs & CO2
(compare to green plants in soil which can't absorb carbonic acid through roots, so must consume CO2 in air via photosynthesis.)
eco-web-tet: ants, fungi, bacteria, plant in 4 way symbiotic relationship
plants & ants
Game theory: bacteria and human in decision making in stress
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uoc--bpn121109.php
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Amazing animals
platymolekiwiduck
A Hawaiian duck that resembled a platypus-mole-kiwi, probably foraged in forest duff and shallow streams, huge trigeminus - why? electrosensory bill or nares? apnea adaptation? whiskery feathers?
An octopus carries and uses coconut shells
octopus hand tools
long tail glider
the tail has 2 rows of ventral ridges, reminds me of my interpretation of dino-bird and pterosaur long bony tails with bristle scale feathers to grasp tree bark, both taxa co-evolved into short tailed flyers with improved perching rear toe claws but in this "squirrel" which lacks wings is sufficient for gliding from tree to tree.
Both from Christopher Taylor's nature blog, Catalogue of Organisms
From Zooillogix nature blog: antarctic seals & elephant birth
leopard seals
weddell seals
http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2009/11/graphic_elephant_birth.php
Cameron's blog: Galapagos Marine iguana
Marine CO2 effects on shellfish, crustaceans, calcific algae:
crabs & CO2
(compare to green plants in soil which can't absorb carbonic acid through roots, so must consume CO2 in air via photosynthesis.)
eco-web-tet: ants, fungi, bacteria, plant in 4 way symbiotic relationship
Ich! Parasite has 2 endoparasites:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uog-url120209.php
-
Humans and saltwater: (h/t Frank at Greg's site)
a recent study in ultra-marathon runners (100 mi) found that they lost between 11.2 and 144 g of sodium during the event. Obviously the range is huge and it really depends on the person. Total water loss in the same event ranges from 14 to 36 liters.
A liter of seawater contains approximately 35g of salt. One liter of blood contains 9g of salt. For every liter of seawater you drank you would need to add 2.8 liters of fresh unsalted water to be “even.”
-
While sweating excessive amounts of salt would be deleterious to humans inhabiting hot and humid inland environments, sweating large quantities of salt that was isotonic with the blood stream would be advantageous in a hot and humid coastal marine environment where significant
quantities of marine invertebrates were consumed." MW
-
PZ on evo development of nervous system: exaptation of simple organelles in protists to tissue cells, salt control, electric potential...
nerve evolution
A Hawaiian duck that resembled a platypus-mole-kiwi, probably foraged in forest duff and shallow streams, huge trigeminus - why? electrosensory bill or nares? apnea adaptation? whiskery feathers?
An octopus carries and uses coconut shells
octopus hand tools
long tail glider
the tail has 2 rows of ventral ridges, reminds me of my interpretation of dino-bird and pterosaur long bony tails with bristle scale feathers to grasp tree bark, both taxa co-evolved into short tailed flyers with improved perching rear toe claws but in this "squirrel" which lacks wings is sufficient for gliding from tree to tree.
Both from Christopher Taylor's nature blog, Catalogue of Organisms
From Zooillogix nature blog: antarctic seals & elephant birth
leopard seals
weddell seals
http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2009/11/graphic_elephant_birth.php
Cameron's blog: Galapagos Marine iguana
Marine CO2 effects on shellfish, crustaceans, calcific algae:
crabs & CO2
(compare to green plants in soil which can't absorb carbonic acid through roots, so must consume CO2 in air via photosynthesis.)
eco-web-tet: ants, fungi, bacteria, plant in 4 way symbiotic relationship
Ich! Parasite has 2 endoparasites:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uog-url120209.php
-
Humans and saltwater: (h/t Frank at Greg's site)
a recent study in ultra-marathon runners (100 mi) found that they lost between 11.2 and 144 g of sodium during the event. Obviously the range is huge and it really depends on the person. Total water loss in the same event ranges from 14 to 36 liters.
A liter of seawater contains approximately 35g of salt. One liter of blood contains 9g of salt. For every liter of seawater you drank you would need to add 2.8 liters of fresh unsalted water to be “even.”
-
While sweating excessive amounts of salt would be deleterious to humans inhabiting hot and humid inland environments, sweating large quantities of salt that was isotonic with the blood stream would be advantageous in a hot and humid coastal marine environment where significant
quantities of marine invertebrates were consumed." MW
-
PZ on evo development of nervous system: exaptation of simple organelles in protists to tissue cells, salt control, electric potential...
nerve evolution
Friday, August 21, 2009
Humboldt Natural History Museum closure
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/blogthing/2009/08/07/hsu-natural-history-museum-close/
Local (Humboldt county) North Coast Natural History Museum, associated with Humboldt State University, may be soon closing. They've had a good exhibit on ancient hominids, and always whale fossils and various coastal species.
Being right on the Pacific coast and Redwood forest and linked to HSU marine/envirinmental/forestry studies. A small museum, nothing fancy. This area is economically depressed but ecologically wealthy.
Sociopolitical economic freeze,
Priorities and opportunities,
Sparks blowing in a hot breeze,
Halt the growing of li'l trees.
http://www.humboldt.edu/~natmus/
Introduction
http://savethenorthcoastnhm.org/index.php?q=civicrm/contribute/transact&reset=1&id=3&widgetID=1
If you can and wish to donate some spare funding
[The ARC has no direct affiliation with the museum, but is considering a potential link via ARC-AID-A, a not-for-profit program being considered.]
http://redwoods.info/showrecord.asp?id=243
-
http://www.krisweb.com/krishumboldtbay/krisdb/html/krisweb/whats_new.htm
"So long as our relationship is defined by our differences,
we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace".
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Marine monuments & Wing diving
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_marine_conservation_5
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090106-7.html
Establishment of the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument
map
mahalo!
DDeden
kanaka haoli maoli
pakeha maori
papalani fufu
matsaleh bule
If any female (as dive partner) would like to join me in starting Islamarina Dive Clinic, partly based at Rose Atoll, American Samoa, USA, please email me at daud.deden@gmail.com, entitle it "DIVING". Rose Atoll is the southern-most land of the United States and the easternmost isle of the Malayo-Polynesian Samoan islands, and located south of the equator. I am very motivated to begin testing of the ARC there due to the warm clear lagoons and pristine environment. Collaborative non-competitive dive partnership preferred, the focus will be on natural aqua-photic respiratory cycle diving while evidence foraging, theory testing and photo-videographing. An internship may be possible in future, haven't worked out administrative details or funding yet. Come make a dream happen.
wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Evolving tides
http://vimeo.com/1914765?pg=embed&sec=1914765
Magnificent Polar arctic & antarctic show and music (aria de amor (tosca))
h/t jeanie
Magnificent Polar arctic & antarctic show and music (aria de amor (tosca))
h/t jeanie
Friday, October 3, 2008
Marine Science & Protection
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/31028/
Ocean less livable for marine mamals?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081002-noisy-oceans.html?source=rss
Red tide biotoxins from harm to medicine
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/544930/?sc=rssn
Finally, an online game "saving the coral reef from an oil tanker spill", I really like the background music.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Trickysheep/kaleidoscope-reef
Ocean less livable for marine mamals?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081002-noisy-oceans.html?source=rss
Red tide biotoxins from harm to medicine
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/544930/?sc=rssn
Finally, an online game "saving the coral reef from an oil tanker spill", I really like the background music.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Trickysheep/kaleidoscope-reef
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Melville's classic dilemma
Captain Ahab (man) vs Moby Dick (whale) conflict resolution
Today, the battle is "crisis of the commons", where people keep dumping pollutants into the sea and overharvesting from the sea without regard for it's ecological limits. No one owns the oceans, and because they have currents moving materials around like the winds, a different type of ownership/stewardship system is required, different from land based systems, or else the oceans will be degraded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/science/19fish.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Coral reef bleaching & malaria
http://www.afreeman.org/2008/02/28/great-interview-week-scientific-serendipity-in-sydney-2/
Chromera velia, a unicellular photosynthetic symbiotic brown algae found associated with coral reefs, which leaves when the reef water becomes too warm resulting in bleached coral, has been found to be related to malarial Plasmodium and other apicomplexan parasites like toxiplasmosis.
Apparently, these blood-borne parasites derive from coral cell symbiont alga, and still contain vestigial chloroplasts (chlorophyll compounds, like in tree leaves that construct tissue from hydrocarbons using sunlight energy), but now obtain energy from their animal hosts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6468381.stm
Now, the question remains, how did a salt-water-loving coral-symbiont-algae evolve into a freshwater-nymphal-mosquito carried vertebrate-blood parasite?
or... did it?
Friday, May 9, 2008
Human ancestors at waterside, Kelp highway
map of Monte Verde, Chile
Chile coast, medicine hut with seaweed cuds
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080508-first-americans.html
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ii-0JpxgOlM0abvwCzW4GBfvczCQ
WASHINGTON — Remains of meals that included seaweed are helping confirm the date of a settlement in southern Chile that may offer the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas.
Researchers date the seaweed found at Monte Verde to more than 14,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the well-studied Clovis culture. And the report comes just a month after other scientists announced they had found coprolites - fossilized human feces - dating to about 14,000 years ago in a cave in Oregon.
http://archaeology.about.com/od/kterms/qt/kelp_highway.htm
See pictures: map, medicine hut, seaweed quids
http://archaeology.about.com/od/preclovissites/ss/monte_verde.htm
http://dudescoffeeblender.blogspot.com/2008/06/just-because.html
Kelp Iodine scavenges reactive oxygen species
FC K�pper et al.2008 PNAS 105:6954-8
Iodide accumulation provides kelp with an inorganic antioxidant impacting atmospheric chemistry
Brown algae of the Laminariales (kelps) are the strongest accumulators of iodine among living organisms. They represent a major pump in the global biogeochemical cycle of iodine and, in particular, the major source of iodo-carbons in the coastal atmosphere. Nevertheless, the chemical state & biological significance of accumulated iodine have remained unknown to this date.
Using x-ray absorption spectroscopy, we show that the accumulated form is iodide, which readily scavenges a variety of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We propose here that its biological role is that of an inorganic anti-oxidant, the first to be described in a living system. Upon oxidative stress, iodide is effluxed. On the thallus surface & in the apoplast, iodide detoxifies both aqueous oxidants & ozone, the latter resulting in the release of high levels of molecular iodine & the consequent formation of hygroscopic iodine oxides leading to particles, which are precursors to cloud condensation nuclei. In a complementary set of experiments using a heterologous system, iodide was found to effectively scavenge ROS in human
blood cells.
Early chicken in South America not Polynesian
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/americas-first-visitors-may-not-have-been-from-polynesia-suggests-new-study_10077195.html
Blue highway: African Rift - Blue Nile
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/48574/title/On_the_Scene__Droughts_gave_early_humans_survival_skills_for_later_travels
(University of Texas at Austin anthropologist) John Kappelman presented this counterintuitive idea October 19 in a talk titled “Blue Highways,” which followed his fossil digs along the Blue Nile tributaries in Ethiopia. Early humans are thought to have taken one of two routes out of Africa: along the Red Sea, or along the Nile Valley and out across Eurasia.
But “there’s been very little testing on the ground, recovering fossils and sites that actually permit us to evaluate either one of those two hypothetical migration events,” Kappelman said.
(British naturalist) Samuel Barker noticed something key: The rivers are dry for most of the year, but every summer the water rushes back “like freight cars,” Kappelman said. The torrent of water gouged out deep holes that retained water even during the dry season, leaving a necklace of isolated pools.
And the pools were full of fish. “The fish were literally in a bucket,” Kappelman says.
Kappelman and his team found double-edged blades that were probably used as arrow heads and evidence of hearth fires in several sites around the Nile.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Orangutans at waterside, laryngeal air sacs
Update 03/2010: Orangutan orphans in water
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/orang-utan-water/1
Face always kept above water surface with throat air sac inflated while nose breathing.
-
Orangutan protects human from crocodile:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-saved-by-an-orangutan-821624.html
You can protect orangutans from extinction:
Sumatra http://www.orangutans-sos.org/
Borneo http://redapes.org%20/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_page_id=1965&in_article_id=562236
"Swimming" orangutan, note the throat-neck, likely the bare skin is slightly swollen due to laryngeal air sacs inflated, used when vertical floating or surface sculling with head above water.
Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear (likely bamboo, note the nodes [click to enlarge photo]). See here for article on fishing macaque monkeys fishing monkeys
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3828123.ece
Naturalists were shocked to see the apes go across a river to gain access to some of their favourite fruits at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo.
Orangutans at Runga river pallas island orphan orangutan sanctuary seen entering water for sweet corn cobs, splashing. No crocs in that area. Probably not swimming. link
http://redapes.org/news-updates/leila-the-orangutan-drowns-in-german-zoo/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/740542/Suyria-Florida-ape-Baby-orangut\
an-is-king-of-the-swimmers.html
http://redapes.org/voices-from-the-field/any-mother-will-swim-to-save-her-child/
http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutans-Survival-Information/Orangutans-swim-to-\
safety.aspx
The more stories and "almost swimming' photos, the more doubt arises.
Wading? Yes. Vertical floating? Possible, but probably only if learned in
shallow wetland first. Swimming horizontally? No, no clear evidence of that. Can't blame the folks there for making a fuss about it though, the forest is being destroyed so quickly for oil palm plantations and lumber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISScU6W1vIg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bottom photo is of two siamang gibbons (lesser apes) which frequently call loudly with inflated air sacs. I hypothesize that ancient hominoids lived in tidal rainforests (estuarboreal), and enlarged throat air sacs were selected (like in frogs) for better vertical flotation and vocalization. Human ancestors remained at the tidal shores but moved from these dense mangroves (per MV) to open shores diving/backfloating at lagoon reefs for shellfish etc. while the ape ancestors followed rivers inland to more arboreal and less aquatic habitat. Humans today do not normally have laryngeal air sacs, however trumpet blowers and glass blowers sometimes develop laryngocoels which are pathological laryngeal air sacs.
The morphology of all extant apes (except the small gibbons) and the skeletal fossils of Lucy & Selam (Australopithecus afarensis) possessing hyoid bones indicate enlarged laryngeal air sacs, while those of Homo neandertalensis and ancient Homo sapiens do not.
Background: Laryngocoele/laryngocele/laryngeal air sac
A laryngocele is usually a cystic dilatation of the laryngeal saccule. The etiology behind its occurrence is still unclear, but congenital and acquired factors have been implicated in its development [1,2]. Laryngoceles appear to be an atavistic remnant from the higher apes (DD: correction, higher apes are not our ancestors, hominoids are ancestral to both Homo and extant apes), particularly those who use their arms with the thoracic cage fixed whilst swinging through the trees (DD: addendum, vertical climbing/floating/wading with arms holding vegetation). ... the laryngocele could have been caused by prolonged and repeated valsalva... the increased air pressure in the larynx may make an already existing laryngocele manifest [1].
Congenitally, the laryngeal saccule is a remnant corresponding to the lateral laryngeal air sacs of the higher anthropoid apes, which may on occasion, manifest suddenly in response to pressure caused by coughing, straining at stool, or trumpet playing (i.e. valsalva maneuvers [used in diving to equalize middle ear pressure]). An acquired laryngocele may develop when the laryngeal ventricle becomes functionally obstructed as a result of an increase in intraglottic pressure, e.g. excessive coughing, playing a wind instrument or obstruction of appendicular ostium [1,2].
Three types of laryngoceles are described. An internal laryngocele is confined to the interior of the larynx and extends posterosuperiorly into the false vocal cord and the aryepiglottic fold; this type appears on laryngoscopy as a smooth swelling of the supraglottis. An external laryngocele extends superiorly to appear laterally in the neck through the opening in the thyrohyoid membrane for the superior laryngeal nerve and vessels; these clinically present as a swelling in the neck at the level of the hyoid bone anterior to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. The simultaneous existence of both features is termed a combined laryngocele [1-4].
The simple laryngocele is an uncomplicated air-filled dilatation of the appendix of the laryngeal ventricle.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2482/6/14
Laryngeal air sac in whales, function: Full size right whales forage at the water surface, swim slower than human sport swimmers, and are the fattest whales (float at the surface when dead, which is why whalers called them "right whales"). Pygmy right whales are far less fatty due to their small size and metabolism, so their laryngeal air sac adds buoyancy when foraging on krill copepods near the surface. Apes in shallow water generally seek surface Aquatic Herbaceous Vegetation (AHV) (see the gorilla videos) and only seek bottom foods (water bugs under rocks/leaves) while wading in ankle-deep water. Human ancestors at seashores were tide-affected, and foraged for food from the shallows to perhaps 30+m deep. Because they were enveloped in a thin layer of buoyant thermoinsulative skin fat, denser bones were selected for, bringing the body to neutral buoyancy in seawater (similar to sea otters and walruses).
update: bowhead whales also surface feed and have lar. air sacs, AFAICT no other whales have lar. air sacs and do not typically feed at the surface.
So, bowhead whales, pygmy right whales and apes forage near the water surface and possess laryngeal air sacs; while (ancestral) humans, sea otters, blue whales forage near the sea bottom and lack laryngeal air sacs.
Air sac size quite small (though this is a small whale), compare to 1 liter air sac in orangs or 20-50 liter pharyngeal air sac in walrus. Why did Homo lose the laryngeal air sac? Switch to humming type speech and backfloating and addition of subcutaneous fat layer and stop climbing?
(Stranded) Pygmy right whale dissection, showing lungs and laryngeal air sac at left.
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/%20
Gorilla foraging in wetland with partly inflated laryngeal air sac:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gorilla&view=detail&id=F3C63788AE6768B1E99B65DFE64B1D105D87E520&first=0&qpvt=gorilla&FORM=IDFRIR
Note gorilla posture, red scalp, air sac, water just below shoulders.
upright posture - moroto/proconsul aquarboreal climbing/slow brachiating/wading/floating/walking/hanging
red scalp - post-hylobatid hominoid canopy woven nesting mimicry of raptor, grabbing hook-like hand, cooing infant (became hooting in large arboreals), human preemies have lanugo from eyebrows to scalp, which when pulled forward in surprise (eyebrow flash/frown) (or sun avoidance without protruding brows) becomes danger sign to raptor from above, evolutionarily later lost when brain-skull-protruding jaws enlarged.
air sac - visible in photo to the right of the sunlit hair, to left of throat, it is convex ( rather than concave )
due to partly inflated air sac. Human throat would show concave except at adams apple.
water - high enough to give flotation (of face) an advantage
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/orang-utan-water/1
Face always kept above water surface with throat air sac inflated while nose breathing.
-
Orangutan protects human from crocodile:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-saved-by-an-orangutan-821624.html
You can protect orangutans from extinction:
Sumatra http://www.orangutans-sos.org/
Borneo http://redapes.org%20/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_page_id=1965&in_article_id=562236
"Swimming" orangutan, note the throat-neck, likely the bare skin is slightly swollen due to laryngeal air sacs inflated, used when vertical floating or surface sculling with head above water.
Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear (likely bamboo, note the nodes [click to enlarge photo]). See here for article on fishing macaque monkeys fishing monkeys
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3828123.ece
Naturalists were shocked to see the apes go across a river to gain access to some of their favourite fruits at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo.
Orangutans at Runga river pallas island orphan orangutan sanctuary seen entering water for sweet corn cobs, splashing. No crocs in that area. Probably not swimming. link
http://redapes.org/news-updates/leila-the-orangutan-drowns-in-german-zoo/
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/740542/Suyria-Florida-ape-Baby-orangut\
an-is-king-of-the-swimmers.html
http://redapes.org/voices-from-the-field/any-mother-will-swim-to-save-her-child/
http://www.orangutans.com.au/Orangutans-Survival-Information/Orangutans-swim-to-\
safety.aspx
The more stories and "almost swimming' photos, the more doubt arises.
Wading? Yes. Vertical floating? Possible, but probably only if learned in
shallow wetland first. Swimming horizontally? No, no clear evidence of that. Can't blame the folks there for making a fuss about it though, the forest is being destroyed so quickly for oil palm plantations and lumber.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISScU6W1vIg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bottom photo is of two siamang gibbons (lesser apes) which frequently call loudly with inflated air sacs. I hypothesize that ancient hominoids lived in tidal rainforests (estuarboreal), and enlarged throat air sacs were selected (like in frogs) for better vertical flotation and vocalization. Human ancestors remained at the tidal shores but moved from these dense mangroves (per MV) to open shores diving/backfloating at lagoon reefs for shellfish etc. while the ape ancestors followed rivers inland to more arboreal and less aquatic habitat. Humans today do not normally have laryngeal air sacs, however trumpet blowers and glass blowers sometimes develop laryngocoels which are pathological laryngeal air sacs.
The morphology of all extant apes (except the small gibbons) and the skeletal fossils of Lucy & Selam (Australopithecus afarensis) possessing hyoid bones indicate enlarged laryngeal air sacs, while those of Homo neandertalensis and ancient Homo sapiens do not.
Background: Laryngocoele/laryngocele/laryngeal air sac
A laryngocele is usually a cystic dilatation of the laryngeal saccule. The etiology behind its occurrence is still unclear, but congenital and acquired factors have been implicated in its development [1,2]. Laryngoceles appear to be an atavistic remnant from the higher apes (DD: correction, higher apes are not our ancestors, hominoids are ancestral to both Homo and extant apes), particularly those who use their arms with the thoracic cage fixed whilst swinging through the trees (DD: addendum, vertical climbing/floating/wading with arms holding vegetation). ... the laryngocele could have been caused by prolonged and repeated valsalva... the increased air pressure in the larynx may make an already existing laryngocele manifest [1].
Congenitally, the laryngeal saccule is a remnant corresponding to the lateral laryngeal air sacs of the higher anthropoid apes, which may on occasion, manifest suddenly in response to pressure caused by coughing, straining at stool, or trumpet playing (i.e. valsalva maneuvers [used in diving to equalize middle ear pressure]). An acquired laryngocele may develop when the laryngeal ventricle becomes functionally obstructed as a result of an increase in intraglottic pressure, e.g. excessive coughing, playing a wind instrument or obstruction of appendicular ostium [1,2].
Three types of laryngoceles are described. An internal laryngocele is confined to the interior of the larynx and extends posterosuperiorly into the false vocal cord and the aryepiglottic fold; this type appears on laryngoscopy as a smooth swelling of the supraglottis. An external laryngocele extends superiorly to appear laterally in the neck through the opening in the thyrohyoid membrane for the superior laryngeal nerve and vessels; these clinically present as a swelling in the neck at the level of the hyoid bone anterior to the sternocleidomastoid muscle. The simultaneous existence of both features is termed a combined laryngocele [1-4].
The simple laryngocele is an uncomplicated air-filled dilatation of the appendix of the laryngeal ventricle.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2482/6/14
Laryngeal air sac in whales, function: Full size right whales forage at the water surface, swim slower than human sport swimmers, and are the fattest whales (float at the surface when dead, which is why whalers called them "right whales"). Pygmy right whales are far less fatty due to their small size and metabolism, so their laryngeal air sac adds buoyancy when foraging on krill copepods near the surface. Apes in shallow water generally seek surface Aquatic Herbaceous Vegetation (AHV) (see the gorilla videos) and only seek bottom foods (water bugs under rocks/leaves) while wading in ankle-deep water. Human ancestors at seashores were tide-affected, and foraged for food from the shallows to perhaps 30+m deep. Because they were enveloped in a thin layer of buoyant thermoinsulative skin fat, denser bones were selected for, bringing the body to neutral buoyancy in seawater (similar to sea otters and walruses).
update: bowhead whales also surface feed and have lar. air sacs, AFAICT no other whales have lar. air sacs and do not typically feed at the surface.
So, bowhead whales, pygmy right whales and apes forage near the water surface and possess laryngeal air sacs; while (ancestral) humans, sea otters, blue whales forage near the sea bottom and lack laryngeal air sacs.
Air sac size quite small (though this is a small whale), compare to 1 liter air sac in orangs or 20-50 liter pharyngeal air sac in walrus. Why did Homo lose the laryngeal air sac? Switch to humming type speech and backfloating and addition of subcutaneous fat layer and stop climbing?
(Stranded) Pygmy right whale dissection, showing lungs and laryngeal air sac at left.
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/%20
Gorilla foraging in wetland with partly inflated laryngeal air sac:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gorilla&view=detail&id=F3C63788AE6768B1E99B65DFE64B1D105D87E520&first=0&qpvt=gorilla&FORM=IDFRIR
Note gorilla posture, red scalp, air sac, water just below shoulders.
upright posture - moroto/proconsul aquarboreal climbing/slow brachiating/wading/floating/walking/hanging
red scalp - post-hylobatid hominoid canopy woven nesting mimicry of raptor, grabbing hook-like hand, cooing infant (became hooting in large arboreals), human preemies have lanugo from eyebrows to scalp, which when pulled forward in surprise (eyebrow flash/frown) (or sun avoidance without protruding brows) becomes danger sign to raptor from above, evolutionarily later lost when brain-skull-protruding jaws enlarged.
air sac - visible in photo to the right of the sunlit hair, to left of throat, it is convex ( rather than concave )
due to partly inflated air sac. Human throat would show concave except at adams apple.
water - high enough to give flotation (of face) an advantage
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