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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
 Posted - 02/07/2009 : 14:43:46
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A few million years of divergent evolution in actionon Socotra Island . This shows what happens when you've gotten a few million years of reproductive isolation happening.
Imagine if Darwin had went here instead of the Galapogos.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2009 : 20:56:47 [Permalink]
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For an island that's so close to Africa, I wouldn't have expected such weirdness. But it's the unexpected weidness that's the best kind.
I think I found the ancestor of the Dorstenia gigas:
Dorstenia gigas
Jarjar binksia
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/07/2009 20:57:18 |
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
 Posted - 02/08/2009 : 22:04:31 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the post & link, ig - fabulous, fascinating photos & information! Never heard of the place before. If it weren't for the phrases "near Somalia" and "permeated with caves", I'd be there in a flash for a visit (well, at least in my fantasies). It sounds like ecotourism is the only type of tourism allowed (and the ecotour companies probably don't transport their guests to this island on oil tankers, so the pirate concern is probably overblown.)
Other amazing info about this place includes that 10 of the 140 species of birds on this island are found nowhere else in the world. The Wikpedia page on Socotra adds that bats are the only native mammal, & the (human) inhabitants speak "Soqotri, an unwritten Semitic language".
Wow. |
I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2009 : 04:05:03 [Permalink]
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What a remarkable place! What a pity that it has no marine iguanas.... er, it doesn't, does it?
Thanks ig!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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perrodetokio
Skeptic Friend
275 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2009 : 06:17:40 [Permalink]
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| Wow! Just wow! Amazing! Thanks TI! |
"Yes I have a belief in a creator/God but do not know that he exists." Bill Scott
"They are still mosquitoes! They did not turn into whales or lizards or anything else. They are still mosquitoes!..." Bill Scott
"We should have millions of missing links or transition fossils showing a fish turning into a philosopher..." Bill Scott |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2009 : 08:39:35 [Permalink]
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| Cool place. I'd like to have one of those trees in my back yard. |
-Chaloobi
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2009 : 09:22:27 [Permalink]
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| Now those are some cool trees. It really does look like an alien landscape. I hope it's very well protected. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2009 : 10:57:02 [Permalink]
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| Some great shots there; the ornery weather pics too. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2009 : 21:03:40 [Permalink]
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| Is there? Interesting.... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2009 : 22:02:30 [Permalink]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok#Environment
yeah, possibly not as old as I thought, but Ice from above the lake is nearly half a million years old, so it's been cut off at least that long. Extremely high pressure and extremely high in oxygen, surprisingly warm too at -3c |
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Divergent Evolution
