Vertebrates "are" Invertebrates

I asked the following questions to Christopher at his blog Catalogue of Organisms, in his post on moths.

1. Are the pharyngeal arches in vertebrates homologous to the first pair of true legs in insects?





2. Are the abdomenal prolegs in holometabolous caterpillars homologous to the ventral mammae & milk line in mammals? (both involve fluid-dynamic flow rather than muscle movement, and woulld explain presence of most male mammals retaining vestigial nipples).

I suspect so, in both cases. Having just read The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson, I see that female lobsters secrete protein glue (for egg attachment) from cement ducts on their caudalmost swimmerettes (homologous to caudalmost prolegs & mammae secreting casein glue-rich milk IMO). They fold their tails like crabs and deposit thousands of eggs within the folded area, protecting them from exposure. Marsupials seem to have retained this trait, except the marsupial embryo escapes the egg and womb and crawls by forelimbs to the mammae which are protected from exposure by a skin fold (pouch). The echidna, an egg laying primitive monotreme mammal with a pouch, has no external nipples, the hatched infant licks the abdomen to get milk. It appears to be a homology between these distinct taxa.

Aaron Filler's book on Vertebrae called The Upright Ape goes into detail on the spine & vertebrae as archetype, but does not mention this: Lobsters inside their eggs molt 35 times, changing their 'skin'. (After leaving the egg, lobsters eat their shed 'skin'.) The 35 molts produce the somites which form the vertebral column (in vertebrates), internally similar to the external rattles of the molting rattlesnake, I'd say. (Unlike lobsters, snakes never eat their shed skin AFAIK.) It is my contention that the 35 molts are, geometrically, 7 episodes of pentameric (5-way split) distribution, resulting in, for example, 7 cervical vertebrae in mammals, etc.

DDeden

PS. Insect wings and bird/dinosaur feathers appear to be homologous to lobster swimmerettes, (and more distantly to caterpillar prolegs and mammalian mammae). Imagine that! Nature Rules!

PPS. Insect wings appear to be homologs to a vertebrate rib "shell", that is, the delicate forewings of a butterfly are equivalent evolutionarily to the hyperdense ribcage of a dugong, the aftwings of a moth to a sauropod pelvis, the fly's vestigial flight knobs to a giant blue whales vestigial pelvis.

http://coo.fieldofscience.com/2011/06/colour-vs-crypsis.html#comments

http://www.uprightape.net/

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Lobsters-Scientists-Unraveling/dp/0060555580

Also interesting to compare human embryos and giant sauropod dinosaurs:

http://svpow.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/the-worlds-longest-cells-speculations-on-the-nervous-systems-of-sauropods/

and the tentacles of squid ((4 + 1) x 2) with the typical prolegs of a caterpillar ((4 + 1) x 2)...

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Church forests of Lake Tana, Ethiopia 'Trees are the jewels of God"

http://blogs.plos.org/blog/2011/02/25/church-forest/

They function similarly to the European tradition of Royal Forest. Interesting the name of the island forests is Coptic Forest, similar to Coppice Forest.

Shellfish saved humans but not AAT!!??

Humans: Mammals of the Seashores
Video

Shellfish fed human ancestors

map & photo of Buia & Djibouti bays
(Note similarity and nearness to Djibouti harbor just south along coast, with islands offshore rich in coral reefs and mangroves. During a slightly wetter period, paradise, but now desert isles.)

1ma beef at Buia, Eritrea: Surf & Turf at tropical lagoons
Surf & Turf @ coast

Dahlak archipelago settled 2ka, speak Dahalik dialect of Tigrinya, pastoral/fishing/pearl diving

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Epic of Gilgamesh/Noah's ark was round
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular

similar to the marsh Arab barns or coracles?

Finkel's research throws light on the familiar Mesopotamian story, which became the account in Genesis, in the Old Testament, of Noah and the ark that saved his menagerie from the waters which drowned every other living thing on earth.

In his translation, the god who has decided to spare one just man speaks to Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who lived before the flood and who is the Noah figure in earlier versions of the ark story. "Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same."

The tablet goes on to command the use of plaited palm fibre, waterproofed with bitumen, before the construction of cabins for the people and wild animals.
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50,000 year old pigments in shells for body paint
paint or mosquito repellant?
Scientists unearthed the shells at two archaeological sites in the Murcia province of southern Spain. Professor Joao Zilhao, the archaeologist from Bristol University in the UK, who led the study, said that he and his team had examined shells that were used as containers to mix and store pigments. Black sticks of the pigment manganese, which may have been used as body paint by Neanderthals, have previously been discovered in Africa. "[But] this is the first secure evidence for their use of cosmetics," he told BBC News. "The use of these complex recipes is new. It's more than body painting." The scientists found lumps of a yellow pigment, that they say was possibly used as a foundation. They also found red powder mixed up with flecks of a reflective brilliant black mineral. The shells were coated with residues of mixed pigments
Some of the sculpted, brightly coloured shells may also have been worn by Neanderthals as jewellery. [I think this was H sapiens, not neandertals.]
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My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all.

- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
________

'We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork', said Dr Mortimer.
'Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation', [replied Holmes].

- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and
thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series
of hobglobins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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Some years ago — it was February, 1955, late in the southern summer — I was introduced by Professor Raymond A. Dart to a room filled with fossil bones in the basement of Johannesburg's Medical School. In that room I met more than bones, for I encountered a variety of things that I had never heard of. I had never heard of man's origin on the continent of Africa. I had never heard of our probable ancestors, the australopithecines, a zoological group of small-brained erect-running creatures, hesitating between the roles of ape and man, who haunted the high African savannahs a million or two years ago.

Authors, being shameless, tend to rush into print. So fathomless was my ignorance, however, and so oceanic were the dimensions of scientific accomplishment while my back had been turned, that the rush consumed six years of my life, and even then I learned only to float. For it was not just a matter of Australopithecus and the predatory transition; there were alpha fish and pecking orders, gene pools and displacement activities, exploratory behavior and ritualized aggression, and all had bearing on the human condition. Above all, there was territory.

Robert Ardrey - The Territoreal Imperative
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Babble from Bab-El, syllabic phonetic language roots in Hebrew/Arabic/Phoenician/Venetian
http://www.edenics.org/
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SS Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Manual_for_Spaceship_Earth

Spaceship earth: The idea that the earth is a spaceship, with the sun as our energy supplier.
General systems theory: The idea of the earth is as a mechanical vehicle that requires maintenance, and that if you do not keep it in good order it will cease to function.
Synergy: Likens humanity to a chick that has just broken out of its shell and is now ready to enter the next phase of its existence. Suggests "How big can we think?"
Integral functions: Where the whole of a system is greater than the sum of its parts. "Ergo, only complete world desovereignization can permit the realization of an all humanity high standard support."
Regenerative landscape: Wealth is expanded by the development of tools which go beyond what was integral to man. States that the highest priority need of world society is a realistic accounting system, instead of one where a top toolmaker in India gets paid in a month what he would make in a day in Detroit. Defines tools as either craft tools that can be invented by one man such as bows and arrows and industrial tools that can not be produced by one man such as the S.S. Queen Mary. Finds language to be the first industrial tool. States that craft tools were used to create industrial tools. States that to take advantage of potential wealth we must give life fellowships to each person who is or becomes unemployed, and states that for every 100,000 fellowships given out one person will come up with something so valuable that it will pay for the remaining 99,999 fellowships. Predicts that soon the great office buildings will be turned into residences and that all the work that had been done in them will be done in the basements of a few buildings. States that we "must operate exclusively on our vast daily energy income from the powers of wind, tide, water, and the direct Sun radiation energy".

This quotation, referring to fossil fuels, reflects his approach:

"...can make all of humanity successful through science's world-engulfing industrial evolution provided that we are not so foolish as to continue to exhaust in a split second of astronomical history the orderly energy savings of billions of years' energy conservation aboard our Spaceship Earth. These energy savings have been put into our Spaceship's life-regeneration-guaranteeing bank account for use only in self-starter functions."

"Spaceship earth" may have been derived from a passage in Henry George's best known work, Progress and Poverty[1] (1879). From book IV, chapter 2:

It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we sail through space. If the bread and beef above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great command over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches are opened are permitted to say, "This is mine!"
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Darwin's Origin of Species, David Winters @ Atavism blog:
http://sciblogs.co.nz/the-atavism/2009/12/31/the-origin-of-species-and-the-origin-of-species/

Biological speciation vs Social specialization.
species: separate full-time from parent group type due to divergent geo/bio-niche
specialists: separate part-time from parent group type

"You can see where my number came from once you consider that only about 4% of the genome is functional DNA - 150 mutations in your genome will lead to about 6 mutations in functional regions."

5 digits primitive, others derived from ancestral form

fish & tetrapods (article missing)

Pentadactyly (from Greek pente- = "five" plus δακτυλος = "finger") is the condition of having five digits on each limb. It is believed that all living tetrapods are descended from an ancestor with a pentadactyl limb, although many species have now lost or transformed some or all of their digits by the process of evolution

"Major branching events in vertebrate evolution occurred long ago. Sharks branched off the human lineage at least 430 million years ago.

The ray-finned fishes, technically known as Actinopterygians, branched off 420 million years ago.
"Teleosts, the largest subgroup of Actinopterygians, include the vast majority of fishes today," Coates said.

Acanthostega looked like "a large, grotesque salamander," Coates said. It had legs and digits, with rudimentary ankles and wrists, but also internal gills and a large tail fin. Acanthostega, along with new work by Coates and Clack on other previously discovered early tetrapods, contradicted long-held paleontological beliefs that early tetrapods all had five digits on each limb. But, Acanthostega had eight, while other creatures of the same period had seven and six digits."

[DD: Ancanthostega derived 8 from 5 primary digits for better swimming (just as the ray finned fish did), it probably lacked interdigital skin webbing (unlike todays' frogs and salamanders, think sturgeon) so more digits were selected, with multiple extra digits, some becoming mere t
hin needle-like bones in teleosts. Tiktaalik had 5 digits, and was ancestral to tetrapods.]

Interesting note:

Didactyly (from Greek di-="two" plus δακτυλος = "finger") or bidactyly is the condition of having two digits on each limb, as in the Hypertragulidae and Two-toed Sloth, Choloepus didactylus. In humans this name is used for an abnormality in which the middle digits are missing, leaving only the thumb and fifth finger, or big and little toes.

Fishapods

With placoderm-like forebears in brackish shallows, perhaps Tiktaalik was a
primitive proto-salamander/reptile, Acanthostega a primitive pelagic
proto-ray-finned fish (with its duplicated digits for better hydrodynamic
propulsion), and Ichthyostega a primitive proto-frog, with its lack of
abdominal ribs allowing the gradually lengthening rear limbs with broad
paddled feet to come far forward to launch or lunge (and later to leap),
"differentiated vertebral column, with a short neck, weird tall neural spines
in the pelvic region, and a tail which is proportionally shorter" sounding a
lot like a short-legged frog, to eventually lose a few digits and fuse the
coccyx, but retain the primitive skin breathing ability and need to reproduce
in shallow later.

See pictures of fishapods
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/04/functional_anatomy_part_i.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fishapod

Icosa + Octa + Tet = ICTET

Novel structure incorporating 3 simplest structural polyhedral forms:
" the ARC in =4D= " the tail as a rotating/fused/swiveling structure

I found 6 correlations. [Update: a 7th found, the Proxigean extreme spring tide occurs every 31 years, see bottom of post.] The last one was hard, the ictet has 31 sides, but what was the 12? I knew there must be a twelve. Then I remembered Bucky's 12 radial spokes supporting a tensional wheel. Just as a rotating tail (but not a swiveling tail) such as a propeller or a clock must balance outwards to avoid offset erosion of the prop axle, the wheel must have 12 contacts in balance, as the sphere in a matrix must have 12 contact points. The result is extraordinary. (I did not originally see the link of 31 GC & vertebral nerve prs and 12 cranial nerves, Rybo at Synergeo group did, a copy of his graphic is at the bottom of the ARC blog. Ken at AAT group noted the 31 equal temperment of an octave.)

1 growth-31 vert neural pairs, 12 cranial nerve pairs, pentameric
2 form-31 great circles in icosa, 12 vertices, pentagonal
3 energy-31 equal temperment in octave, 12 tones, pentatonic
4 time-31~ day/night cycles in month, 12 month, heptapent
5 triax-31=sum of 1st 7 factors, of 12 factors of 60, hexapent
6 ictet-31 triangular sides, 12 deg. of freedom of tail pentabase
7 orbit-31 year cycle extreme proxigean spring tide, 12 pt ellipsis
Bio video of helical propelled bacteria: Rhodobacter sphaeroides
http://www.rowland. harvard.edu/ labs/bacteria/ showmovie. php?mov=rsphe_ f_swim_1
http://tinyurl. com/qzdb4r
Good graphical explanation of flagella, cilia, rod:
http://lecturer. ukdw.ac.id/ dhira/BacterialS tructure/ Flagella. html

Note: (Flower petals/leaves often split as 2, 3, 5, which are prime)

The number 60, a highly composite number, has twelve factors:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 10 = 31 (sum of 1st 7 factors)

In spherically arranged tight-fit ball packing layers:
12, 42, 92, 162, 252, 362 (shell layer balls in VE, Icosa)
10, 40, 90, 160, 250, 360 (subtract 2)
1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36 (divide by 10)
f = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (sq root)

form: 1 tet = 4 sides (tetrahedron)
form: 1 octa = 8 sides (octahedron)
form: 1 octet = 11 sides (2 merge into 1 double pane = tube)
form: 1 icosa = 20 sides (icosahedron)
form: 1 ictet = 31 sides (icosa w/ pin-hinged octet "tail")

Ictet = icosa + tail, polar moment, mono-axis

So now we have a composite structure of all 3 structural elements, the overall shape is an icosa-spheroid with an octet tail which can rotate in any direction (or if reversely docked, swing-hinge in an arc), answering the question, from whence did the flagella and sperm arise. Also explains the persistence of the tail in all motile organisms. Also explains why humans have 31 vertebral neural pairs, 12 cranial neural pairs and no tail. At least it would seem so.

AFAIK no one has noted the significance of the combined 'Ictet' structure as a universal jointed spheric mobile entity, and its numerical parallel of 31 sides with the 31 equal temperment of the octave, the 31 vertebral neural pairs in humans, the 31 lunar days and 31 great circles of the icosahedron, the 31 sum of 1st 7 factors of 60.

http://www.tabletoptelephone.com/~hopspage/Fuller.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron
http://www.buckminster.info/Pics/Tetrahedra/Tet-Quark-Mite.gif
At the single open vertex of the tetrahedron (the far left blue point) of the octet is the universal 'pin joint' which is attached to one of the 12 pentagonal sutures (pore/window) of the (truncated/regular) icosahedron or hexapent buckyball, the octet tail allowed to swivel radially or horizontally on a favorable plane.

(The picture includes the internal electrostatic bonding forces referred to as a mite or quark, whose form is an irregular tetrahedron.)

Note that the icosa meets the octet at a pentagon window, the tet meets the octa with each of the tet base corners having 5 vectors. So there is a continuum of pentagonal adhesion/cohesion, aka pentabase. Synergetic.

DDeden, August 18, 2009

(ictet not abbreviation for interpenetrated icosa-tet, rather an abbreviation for attached icosa-octa-tet, in the manner of R.B. Fuller term octet to name attached octa-tet form in patent.)

(More information on ICTET 31-12 available at AAT & Synergeo Yahoo groups.)
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background addendum:
The term harmony derives from the Greek (harmonía), meaning "joint", re. "to fit
together, to join". The harmonious major triad is composed of three tones in a
simple whole number ratio of 6:5:4. The major triad chord in music theory
consists of a root, a major third, and a perfect fifth.

In structural theory, the simplest closed structures, the Platonic triad, are
the tetrahedron, the octahedron and the icosahedron. It would seem to me that
these 2 triads or chords are the same relationship expressed in different form,
(sound) energy and physical matter. [Compare to diving/backfloating partners
with infant]

The relevance to the 'ictet' above is that the chordal form triad is
preserved, the icosa, tet and oct are securely joined, yet the pin joint allows
vibrational energy propulsion via propeller rotation equivalent to a wheel of 12 spokes tensionally held or 12 degrees of freedom. A dual pin hinge would produce lateral swiveling.

An alternative form, not considered here but perhaps relevant to echinoforms or
spongiforms, is a central icosa with an octet flagella (or spine) docked at each
of the 12 surface pentagons, resembling a stellated icosahedron.

Tetrahedron: triangular corner (3 lines converge)
Octahedron: square corner (4 lines converge)
Icosahedron: pentagon corner (5 lines converge)

Potentially supporting information as to the antiquity of the ictet tail structure, this time as a fused external structure: fused structural segments produce 'primary cilia' (flagella, filament) different from motile cilia and found in animal skin and brain cells. Not impossibly this 'primary cilia' became the source of the notochord & tail in pre/vertebrates.
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http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/uoc--ssc082109.php
"Unlike the more familiar motile cilia, primary cilia do not move, and only one pokes out of each cell. They have recently been discovered to play an essential role in assuring normal embryological development. May protect against skin cancer"

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/uoc--sbt082109.php
"UCSF scientists have discovered that a tiny filament extending from cells, until recently regarded as a remnant of evolution, may play a role in the most common malignant brain tumor in children. "In the last few years, primary cilia have been shown to be essential for the cell-signaling that drives both human development, including the differentiation of stem cells into neurons, and some diseases, including polycystic kidney disease. The fact that the two UCSF studies implicate primary cilia in two totally different tissues suggests the finding is likely to be very general."

Note: A skew icosahedron is inscribed within an octahedron in a 4 frequency tetrahedron.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/54332

"In other words, you can't make a regular icosahedron out of regular tetrahedrons. In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/10326
I once said that, "The dihedral angle between the faces of a regular tetrahedron is 1.230959418 radians or 70.52877938 degrees. This is also the angle between alternating faces of a regular octahedron. Notice that it is not quite 72 degrees, so you can't put exactly five
tetrahedra around a common edge or five octahedra around a common vertex, as was attempted in the gapball or octaball Photos." AM
http://home.usit.net/~rybo6/rybo/id2.html
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The number 31 pops up again, this time in regard to tidal cycles.
"During the last 400 years, there have been 39 instances or 'Extreme Proxigean Spring Tides' There were, in fact cases of extreme tidal flooding recorded during these particular spring tides which occur once every 31 years."

1800 yr ocean tidal cycle
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=18099

The gravitational force of the moon is one ten-millionth that of earth, but when you combine other forces such as the earth's centrifugal force created by its spin, you get tides.
When the moon is full or new, the gravitational pull of the moon and sun are combined. At these times, the high tides are very high and the low tides are very low. This is known as a spring tide. The net result of this is that the Earth gets deformed into a slightly squashed, ellipsoidal shape due to these tidal forces.

The tidal bulge of the Moon follows along the path on the earth's surface which intersects with the orbital plane of the Moon. This plane is tilted about 23 degrees with respect to the equatorial plane of the earth. The result is that near the equator, the difference between high tide and low tide is actually rather small, compared to other latitudes.

The Proxigean Spring Tide is a rare, unusually high tide. This very high tide occurs when the moon is both unusually close to the Earth (at its closest perigee, called the proxigee) and in the New Moon phase (when the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth). The proxigean spring tide occurs at most once every 1.5 years.

During the last 400 years, there have been 39 instances or 'Extreme Proxigean Spring Tides' where the tide-producing severity has been near the theoretical maximum. The last one of these was on March 7 1995 at 22:00 hours Greenwich Civil Time during a lunar Full Moon. There were, in fact cases of extreme tidal flooding recorded during these particular spring tides which occur once every 31 years."

If you see earths' orbit as a circle (slightly lopsided, ellipse) around the sun, imagine the sun as the center of a sunflower, and earth orbit as the edge of that center, then the moon could be seen as a set of 366 flower petals around it. In the last 400 years, the extreme proxigean spring tide occurred 39 times. Maybe at 366 it skipped the extreme tide.

Also note Rybo's picture at bottom of page showing the 31 spinal nerve pairs and 12 cranial nerve pairs.

On Bagpipes and Blowguns: Respiration at waterside

On Bagpipes & Blowguns
[Updated as of Aug. 31, 09 with addition on mumps, omnivory & air sac transition to diving]

Respiration in surface float feeding vs deep benthic diving

Float/surface foragers have a bagpipe-like system of breathing & vocalizing
The lungs and/or the air sac are always aerated (buoyant), nostril-up or closed

Dive/benthic foragers have a blowgun-like system of breathing & vocalizing
The lungs and/or the blood/muscle are oxygenated, nostril-down or closed

This is parallel in: [surface vs benthic foraging]
lily pad sitting frogs vs deep sub aquatic frogs
surface foraging right whales vs benthic foraging sperm whales
nostril-up wading reindeer/caribou vs nostril-down moose/muntjac
nostril-up gorillas/chimps vs nostril-down humans

Nostril-up usually indicates laryngeal/throat air sac (frog/gorilla/chimp)
Nostril-down usually indicates lack of throat sac (human/sea otter/nasalis)
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Allopatric speciation in humans and chimpanzees:
http://www.mailund.dk/index.php/2009/08/26/patterns-of-autosomal-divergence-between-the-human-and-chimpanzee-genomes-support-an-allopatric-model-of-speciation/
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090828/full/news.2009.870.html?s=news_rss

Hominoid to human: From sit-float to backfloat to boat
http://the-arc-ddeden.blogspot.com/2009/04/re-from-sit-float-feeding-to-backfloat.html

The link from laryngeal air sac inflated sit-floating hominoids 20ma to forage diving - backfloating humans 1ma, connecting mumps, milk, weaning, hydrodynamics.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT/message/53637

I think human laryngocoeles indicate at least a small throat air sac ancestrally (like dolphins). I doubt they had very large air sacs equal to large adult male gorilla. Human females in some areas low in Iodine can develop goiters, there may be a link, since the thyroid cartilage is adjacent. Goiters are usually mild, but can become very large. I've never heard of any non-human hominoid having a goiter. Both male and female apes have air sacs, only males may have huge ones.

We know that 3 year old Selam (dikik-1) of about 3ma had a hyoid bone (tongue base bone) indicating a laryngeal air sac, we don't know her exact species, though similar to Lucy the Apith afarensis. The hyoid is a small weak bone, usually it breaks down long before the skull does. The air sac itself doesn't last long at all. All Genus Homo hyoids found lack air sac indications, which fits with diving/submerged crouching but not much arboreal-terrestrial-swamp mix. Human ancestors after gorilla, chimps split didn't stay in wetlands, they were somewhere else, no more upright sit-floating. Most likely seashore beaches and no more thick forest canopy.

The correlation of fused tail bone and enlarged throat air sac is strong in non-quadruped tetrapods. Waterside foragers which don't dive tend to have shortened tails, whether they have air sacs or long prehensile nose-lip tools. I think our ancestors changed from sit-floating in lukewarm brackish water to backfloating in sunwarmed saltwater with face submerged, so air sacs became disadvantageous and the male beard became fuller, possibly females had slight goiters, possibly post-weaned kids had mild mumps swellings before puberty (post-milk, chewing-salivation immuno-reaction, triggered by contagious mumps
virus which might otherwise be present but non-infectious?).

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT/message/53638

More on mumps, milk, air sacs, goiter, saliva, defensins:

Gorillasw are herbivores, they get their protein from floating herbs. A mother gorilla and mother rabbit both feed their infants fecal pellets, I think deer also do this, to provide symbiotic gut bacteria and pre-digested plant material and probably some maternal hormone and immuno-defensins. Carnivores and omnivores don't do this. Instead they chew, partly swallow, then regurgitate the food for the infant (birds and wolves). Human mothers just chew and spit out some foods, Marc has noted that kissing may have begun this way ancestrally,
notably some tribes don't kiss but do alternatively rub noses, foreheads or cheeks.

Pre-birth, fetus gets food and defensins via blood.
Post-partum, newborn gets food and defensins via milk.
Human babies at weaning get food chewed by the mother, mixing her saliva containing defensins (anti-biotics & pro-biotics).

So I think that mumps and probably goiters only originated after the move from fresh-brackish wetland herbivory float-sit-foraging to increased upright submersed crouch-plucking lily seeds and invertebrates and early shallow diving.

So in Genus Homo (and maybe only partially in Genus Pan, see bushbaby spearing by female fertile chimps) there is a combined correlation of increased omnivorous nutrition, salivary defensin transmittance at weaning, improved submerged hydrodynamic form of throat area but male-only beards, reduced plant protein consumption but still Vit C dependence on fruits-plants so PTC gene still selected for, contagious but mild form of mumps after weaning but before puberty, mild form of goiter hypothyroidy in fertile females but not
pre-pubertal females or males, effect of osteoporosis in elder females(?), weaned children chewing more, activating salivary glands, but also suction feeding at puberty (raw oyster as aphrodisiac).

So, I think the early speculation that mumps correlates to the diving transition is further confirmed. The loss of the laryngeal air sac and AHV herbivory resulted in increased general diet including seafood high in Iodine and Omega 3 fatty acids, supplementing shore foods, with effects on jaw, dentition, tongue, larynx, facial hair, "childhood diseases". (Chicken pox may correlate to hair loss or sun UV or eccrine sweating protection in some way.)

(Marc V. had the idea about the goiter-hydrodynamic-diet-temperature link.)

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Air sac & tidal lung breathing and buoyancy in dinosaurs, birds, crocs & snakes
http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2009/07/birds_cannot_be_dinosaurs.php#c2023608

"mauka to makai" Hawaiian for 'inland to oceanside' is a science/nature/marine blog
http://maukamakai.wordpress.com/

http://underwater-society.org/
http://www.usfreediving.org/freediving-gs-faq.htm
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Laryngospasm & Shallow Water Blackout: When divers attempt long dives, they may run out of oxygen, which causes SWBO and associated laryngospasm (safety closure of larynx at glottis valve). The diving buddy needs to recover the unconscious diver, get them to the surface, and if the diver does not awaken within a few seconds, do the BTT: Blow (remove mask) across the eyelids, Tap the cheek, Talk to wake up the diver. The eyelids link to the trigeminal nerve, the cheeks to the facial nerve, the ears to the auditory nerve. The BTT informs the diver that oxygen conservation is completed and to breathe. Presumably in ancient human divers, sunlight in the eyes did the same thing.

Bio-convergent parallel: Anuroid & Hominoid

Arkive Video: Gorillas vertical wading and wet-sit-eating

left: dryland gelada, long-tailed, vertical-trunk, dry-sit-eat grasses, no air sac
right: lowland gorilla, tail-less, vertical-trunk, wet-sit-eat sedges, air sac


Another Video: Lowland Gorillas eating sedge rhyzomes and high-protein AHV (Aquatic Herbaceous Vegetation) while sitting-floating in forest open wetland Arkive video link

DD: The question is not "do air sacs always cause loss of tail?", but "is the complete loss of tail in hominoids due (in part) to laryngeal air sac?" The answer is clear, yes, float-sit-feeding with inflatable air sac selects for tail loss.

MV: Not so clear IMO: may depend on body size, size of airsacs, terrestrial vs aquatic milieu, salt vs fresh water milieu, time spent in trees & water, arm-hanging vs hopping vs above-branch, etc.

DD: parallel convergence at forest-waterside (swamp, wetland, shore):

left: Axlotl, long-tailed 'tadpole' with external gills and legs, swims but doesn't sit
right: Macaque, long-tailed, with lungs and legs, swims but doesn't feed sit-floating



Tadpoles with long tail swim, they don't sit partially feeding in water, they don't have prehensile tongue; frogs with no tail sit partially in water, and use long prehensile tongue to eat. Some frogs then evolved more arboreal traits (better climbing skills, less swimming), others spend much time on lake bottoms and developed more aquatic traits (skin 'gill' breathing)

left: tree frogs have since further specialized to arborealty, more 'spidery' and colorful
right: aquatic frog with hydrodynamic red external gills re-adapted to full submersion



Monkeys with long tails swim (Nasalis, Long-tailed macaque); while Ndoki swamp gorillas
(~LCA H-oid) with no tail sit partially in water while feeding.

left: tree apes have since further specialized to arborealty, more 'spidery' and colorful
right: aquatic apes (humans) with hydrodynamic hair re-adapted to submersion diving



AFAIK, neither spidery tree frogs nor deep-submersion frogs inflate their throat air sacs as much as forest-waterside frogs.

AFAIK, neither spidery tree apes (gibbon) nor deep submersion apes (humans) inflate their throat air sacs as much as forest-waterside apes.

Parallel pattern. Partial sit-float eating -> air sac -> tail lost; eventually species body size may enlarge at forest-waterside, OR become full-time spidery at arboreal canopy OR adapt deep submersion with active skin glands* or skin gills* as per photos.

DD: Complete loss of tail = vertical-trunk float-sitting while plucking-foraging. Laryngeal air sacs. Compare to long tailed gelada sitting while plucking-foraging grass on dry ground. No air sacs there, of course.

MV: Some baboons have short tails IIRC?

DD: None lost their tail, many highland monkeys (cold nights select for short tails) with non-prehensile tails have short tails. Tail covers peri-anal region, in water, muscle valves and tissue close peri-anal region.

Dry-sit-eating (no air sac, long-tailed) savanna gelada vs wet/float-sit-eating (air sac, tail-less) Ndoki swamp gorilla
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT/message/49817

* frogs and salamanders may respire via gills, lungs or skin. I conjecture that the eccrine skin glands of humans (inactive in African apes except volar eccrines) function in very limited respiration. link

Evolution Canyon European-African micro-climates in Jordan Rift Valley

Flowering plants & veination 140ma:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/w-hdf120109.php
The study, by Dr Tim Brodribb and Dr Taylor Field of the University of Tasmania and University of Tennessee, used plant physiology to reveal how flowering plants, including crops, were able to dominate land by evolving more efficient hydraulics, or 'leaf plumbing', to increase rates of photosynthesis.

"Flowering plants are the most abundant and ecologically successful group of plants on earth," said Brodribb. "One reason for this dominance is the relatively high photosynthetic capacity of their leaves, but when and how this increased photosynthetic capacity evolved has been a mystery."

Using measurements of leaf vein density and a linked hydraulic-photosynthesis model, Brodribb and Field reconstructed the evolution of leaf hydraulic capacity in seed plants. Their results revealed that an evolutionary transformation in the plumbing of angiosperm leaves pushed photosynthetic capacity to new heights.

The reason for the success of this evolutionary step is that under relatively low atmospheric C02 conditions, like those existing at present, water transport efficiency and photosynthetic performance are tightly linked. Therefore adaptations that increase water transport will enhance maximum photosynthesis, exerting substantial evolutionary leverage over competing species.

Aquanautical microbiota: Green Algae

Spirogyra reproduction, reminds one of double helix DNA, chromosome replication


Dancing spheres: volvox rotates, oscillates

Volvox reproduction, note the triangulation of cytoplasm threads, geodesic structure



volvox A large sphere colony with daughter sphere colonies containing small granddaughter colonies. Both male and female colonies form inside the equator of the parent colony. Volvoxes are hollow spheres of independent cells that each have an eye spot, the colony develops a light-polarity, where half of the colony has larger eye spots, making a supercell eyeball of sorts. Click the link to find out more. volvox wikipedia
nuther volvox tale


Pediastrum algae, a flat disk star


These outstanding photos are from this site: The Micropolitan Museum

Hydrodictyon reticulatum, Hexa-penta Water net algae, from: Hydrodictyon, Wikipedia


Protists: dinoflagellate plant/animal (planimal?) in toxic red tide, endosymbiont coral bleaching, some photosynthesizers and some with eyes (retina), have minicircles of 12 genes.
http://madlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/protists-and-their-plastids.html

Marimo Moss balls (Chladophora)

from cell to super-cell organism to super-organism society: colonial ants
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Nutrition: Seaweed gardens

Naturally growing seaweeds are an important source of food, especially in Asia. They provide many vitamins including: A, B1, B2, B6, niacin and C, and are rich in iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium and calcium.[50] In addition commercially cultivated microalgae, including both Algae and Cyanobacteria, are marketed as nutritional supplements, such as Spirulina,[51] Chlorella and the Vitamin-C supplement, Dunaliella, high in beta-carotene.

Algae are national foods of many nations: China consumes more than 70 species, including fat choy, a cyanobacterium considered a vegetable; Japan, over 20 species;[52] Ireland, dulse; Chile, cochayuyo.[53] Laver is used to make "laver bread" in Wales where it is known as bara lawr; in Korea, gim; in Japan, nori and aonori. It is also used along the west coast of North America from California to British Columbia, in Hawaii and by the Māori of New Zealand. Sea lettuce and badderlocks are a salad ingredient in Scotland, Ireland, Greenland and Iceland.
Dulse, a food.

The oils from some Algae have high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. For example, Parietochloris incisa is very high in arachidonic acid, where it reaches up to 47% of the triglyceride pool.[54] Some varieties of Algae favored by vegetarianism and veganism contain the long-chain, essential omega-3 fatty acids, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), in addition to vitamin B12. The vitamin B12 in algae is not biologically active. Fish oil contains the omega-3 fatty acids, but the original source is algae, which are eaten by marine life such as copepods and are passed up the food chain.[55] wikipedia: algae nutrition

Round stone tool & round basket craft

Great apes construct woven tree shelters, using triangulated branches with a coil of leaves inside serving as a lining. Central African Bambuti people construct geodesic woven-branch domes externally covered with a coil of leaves to repel water. Were the first boats made from dome-derived baskets? Were they the arc (teba) of Moses (Hebrew) & Horus (Egyptian, eq. to Torus? see bottom of post), baskets covered with bitumen tar/pitch?
http://boatsandrice.org/wovenBamboo.html
torus
1560s, from L. torus "knot; cushion"


Roman Coliseum
Shark vertebrae
Basking shark vertebrae, from Coastal Paleontology [Unrelated to post title, but cool, like this stonehenge animation]
Stonehenge
More info on roof, and how the stones were moved, quite similar to Dick Parry's
idea of how the Giza Pyramid stone blocks were moved in 1/4 circle wood cradles.
rock n roll
pyra-cone roof


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/fenn-05.html

"No one knows what this crescent-shaped tool was used for, though it has turned up in association with Clovis points elsewhere. While the tool's middle edges are dull from grinding, its ends remain sharp. It is made of chert from the Green River Formation of southwestern Wyoming and contiguous parts of Utah and Colorado. This is not far from where the cache is believed to have been found, the three corners area where Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho come together."
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.onlinenevada.org/media/image/Crescent-Fig-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.onlinenevada.org/crescents&usg=__3T1y8_Tsy9ZV2kJExEbojTL6gkc=&h=334&w=500&sz=19&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=bRpWiNIfVz6_sM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreat%2Bbasin%2Bcrescents%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

Crescent-shaped knapped stone (scraper?) from the Holocene have been found at Lake Baikal, Siberia and San Miguel Island California and the the Great Basin of Utah and coastal sites, often of obsidian or chert. Neat pic.

==================================================================

Thuyen Thung chai round basket boats, using woven split bamboo and plant sap as water sealant varnish

http://english.vovnews.vn/Home/Basket-boats-intertwined-with-Ngan-Ha-villages-history/20063/35366.vov


round basket using similar weave

typical woven pack basket



Video on hyper-origami. Math * Computer -> a single flat sheet of paper can form super complex forms. Used for folding metal stents in arteries, and folding mirrors in outer orbit space. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html

I made a paper sphere by making a takraw ball of 6 paper strips, then another long strip to make 12 trefoil knots (pentagons) which filled in the pentagon holes of the takraw ball. Cool. I'm sure it's possible to make a sphere from one single folded sheet of square paper, but it would be complex hyper-triangulated.

Knots and lashings
http://www.geocities.com/kinta_ke_19/skill/knot.htm

Torus: knot or cushion, Latin (Egyptian. Horus?)
stele
"upright slab," usually inscribed, 1820, from Gk. stele "standing block, slab," related to stellein "to set in order, arrange"
stet
direction to printer to disregard correction made to text, 1755, from L. stet "let it stand," third person singular present subjunctive of stare "to stand, stand upright, be stiff," from PIE base *sta- "to stand, set down, make or be firm" (cf. Skt. tisthati "stands;" Avestan histaiti "to stand;" Pers. -stan "country," lit. "where one stands;" Gk. histemi "put, place, weigh," stasis "a standing still," statos "placed," stater "a weight, coin," stylos "pillar;" L. sistere "stand still, stop, make stand, place, produce in court," status "manner, position, condition, attitude," statio "station, post;" Lith. stojus "place myself," statau "place;" O.C.S. staja "place myself," stanu "position," staru "old," lit. "long-standing;" Goth. standan, O.E. standan "to stand," O.N. steði "anvil," O.E. stede "place;" O.Ir. sessam "the act of standing").
Stalactite = stylos, galact = drip... did the first temple columns derive from cave stalactites?

Hominins ate seafood

<...and sometimes seafood ate hominins...>


http://www.slagoon.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/science/23obfish.html

Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar

C. B. Stringer, J. C. Finlayson et al, Communicated by Erik Trinkaus, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, June 16, 2008 (received for review April 22, 2008)

Abstract

Two coastal sites in Gibraltar, Vanguard and Gorham's Caves, located at Governor's Beach on the eastern side of the Rock, are especially relevant to the study of Neanderthals. Vanguard Cave provides evidence of marine food supply (mollusks, seal, dolphin, and fish). Further evidence of marine mammal remains was also found in the occupation levels at Gorham's Cave associated with Upper Paleolithic and Mousterian technologies [Finlayson C, et al. (2006) Nature 443:850–853]. The stratigraphic sequence of Gibraltar sites allows us to compare behaviors and subsistence strategies of Neanderthals during the Middle Paleolithic observed at Vanguard and Gorham's Cave sites. This evidence suggests that such use of marine resources was not a rare behavior and represents focused visits to the coast and estuaries.


Neanderthals Took Hunt for Food to the Sea

By HENRY FOUNTAIN Published: September 22, 2008

The Neanderthals were seafood lovers, new findings suggest.

Paleontologists digging in sediments at two large caves on a Gibraltar beach have found clear evidence that more than 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals ate mussels and other mollusks, fish and even marine mammals like seals and dolphins. And it was not that this bounty just fell into their lap: there are other signs that they actively hunted some of their seafood, just as they did with land animals.

Yolanda Fernández-Jalvo of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, Christopher B. Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London and colleagues identified the remains of meals, including bones from monk seals and common and bottlenose dolphins, in Gorham’s and Vanguard caves on the eastern side of the rock. The findings are reported in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Some of the bones showed damage from stone tools, probably from the Neanderthals’ removing the meat from them. At Vanguard cave, the researchers found a hearth; evidence suggested it was used not for cooking but for preparing the seal and dolphin carcasses (for one thing, heating them would make the bones easier to break and the marrow easier to remove).

The location of the remains at Vanguard cave indicates that it had at least three periods of use by the Neanderthals. And many of the bones were from immature mammals, raising the possibility that the Neanderthals hunted during breeding season, when seals came on land for long periods to breed. Taken together, the evidence points to the Neanderthals’ making deliberate visits to the coast in search of delicacies from the deep.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT/message/48495

Human head hair & hydrodynamics

Olympic swim suit: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/honey_wheres_my_supersuit.php


Straight hair shafts are ( ) round (didn't change from our long ago ancestors that lived and dove for shellfish on tropical pocket beaches), while curly hair was later derived (the hair shaft became oval (curly) or () elliptical, not round) which protected people who lived inside tropical rain forests from lice (which carry typhus disease), lice lay their eggs (nits) in hair, but in very curly hair the eggs can't stay attached. People with curly head hair also have curly body hair (but straight eyelashes).
Beard, armpit and pubic hair are called coarse secondary hair, it is fluffy and developed during the diving era, where it gave a smooth rounded linear hydro-dynamic profile when diving, filling the body voids in places that skin fat couldn't fill. Below there is more info.


----- Original Message -----
From: DDeden
To: AAT@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 5:38 AM

Hydrodynamic Head Hair => AAT

There are many arguments that can be made for and against AAT, but the one that convinced me was the long straight/wavy head hair for hydrodynamics. Since no other aquatic animal has very long hair, it is not a comparable trait, but I can think of no other reason for 1+ m long head hair except fluid diving and swimming in a mammal which did not become very tube-shaped (unlike most other aquatics) because of pre-existing sessile plucking during feeding. The plucking had existed
during the LCA H-oid as part of the vertical floating/wading and tree food collection, the brain had hard-wired for that feeding style, allowing the face and jaw to reduce prognathism, compared to monkeys and other primates. Modern humans have even less prognathism, indicating even stronger plucking feeding (and tool use).

Plucking => jaws shrink (Homo) or enlarge (boisie nut cracker).

Long head hair is fine at the shores, ok on the savanna but useless, while in the trees it is a problem. People living in tropical rainforests tend to have frizzy hair and/or cut it short or tie it up in some way.

I've written on the frizzy inland hair re. lice and typhus, the main reason I'm sure it's correct is that people with frizzy/nappy hair have straight eyelashes. How could they have started with curly eyelashes? They are more derived biologically than slightly curled or straight haired people, regarding tropical inland adaptation.

So therefore, I doubt that H aq was a large tropical island dweller, as on Papua or Borneo or Taiwan rich in mangroves and muck.

They weren't on coral atolls (due to mineral deficiency) either.

However small to medium volcanic islands with encircling reefs around, perhaps the archipelagos along the Pacific ring of fire, the Maldives and Andamans and Afar, with reduced large cat predators, with some silt/soil for mangroves and fruit trees but not large swamps which crocs favor, and warm reef-protected lagoons which sharks don't favor.
DDeden

I've written on the frizzy inland hair re. lice and typhus, the main reason I'm sure it's correct is that people with frizzy/nappy hair have straight eyelashes. How could they have started with curly eyelashes? They are more derived biologically than slightly curled or straight haired people, regarding tropical inland adaptation.
DD


Interesting thought but it's possible to select for straight hair in some places and curly in others e.g. pubic hair is curly in straight-haired people.
Elaine Morgan

East Asians tend to have relatively straight hair everywhere, although the beard, axillary and pubic hair is less straight and more kinked (but by no means curly). All other people have beard, axillary and pubic hair of similar kinky/straight texture, which is even less straight than East Asians, but still not curled at all.

Inland tropical people with very curly (frizzy/nappy) head hair have very curly body hair, but their beard, axillary and pubic hair is comparatively much more straight, and their eyelash hair is straight.

This indicates that the LCA Homo had straight head hair, straight eyelash hair, straight mustache hair (like orangs), and straight but slightly kinked (not curled) beard, axillary and pubic hair.

I think that kinked-straight hair in the beard, axillary and pubic areas is a result of hydrodynamic selection, since it fills the voids of the body better than straight hair does during swimming. I don't think it's form is due to better odor release, though maybe secondarily.

Therefore, I'd expect that other apes lack this special beard, axillary and pubic form of hair, or only have it to a slight degree.

AFAIK, all people born with the hyperhirsute super-hairy syndrome have straight/wavy hair, never frizzy/nappy nor blonde hair. This occurs most often in Asians (though still very rare). There's a photo of a Chinese guy with this condition in AAT photos, it is probably similar to the LCA Homo hair condition.

That frizzy/nappy hair was ancestral to Hs fits no data whatsoever AFAIK. Our Homo ancestors may have been (shoreside) African, but did not have frizzy/nappy hair.

I suggest that frizzy hair is a recently derived trait in Hs not older than 200ka and more likely 60ka, resulting from the improvement of dugout boats, nets and weapons allowing people into the interior in relative safety. The Khoisan seem to be an intermediate, I don't know precisely their situation, but since they do no diving, likely they were isolated from coastal living at some point, perhaps they were the
rift descendants. Dugouts are widespread all throughout the tropics, that is how I think the tropical rainforest Africans survived away from the sea, safer from [predators but not against pathogens, making increased eccrine sweat and curled hair very important selective traits. Dry air = wavy hair. Humid air = curly hair. Sea diving = straight hair with kinked straight beard/ axil/pubic hair.
DDeden