TIL thread

[creature386]

Paradoxically, my fear of accidents is dramatically lower when driving at 50 kph than at 30 kph.
Might have something to do with the fact that streets that allow for 50 kph tend to be wide, predictable and regulated by traffic lights while the ones that have a maximum of 30 kph are more challenging to drive in (at least where I live).
Then again, I never feel like an accident at 30 kph is actually going to kill someone.

If there is one argument for maximum 30 kph cars, it's probably that no-one would use their car anymore then (some people can cycle that fast). While that might make it the ultimate pro-eco law, it may also be the reason it's unenforcable.

[theropod]

Well, there are no pedestrians on highways (ordinarily), and I’m well aware that those are generally way less dangerous even though speed limits are higher (/non existent in certain uncivilized countries). I just meant within settlements, where there are lots of people walking around, and where cyclists and pedestrians are the primary groups at risk of traffic-deaths. But then, there’s not even really any justification for most people to keep driving cars there in the first place, so one could also argue that cars should be banned from towns in general.

[Infinity Blade]

We have a juvenile Alligator skull in our collection that also shows this feature.

Interesting.

I used to wonder if there was a functional reason behind this, back when I thought only Kuttanacaiman had it. Now I feel like it's just some abnormality with no real purpose behind it.

[theropod]

Well, the functional reason is the same as in Mastodonsaurids, to allow the animal to close its mouth despite its teeth being too long to fit inside, but it’s an abnormality in crocodilians all the same (whereas it is normal in Mastodonsaurus). But I wasn’t aware this was so relatively common in caimans before I saw your post.

[Infinity Blade]

I had looked up olfactory receptor genes in a couple papers today. And I wound up learning this.

Compared to many other mammals, primates have a relatively small number of functional OR genes. For instance, since divergence from their most recent common ancestor (MRCA), mice have gained a total of 623 new OR genes, and lost 285 genes, whereas humans have gained only 83 genes, but lost 428 genes.[39] Mice have a total of 1035 protein-coding OR genes, humans have 387 protein-coding OR genes.[39] The vision priority hypothesis states that the evolution of color vision in primates may have decreased primate reliance on olfaction, which explains the relaxation of selective pressure that accounts for the accumulation of olfactory receptor pseudogenes in primates.[40] However, recent evidence has rendered the vision priority hypothesis obsolete, because it was based on misleading data and assumptions. The hypothesis assumed that functional OR genes can be correlated to the olfactory capability of a given animal.[40] In this view, a decrease in the fraction of functional OR genes would cause a reduction in the sense of smell; species with higher pseudogene count would also have a decreased olfactory ability. This assumption is flawed. Dogs, which are reputed to have good sense of smell,[41] do not have the largest number of functional OR genes.[39] Additionally, pseudogenes may be functional; 67% of human OR pseudogenes are expressed in the main olfactory epithelium, where they possibly have regulatory roles in gene expression.[42] More importantly, the vision priority hypothesis assumed a drastic loss of functional OR genes at the branch of the OWMs, but this conclusion was biased by low-resolution data from only 100 OR genes.[43] High-resolution studies instead agree that primates have lost OR genes in every branch from the MRCA to humans, indicating that the degeneration of OR gene repertories in primates cannot simply be explained by the changing capabilities in vision.[44]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_receptor

It appears that the number of functional OR genes isn’t necessarily a reliable indicator, or at least not the “end all be all” indicator, of olfactory capability.

[Infinity Blade]

TIL a new word in evolutionary biology.

bislagiatt: but it seemed like a good idea at the time!

(It refers to evolutionary developments developed in an immediate context, only to prove suboptimal later on)

[Infinity Blade]

I know that probably most people here won't care, but as a Transformers fan I just had to get this down.

TIL that the Autobot insignia is actually modeled after the face of Prowl (one of the Autobots), albeit heavily stylized and simplified. Similarly, the Decepticon insignia is modeled after the face of Soundwave (one of the Decepticons), again heavily stylized and simplified. The latter actually makes sense now that I look at it.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Apr 7, 2020 6:54:59 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

I know that probably most people here won't care, but as a Transformers fan I just had to get this down.

TIL that the Autobot insignia is actually modeled after the face of Prowl (one of the Autobots), albeit heavily stylized and simplified. Similarly, the Decepticon insignia is modeled after the face of Soundwave (one of the Decepticons), again heavily stylized and simplified. The latter actually makes sense now that I look at it.

I am a transformers fan too.

[Infinity Blade]

TIL pelicans and shoebills practice glottis exposure. It actually involves the outline of the neck skeleton being partly extruded from the mouth. This is done to stretch and rearrange tissues of the lower jaw and throat.

[Supercommunist]

TIL this forum is still active.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Today I learn that it takes quite some time to produce good arts.

[Infinity Blade]

Do you plan to elaborate?

An FYI for those posting here: this thread is meant for reporting specific facts as opposed to more general ones.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Jun 3, 2020 14:47:11 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

Do you plan to elaborate?

An FYI for those posting here: this thread is meant for reporting specific facts as opposed to more general ones.

I will try to be more specific from now on. 
Somebody on a different forum showed me the process on how to make pictures which are graphic novel style. These pictures are a lot better than just sketching.

[creature386]

Being more specific would be a good idea for your posts on this forum in general.

And how did you think quality art was done before? Did you think that good comics get sketched in a single afternoon?

[Infinity Blade]

TIL just how much the Walking with Beasts companion book can differ from the documentary proper. While the stories told are roughly the same, there are sometimes parts in the book never seen or described in the original program (which may not be wholly surprising). For example, the book version of "Whale Killer" features some big-bodied Isurus (how big was the biggest fossil Isurus species?), and how these sharks are more than a match for the Basilosaurus. I found this interesting, since the documentary more or less seems to portray Basilosaurus as the undisputed, shark-killing apex predator of the seas.

There's also a brief mention in the book where the Ambulocetus gets into a tug of war with a bunch of crocodiles over the creodont carcass, which also never happens in the doc.

I also learned about Palaeotis (an extinct struthioniform) from the book's version of "New Dawn", which I don't think I had even heard of before. It almost suffocates to death from a carbon dioxide cloud towards the beginning.