Biology

[Coffeehouse]

Biology Thread

Biology (from Greek βιολογία - βίος, bios, "life"; -λογία, -logia) is the study of life and a branch of the natural sciences which studies living organisms and how they interact with each other and their environment. It examines the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of living things. Also, it classifies and describes organisms, their functions, and how species come into existence. Four unifying principles form the foundation of modern biology: cell theory, evolution, genetics and homeostasis.



I've searched through the threads and although Science does cover Biology as a general supercategory I think we should have a specific thread for Biology that covers specifically the animal kingdom, marinebiology, microbiology and other topics concerning living organisms. Also Science seems pretty much Global Warming-focused and that's alright, but it's easier to find information about Biology if it has its own thread

So don't merge this with the Science thread please!!

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I watched this documentary today about four swimmers on the New Zealand coast who were subject a pretty incredible experience.

Three of the swimmers were lifeguards. One of them lifeguards was a grown man and the three others were girls in their late teens, early 20s. They were going to cross a bay by swimming across and about halfway across something strange happened. A few dolphins began swimming up to them, coming ever-closer. While the swimmers kept on towards the other side the dolphins grew in numbers. More and more were appearing on the surface and, for no apparent reason, the dolphins were starting to circle around the swimmers. They were circling so close around that the swimmers had to give up going forward and were literally trapped.

The dolphins now numbered as much as 10 individuals now and as they circled around for many minutes they suddenly began violently flapping their flukes (the tail) in the water around the swimmer making the water foam in chaos.

One of the lifeguards, the man, then decided to break free of the circle because he could not understand why the dolphins were behaving so aggressively. Having swum ferociously away he managed to do so but then realized that one of the girls, (who also was his daughter), followed after him and they ended up some 9-10 meters away from the two other girls and the circling dolphins.

What then happened was crazy. Suddenly this dolphin comes speeding towards the two of them and is really close to hitting them and then dives into the water. The man instinctively looks down in the water to see where it went and, to his surprise and shock&awe he sees a great, white shark swimming just beneath him, within touching distance. It then dawns on him that what the dolphins are really doing is protecting them! But he decides to not shout it to the two girls being encircled because if they, being by now cold and tired, hear that a great white is beneath them it will make matters even worse.

The man and his daugther (she doesn't know that there's a great white beneath her yet) then swim towards the two other girls again and their back in the circle. The guy understands that if they are going to survive that their best chance is to stay encircled by the dolphins who keep violently thrashing the water.

The four of the swimmers have by now drifted a good way towards a beach and some lifeguards on the beach spot the spectacle. So two lifeguards get in a boat and speed towards the swimmers. But then one of the lifeguards jumps out of the boat and the boat turns again towards the beach. Apparently the lifeguard believes that the swimmers are playing the dolphins, yet as soon as he hits the water he sees the great white beneath him and realises, obviously, that this isn't a game. He swims for his life against the swimmers and manages to get into the circle. So now we have four lifeguards and another swimmer encircled by dolphins. Both of the guys who know by now that there is a great white (or more) beneath them decide not to say anything. Instead they try to inch towards the beach while still encircled.

Gradually the dolphins circle wider and wider around them until suddenly they are gone and the by now five swimmers are alone in the sea. The lifeguard on the beach now returns again with the boat and gets them safely ashore.

I'm just amazed by the altruism those dolphins displayed. The dolphins encircled the swimmers for 45 minutes and left only when the great white had been ushered away. Just unbeliavable! Go dolphins!

Not only does this show some remarkably emphaty by the dolphins and a understanding that the swimmings are actually in danger. They also Organize and coordinate their effort. Some of the dolphins were circling and the others must have been trying to coax the great white beneath the surface (which they've been known to do), swimming just above the great white, irritating it and confusing it. The splashing with the flukes is a genious way of doing it, creating chaos and sending the great white a clear signal that it should lay off. It's also a true altruistic behaviour because the dolphins were putting their own lives at risk in a situation where the great white was going for the swimmers. Amazing!!

[Nurvingiel]

What a strange tale. I have no trouble believing that dolphins are organized though. In the BBC documentary Planet Earth, there was footage of dolphins working together to herd fish into a huge sphere so that fishing would be easier. The dolphins would take turns diving through the ball to eat their fill while the other dolphins kept the fish together.

They're also the only other animal we know of besides ourselves that have sex for pleasure. That shows remarkable development.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

They're also the only other animal we know of besides ourselves that have sex for pleasure. That shows remarkable development.

Really? That's pretty amazing. Just shows some species have move beyond the regular, pushing boundaries for whatever reasons. The dolphins have been around for quite some time too so they've had the opportunity to develop social intelligence.

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Really? That's pretty amazing. Just shows some species have move beyond the regular, pushing boundaries for whatever reasons. The dolphins have been around for quite some time too so they've had the opportunity to develop social intelligence.

Too bad humans haven't. </obvious>

I took biology in my first year of uni and now, many years later and graduated, I forget most of it.

I think it's neat that we eat food from three of the five kingdoms (us Canadians go with the British and Australian way, not the US way): Fungi, Animalia and Plantae. Even though we eat relatively few species from these kingdoms, it's nice that we started out so diverse eh?

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I think it's neat that we eat food from three of the five kingdoms (us Canadians go with the British and Australian way, not the US way): Fungi, Animalia and Plantae. Even though we eat relatively few species from these kingdoms, it's nice that we started out so diverse eh?

I didn't quite understand what you meant there

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

So don't merge this with the Science thread please!!

Well, this has to stay biology then, if we shouldn't merge it with the Science thread.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

In the BBC documentary Planet Earth, there was footage of dolphins working together to herd fish into a huge sphere so that fishing would be easier.

I looooove Planet Earth and the Blue Planet. Too bad the BBC has cut funding to their natural history unit, such incredible documentary series may become a thing of the past that way...

They're also the only other animal we know of besides ourselves that have sex for pleasure. That shows remarkable development.

I'm pretty sure lions fall in the same category.

I'm not sure whether the dolphins would be trashing the water to keep the shark away. Trashing water is exactly one of the things what attracts sharks to prey! I wonder whether the dolphins just tried to alert the swimmers to the presence of the shark. I also wonder whether the shark was even hungry or just happened to be near. Usually dolphins actually ram sharks to drive them off, although I have only seen it with smaller species. And a great white is of course a very big fish! (Absolutely fascinating fish but I would so totally, immediately have a heart attack if I noticed one below me while swimming.)

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

I didn't quite understand what you meant there

Oh, I meant that it's good to eat food from diverse sources, but we don't really do that. However, we do eat food from three different kingdoms, which is impressive considering how different fungi, plantae and animalia are. Sorry.

I think there is enough discussion in this thread as well as in the science thread to warrant two separate threads.

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Biology Thread

Biology (from Greek βιολογία - βίος, bios, "life"; -λογία, -logia) is the study of life and a branch of the natural sciences which studies living organisms and how they interact with each other and their environment. It examines the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of living things. Also, it classifies and describes organisms, their functions, and how species come into existence. Four unifying principles form the foundation of modern biology: cell theory, evolution, genetics and homeostasis.



I've searched through the threads and although Science does cover Biology as a general supercategory I think we should have a specific thread for Biology that covers specifically the animal kingdom, marinebiology, microbiology and other topics concerning living organisms. Also Science seems pretty much Global Warming-focused and that's alright, but it's easier to find information about Biology if it has its own thread

So don't merge this with the Science thread please!!

Beat me to it.

[Rían]

One of my favorite Far Side cartoons:





(for those who don't know Spanish, those are phonetic Spanish phrases on the board - the dolphins are speaking but the researchers don't know Spanish! )

[inked]

Stephen Hawking at the Vatican:

http://ssomail.charter.net/do/redire...cle5054745.ece

on evolution!

[Coffeehouse]

Darwin Day indeed! How cool wouldn't it be if Charles Darwin was alive today and could be seen in some hour-long interview on youtube Alas!

It's not only the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth this year, but also, later in November, the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species. Monumental stuff that is

Lately I've been watching the Planet Earth series on my spare time, and I've become more and more certain that I shouldn't be studying political science, but marinebiology! F.ex., who would have thought this, which David Attenborough says in the part of the series about shallow seas:

(In his BBC-British-fatherly voice) "There are reefs in Indonesia that contain almost as many kinds of fish as live in the whole of the Carribbean."



To think then that these very same reefs are now under threat of pollution, rise in water temperatures as a result of global warming and a severe strain on fish stocks due to overfishing, all of which are resulting in a decay and dwindling of the coral and the life it supports. It's a great shame, and it can lead to a slow death of marinelife in all the world's oceans. Because we do not possibly know what chain reaction can be with the destruction of such massive coral reefs. I found this neat coral food web, published on the website of the US Department of Commerce, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
(Here's a direct link) http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/images/iyor_foodweb.jpg



Do we want Finding Nemo to become a tale about what the ocean's once looked like, back in the day? But cheers to Darwin! At least we can appreciate now how long it took for life in the oceans to evolve, and how little time we're from undoing it.

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Darwin Day indeed! How cool wouldn't it be if Charles Darwin was alive today and could be seen in some hour-long interview on youtube Alas!

It's not only the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth this year, but also, later in November, the 150th anniversary of the Origin of Species. Monumental stuff that is

Lately I've been watching the Planet Earth series on my spare time, and I've become more and more certain that I shouldn't be studying political science, but marinebiology! F.ex., who would have thought this, which David Attenborough says in the part of the series about shallow seas:

(In his BBC-British-fatherly voice) "There are reefs in Indonesia that contain almost as many kinds of fish as live in the whole of the Carribbean."



To think then that these very same reefs are now under threat of pollution, rise in water temperatures as a result of global warming and a severe strain on fish stocks due to overfishing, all of which are resulting in a decay and dwindling of the coral and the life it supports. It's a great shame, and it can lead to a slow death of marinelife in all the world's oceans. Because we do not possibly know what chain reaction can be with the destruction of such massive coral reefs. I found this neat coral food web, published on the website of the US Department of Commerce, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
(Here's a direct link) http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/images/iyor_foodweb.jpg



Do we want Finding Nemo to become a tale about what the ocean's once looked like, back in the day? But cheers to Darwin! At least we can appreciate now how long it took for life in the oceans to evolve, and how little time we're from undoing it.

Welcome to the club. It is staggering how ignorant the world at large is to the oceans' plight. One person had the gall of saying that Marine Biolgists (and their ilk) should "get off their high horses an get a real job. One that might actually benefit humanity." Because no, over a third of the world's population doesnt live within 50 miles of the coast and no, absolutely no one eats fish anymore. I suppose complacency and ignorance is easier ( or bliss? Ah, I dont know[/irony]). But if you do, that would definately make me much happier. As a matter of fact I'll be visiting Pensacola and Jacksonville (both in Florida, US) to participate in a coastal ecology survey, as well as North Carolina again soon to study the rising ocean levels there, and their affect on marine wildlife, particularly birds.

[Earniel]

If you liked Planet Earth and the oceans, you must absolutely (if not done already, in that case a second time won't hurt) see The Blue Planet, which is a BBC series specifically geared at the oceans.

[Count Comfect]

I do wonder if it's really missing the arms, or if they're just completely vestigial. There'd be a big difference...

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I do wonder if it's really missing the arms, or if they're just completely vestigial. There'd be a big difference...

Yes, there most certainly would. It would more definately point to a mutation and not a recessive trait, in my eyes. The photo (however vague) doenst seem to show any vestigial limbs, but through observation and close scrutinization I beleive it may be found out for sure. It makes one wonder exactly which set of arms was deleted? Depending on the arms we may have found an impotent octopus, lacking the equipment to mate. However, he would still, likely, imitate the maneuver, and die afterwards. Although, if he didnt, he may still die. Octopuses die even if their reproductive organs are removed, females lay sterile eggs, gaurd them and die protecting them, and males simply expire.

[Count Comfect]

inked - hex and hept (ie heptathlon) are Greek, and sex- and sept- Latin. It's not being censored for the word sex.

When I said vestigial limbs I meant structures analogous to the limb but not visible on pictures like the ones we were shown - for example, they could be contained entirely within the body of the pseudoctopus.