Tools & Tetrapods Table

Comparison of species tool use habits:

Species	Tool Type	Tool Use	Locale Used
Orangutan	small stick, leaf	neesia seed, squeak	canopy
Gorilla	long stick, stone	wading/bridging smash	ground waterside
Chimpanzee	stick, stone	smash, dig, spear, carry	ground canopy
Ar. Human	stick stone shell	smash, pry, cut, dam...	ground waterside
Capuchin	stone, shell	smash, pry	ground waterside
Sea Otter	stone	smash, carry	waterside
Beaver	stick	dam, carry	ground waterside

H erectus 2ma Africa/Asia

H Heidelbergensis .4ma Spain

Anoiapithecus 12ma Spain: A hominoid with skull features similar to orangutans. Did Orangs live around the Mediterranian Sea forested bays, along with gibbons, and some moved along the Tethys coasts to south east Asia, while others transformed into hominids? Oreopithecus of Sardinia, Sahelanthropus of Chad, Orrorin etc. of east African Rift valley.
Spanish Orangutan 12 million years ago

Spanish Miocene apes 12ma: http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2010/04/fossil_teeth_tell_of_ancient_a.php#more

Are orangutans genetically closer to humans than chimps are?
Did lungfish only recently derive lungs like tetrapods?
orangs & lungfiswh

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
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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)

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
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flower origin
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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."
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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

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
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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.”
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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

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PZ on evo development of nervous system: exaptation of simple organelles in protists to tissue cells, salt control, electric potential...
nerve evolution

Gibbons, Humans, Great Apes

http://news.discovery.com/human/human-ancestor-diet-nuts.html

"Early hominid ancestors may have left the trees to take advantage of ground-level foods, a behavioral shift that could have resulted in two of the major defining characteristics of humans: unique teeth and walking on two legs, a mode of locomotion known as bipedalism that is extremely rare elsewhere in the animal kingdom."

No, they started at wetland/woodland edges, eating water lily/lotus/sedge rhyzomes/umbels and bush berries and low hanging fruits and fallen nuts, then apes moved higher in rainforest canopy while human ancestors moved to more coastal seashore areas.


Note folded flanges of adult male reduce sunlight in eyes, give gorilla appearance; balding scalp. Nonfolded flanges are broadly flat faced, very non-gorilla appearance, note clear beard and non-nasal mustache. Bornean and Sumatran orangs separated 1.6ma
flanges
flat flange
Very dark furred orangutan
dark orangutan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan
Male with flanges, eyes near center of face, long hair like mammoth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pongo_pygmaeus84-300.jpg


Human deep larynx vs ape air sacs: apnea/speech vs flotation (de Boer, Boe, Lieberman...)
http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2009/10/how-old-is-language.html#more
http://ebbolles.typepad.com/babels_dawn/2008/03/fossil-evidence.html
http://ebbolles.typepad.com/babels_dawn/2008/03/stop-your-yacki.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WKT-46MJTJN-D&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9b118ac4f846a53b6cb9455392901a9d
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC15600/
http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_dawn/2008/03/apes-are-not-us.html


Humans & gibbons share these traits (unlike great apes):

1) long achilles tendon
2) proportionately long legs (not neandertals)
3) protruding chin (not neandertals)*
4) upright biped primarily
5) no laryngeal air sac (exclude siamangs)
6) more monogamous pair bonding
7) continuous song rather than discrete hoots
8) low sexual dimorphism (teeth)
9) no woven branch nest (also siamangs)


gibbons and great apes share these traits (unlike humans)

1) fur coat
2) grasping big toe
3) very low carnivory
4) large canines, small molars


Chromosomes: Great apes have conserved primitive 48 chromosomes, humans derived 46, gibbons variable per species.

Gait: Gibbons and humans have conserved bipedal upright locomotion (original float-feeding/standing hominoid posture) while great apes have derived terrarboreal quadrupedalism.

Milk composition in hominoids, human milk is unique to all apes and all mammals
http://glycob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/5/499

"In comparison, type I oligosaccharides predominate over type II oligosaccharides in human milk, whereas nonprimate milk almost always contains only type II oligosaccharides. The milk or colostrum of the great apes contained oligosaccharides bearing both N-glycolylneuraminic acid and N-acetylneuraminic acid, whereas human milk contains only the latter. Great ape milk, like that of humans, contained fucosylated oligosaccharides whereas siamang milk did not."

Neu5Gc in hominoids, malaria susceptibility in humans and NWM Aotus monkeys
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/18/11736.abstract

Human malaria resistance recent? "Although sickle cell is best known in Africa, there is also an India-Pakistan variant of it that seems to have evolved separately," Hawks explained. "Both variants have evolved very recently, in the last three or four thousand years, and in that time have risen to as much as 10 to 15 percent of the populations.
Surprisingly, based on skull measurements, the human brain appears to have been shrinking over the last 5,000 or so years.

"When it comes to recent evolutionary changes, brains have shrunk about 150 cubic centimeters, off a mean of about 1,350. That's roughly 10 percent," Hawks said. "As to why is it shrinking, perhaps in big societies, as opposed to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, we can rely on other people for more things, can specialize our behavior to a greater extent, and maybe not need our brains as much," he added.

Human salivary amylase multiple of chimp, especially starch-eaters? Digestion begins as soon as you shovel a forkful of those mashed potatoes into your mouth and masticate (or chew) the food. Your mouth secretes saliva (up to 1.5 quarts a day) that moistens your food and also contains enzymes (special kinds of proteins) that help break down the food before it reaches your stomach.

One of these enzymes, called salivary amylase, breaks down starches, and a new study finds that humans carry extra copies of the gene that encodes the enzyme, which may have helped spur human evolution. The study, published in the Sept. 9 issue of the journal Nature Genetics, found that humans have more copies of the gene than their ape relatives. The humans sampled carried as many as 15 copies each, while chimpanzees had only two.

The study also found a correspondence between the number of copies of the gene and the amount of starch in a population's diet. Members of the Tanzanian Hadza tribe, which ate more tubers and roots, had more copies of the gene than their neighbors (the Datog) who mostly raised livestock. The finding supports theories that some change in the diet of early humans fueled the simultaneous increases in the size of human brains and bodies, as well as the expansion of our ancestors' geographic range.

Trade distinguished Hs from others (neandertal, baboon, bonobo)
group inter-trade

Evolving group gene
dance, trance & chance

Slight chin in early Hs man 110ka in China & S Africa?
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/china/mulan-mandible-stone-2009.html

Toba supervolcano dried and cooled south Asia 73ka
Toba effects

Face & limb traits identify various congenital disorders:
traits

Herbivorous hadrosaur dinosaur: biped, quadruped, hopper or walker?
hadrosaur

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
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http://www.krisweb.com/krishumboldtbay/krisdb/html/krisweb/whats_new.htm

KRIS Humboldt Bay
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Not referring to the Humboldt University museum in Berlin, Germany: Humboldt Univ.
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I rarely give a moments thought to political rhetoric, but this seemed appropriate in today's global sociopolitical climate:

"So long as our relationship is defined by our differences,

we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace".

US President Barack Obama

Towers of life

Vertical artificial reefs from oil platforms

http://www.ecorigs.org/

Islamarina aquarborealis de embryologi humanite

The message summary:
--------------------
FROM: sufuan1@yahoo.com
DATE: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 07:30:20 -0000
SUBJECT: the tiny truth

Text on Human Embryonic Development: the stages of man's
embryonic development are stated: "man extracted from
clay.. as a drop.. in a place of settled attachment,
then into an alaqah (resembling a leech/suspended thingy/
blood clot), then into a mudghad (chewed cud-like material)
<http://www.islam-guide.com/ch1-1-a.htm#footnote1>
(Quran, 23:12-14) [paraphrased]

http://www.ngokop.blogspot.com/
"Jesus the prophet of Islam" talk by Mr. Green via Yusof Shamsi blog

Hydro prac., CPR, chr~is~lam review: Islam & Christianity, Huhu
http://www.makantido.blogspot.com/

http://laughingmeme.org/2005/11/09/religion-as-memetic-innovation

Muhammed: Environmental Advocate (per Ayn: Peak Oil presentation)
"If you are planting a tree,
and sense that the universe is ending,
finish planting the tree"

Islamic and Christian fundies share info on Darwin
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSL0852496120070608

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

Islamic interfaith dialog, ummi
http://saifulislam.com/?p=614

Islamicity: "To the world, you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world"
http://www.icmarriage.com/

"Extreme Medicine" IMAM UK/Eire SC (disasters, tsunami)
http://ngokop.blogspot.com/2007/04/report-on-extreme-medicine.html
I'm considering to co-establish ARC American Red Crescent along with existing ARC American Red Cross here in Eureka. It's actually here in the same building on other end. One block further is an abandoned hotel with swimming pool, that could easily be converted into a small campus, also another fancy hotel next is also not open. Some kind of pre-med, in association with Humboldt State Univ. and some Univ. program in M'sia/S'pore/I'sia/Brunei? Need funding though. Too bad the fundies (of both kinds) prefer to argue & battle than to fund projects for future caretaking of Earth and it's citizens via tactical, technical & strategic education.