Cephalopods, mosasaurs, and Cretaceous parenting

Typical. You go away on holiday, you come back, and it's International Cephalopod Awareness Day. And me with nothing to wear, and shoes that don't match my dress, and a handbag that's so last season... anyway, moving swiftly on, back to the cephalopods.

As any palaeontologist worth his (or her) salt knows, the ultimate cephalopods are ammonoids and nautiloids. Whilst taking my MSci I briefly studied these fantastic beasties, completing a three month research project on predation on ammonoids. During my studies, I came across this fascinating research paper (Kaufmann 2004), detailing a mosasaur attack on a Cretaceous nautiloid. In this paper Kaufmann presents a nautiloid (Argonautilus catarinae) recovered in San Diego county, California (image below).

As you can see the nautiloid has three large puncture marks (indicated AT in the figure), and five smaller ones (indicated JT). From the size and spacing of these puncture marks Kaufmann infers them to be mosasaur bite marks, most likely from Mosasaurus or Platycarpus. The smaller punctures form a separate bite, and precede the larger punctures making up the second bite. This second bite most likely killed the nautiloid and caused it to sink, penetrating the flotation and living chamber. Kaufmann argues that these bites consist of two mosasaurs of the same species, an adult and a juvenile.

Evidence from the pattern of bite marks in ammonites implies a learned mosasaur behavior pattern of blind-side attack of the prey first, followed by positioning bites using both the stabbing and pterygoid teeth, followed by one or more bites across the living chamber of the ammonite designed to rip the prey animal out of the shell to consume it. Combining these two lines of evidence, Kaufmann paints a picture of a mother mosasaur teaching the child the best way to tackle this food source. So from this specimen (and with only minor speculation!) we have inferred not only part of an ecosystem, but part of a mode of life, and maybe part of the parent-child dynamic also.

And that's what's so fascinating about palaeontology. This vignette played itself out millions of years ago - not only are its individual actors long dead, but so are their entire species. And yet from a small fragment of rock we can reconstruct so much of their lives. From that rock, just for a moment, we too can swim in the Cretaceous seas, can envisage a life far removed from our own, infer its dramas and imbibe of its wonder.

Amazing.

References:

KAUFFMAN, ERLE G. Mosasaur Predation on Upper Cretaceous Nautiloids and Ammonites from the United States Pacific Coast Palaios 2004 19: 96-100

A Pleasant Surprise

Whilst reading an article by Simon Barnes in the Times about the problems facing Test cricket, I was pleasantly surprised by the following paragraph:

But let’s not talk about evolution. That only confuses things. The use of Darwinian theory to explain and justify changes in human society is one of the greatest misunderstandings in philosophical history. Evolution is not a march of progress, it does not reach a goal of perfection and, for the record, neither humankind nor a single certain human race is the crown of creation.

And that's why he's my favourite sports writer.

Dicing with Death

Not until now did I realise how close to death I came in my days punting in Cambridge. The BBC report that viruses sourced from the River Cam may be useful in treating antibiotic resistant diseases:

A "cocktail" of special viruses which kill bacteria were sourced from the river and shown to treat bacterial stomach infections in mice.

That's right - the River Cam: so nasty, even the bacteria can't cut it. Still, at least at Cambridge we never broke our legs when we jumped in, unlike at Oxford...

via The Ethical Palaeontologist

The Tyrannosaurus and the Lettuce: a parable

Genesis 1:29-30

29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.

The Tyrannosaurus roared. A primitive, bestial sound, echoing across the clearing. It charged out the trees, birds scattering before its headlong rush. It tensed, then pounced, its claws rending, its incredible jaws tearing, a superbly adapted killing machine doing what it does best. As pieces of its prey covered the ground around it, it threw back its head, prepared to issue an atavistic scream of triumph - but stopped, and instead slumped forwards dejectedly.

"It's just not the same," it said. "Not with lettuce." A stray leaf fluttered to the ground next to it. "I ask you, I didn't spend umpteen million years evolving into the ultimate predator to hang around here giving some brassicas the mauling of their lives. I could cry, I really could." He slumped to the floor.

Just then, a passing snaked piped up.

"You want to be careful you do," it said. "Throwing the e-word around like that. The big G doesn't like it you know".

"What e-word?"

The snake flinched and looked round. "Oh for - look, evolution ok, but you didn't hear it from me, never head of it. Personally, I spent millions of years just hanging round conserving the old genome. Ha! Evolve? No, you wouldn't catch me doing that!"

"Oh yeah," the Tyrannosaurus said hurriedly. "Me too. Hohoho, evolve? No chance! 100% created, that's me, all the way." It paused reflectively. “Mmm, coconuts.”

"And don't you forget it. Just between us two though, I'm getting fed up to the back teeth with the whole thing too - not that I have any of course, just these twin venom injecting fangs - they paralyse the cabbages a treat I can tell you - and this fantastic dislocatable jaw. Why I swallowed a marrow whole yesterday. That was a laugh. ‘Course I had to, not being able to process its tough vegetable fibres with my jaw muscles only fit for swift predatory bites, though that's neither here nor there. And then to top it all off, I didn't have the correct kind of stomach to digest the bugger either, and that wasn't an enjoyable toilet trip, let me tell you, but can't complain, eh? It’s not everyday you get to live in Paradise."

"Actually, it is you know. Every sodding day."

"Yeah." said the snake gloomily. "But you know what? It's my legs that really get me down. I mean, why design an animal fantastically adapted to getting around sans ambulatory movement, and then give it legs? Poxy little things."

"Shocking the way they manage things round here isn't it."

"Yeah".

They subsided into a subdued silence.

"God and his monkey army" fiasco latest

So apparently now the two Archaeological Survey directors who prepared the court affidavit have been suspended, and the Culture Minister is offering to resign. Sigh.

(Original story here.)

Calling all entomologists...

Does anyone have any idea what species of beetle this is? The photo was taken whilst walking in the Lake District if it makes identification any easier...

(click on the photo for a bigger picture.)

'Hey, maybe it wasn't God and his monkey army' hypothesis withdrawn from court

The Indian government has withdrawn a report on a shipping canal project that questioned whether a land bridge was indeed made by the Hindu god Ram and his army of monkeys (it pointed to the hypothesis that, you know, just maybe it was a natural formation of sand and stones), after the opposition stated they were questioning the 'faith of a million'. And the US thinks it has it bad when it comes to people interpreting their religious literature literally?

Someone, please make the madness stop.

Why yes, science can rule on whether your god exists...

Okay, this is going to be a bit of a rant. Bear with me.

Shut up already. Just shut up. Now. Seriously. I'm sick and tired of people saying "Science cannot prove or disprove God." Just shut up okay? You're talking rubbish. Actually, I should qualify myself here. If your conception of god is a rather pathetic, useless being who can't actually interact with his creation in any way - hey, maybe he set the whole thing up and then wandered off and left it alone to see how it went (yes, i'm looking at you, deists) - then I'm absolutely fine with that statement. Science has nothing to say about that whatsoever. There's still as much evidence for your god as there is for the proverbial teapot in an inner Mars orbit, but there's no evidence against him either. And let's face it, he's a pretty useless god anyway. But science is quiet on the subject.

However, as soon as you say one thing that your god can do to interact with creation - as soon as you define god in one way that say, a cheese sandwich couldn't fulfill - then you have formed a hypothesis. And the thing about hypotheses is - they can be tested. So, say you inform me that no, your god is not a cheese sandwich. He is very different from a cheese sandwich, and he is different in this way: he answers prayers. I will turn to you and say "Great! Let's look into it." We will go off and collect some data, and lo and behold, it turns out that hey, it doesn't look like prayer cuts the mustard. Sorry, but science has given your 'god who answers prayers' hypothesis the big thumbs down. And it's the same for anything you might care to think of that lets god interact with the universe - anything that actually makes him a meaningful god. If god interacts with the universe, we have a hypothesis. If we have a hypothesis we can test it. For any meaningful god, science can, and will, be able to rule on its existence. So go on believing in god if you want to. Or, alternatively, go on assuring your religious friends that their viewpoint is just as valid - just don't tell them that science can't have a say on a question. Because unless you fancy having a god who doesn't have one attribute that couldn't be replicated in a cheese sandwich, science will be able to have a say on whether that god is real. And you probably won't like the answer.

(This goes double for agnostics. Come off that fence and stop saying there's no evidence either way. Unless you're willing to take the position that you'll believe science when it tells you the ether is not real, but if it tries to test the god hypothesis then you're going to put your hands over your ears and shout "la la la" very loudly. And you know that's a ridiculous position.)

Censorship and incoherence: the classy way to lose an argument

So, I happened to wander back over to zenbullets' post denying evolution (previously covered here and here) and I noticed that several comments had disappeared. I posted a comment asking what had happened - it disappeared. I posted a comment asking if he was deleting comments. That also disappeared, and I got an e-mail saying that some comments had been 'selected out', but not to worry as none of mine had. Well, I'm flattered, but I'm guessing the people whose comments have been summarily removed without any form of explanation are going to be a bit pissed off, and with good reason. He also informed me a paragraph had been added to the original post clarifying his argument (again with no indication that anything had been changed - time for a blogger ethics course perhaps?). When I tell you that his clarification of the argument has the line

He calls Evolution a science, but this is a common misconception. It is a faith.

followed by

Darwin’s great theory is most probably right on the mark, there is a lot for evidence for it.

you'll probably have some kind of idea of the incisive logic that has led him to take his position. Anyway, the new paragraph consists of something of a climbdown, starting off with the aforementioned acknowledgement that hey, maybe there is some evidence for this evolution thing after all. It then continues with a classic creationist defence, a la Answers in Genesis:

But Evolution is not the kind of theory that can be conclusively proved in the same way gravity, heliocentricism, or a round earth can be proved. You cannot make a prediction of a state that can be measured after time t, which can then be tested at time t to see if it meets the prediction. The fossil record is very incomplete (representing less than 1% of all species who have lived on our planet), so if you were to look at time t for a fossil, it is very unlikely you would find it there.

You hear that, all you geologists, palaeontologists and biologists? You should probably just disband your departments now, hand your grant money back and shuffle out the door nice and quietly. Historical science is just not science any more guys. Alternatively, possibly someone should read some more philosophy of science.

Alien: it walks (well, swims) among us

Okay, I'm not ashamed to admit it - this thing petrifies me. Moray eels have a second set of protractable jaws in their throat that they use to drag prey in. I'm just waiting for confirmation they have acid blood... For more, see Pharyngula and Neurophilosophy.

The Meaning of Life? Or, Why Definitions Are Important...

Larry Moran points to a new article by Carl Zimmer that's up over at Seed, on the search for definitions of life. A lot of space in it is devoted to Carol Cleland, a philosopher, and Christopher Chyba, an astronomer, who argue that

the search for a definition of life is beyond problematic, and we should simply stop looking for one. The quest could either be impossible or scientifically trivial.

They compare the search for definitions of life to alchemy in the middle ages:

Cleland and Chyba also determined that there was an even bigger problem with the pursuit of a definition of life—one that lies in the nature of definitions themselves. "If you really understand what a definition is," says Chyba, "it's not up to handling the problem... ...scientists who try to define life today make the same mistake that alchemists did in the Middle Ages. Alchemists tried to define substances by their properties, without any understanding of the underlying chemistry. Water, for example, was defined according to its ability to dissolve different solids. This definition led alchemists into confusion. Since ice couldn't dissolve anything, it couldn't be water. Alchemists gave the name "water" to things that we know now are nothing of the sort. They called nitric acid aqua fortis, or strong water, because it could dissolve most metals. Aqua regia, or noble water, was actually a mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid that was powerful enough to dissolve even gold and platinum, the so-called noble metals.

Searching for a better definition of water would have not gotten alchemists out of this mire. A solution only came in the 18th century, as scientists formulated a theory of chemistry. The behavior of water and other substances suddenly makes a lot of sense when you realize that they are all composed of atoms, which are in turn composed of smaller particles. Chemists can now say water is H2O. However, "'Water is H2O' isn't a definition," says Cleland. "It's a discovery."

So what's the remedy? To forget about definitions and build a 'theory' of life, apparently. How will we do that?

For Cleland, the most promising way to build a theory of life is to look for alien life. In 2013, the European Space Agency plans to put a rover back on Mars. Called Exomars, it will drill into the Martian crust to seek out signs of life. NASA has plans of its own on the drawing board, including one possible mission that would bring Martian soil back to Earth for intense study. Meanwhile, other promising habitats for life, such as some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, beckon. Cleland argues that finding alien life would allow us to start figuring out what is truly universal about life, rather than just generalizing from life as we know it. Only when we have more data, she reasons, will we have a basis for comparison. As it stands now, says Cleland, "we have no grist for the theoretical mill."

I agree more data is vital, but to me their trivialising of the need for a definition is entirely the wrong way round. Looking for alien life to gather more information on what life is is all well and good, but it presumes that we will be able to recognise it as life. And how will we do that? Either we will simply look at it and say 'That's life', in which case we already have an implicit definition, or we will have an explicit definition we compare it to to decide whether it is life or not. And this is where their analogy with the discovery of H20 falls down. Alchemists had another 'alien' form of water right in front of them: ice. They couldn't recognise it, however, as their definition of water was faulty - they had defined it as something that could dissolve things. How was progress made? Well, they looked further into the matter and realised everything is composed of atoms - they then applied this knowledge to water as defined by the old definition, realised ice was identical to it and subsumed both substances within a new definition referring to H20.

I submit that science progresses by defining things, examining them, applying this new knowledge to the old definition to make a better definition, and so on, ad infinitum - a 'virtuous circle', if you will. But the vital point is to make any headway, you need to kick start the circle - you need some kind of definition, no matter how bad, to decide what it is you're actually talking about. So to say 'the whole definition project is worthless.' is far from the truth. The definition project is of imperative importance: however, we don't need to have a perfect definition at the first try. Let's not agonise for ages for it. Let's just grab the most reasonable one we have now off the shelf, plug it in to science's 'virtuous circle', and sit back and admire the results.

Blake's Law

In the comments on his post denying evolution, zenbullets says:

Your arguments are not as rational, I’m afraid you are the fundamentalists of which I speak. There is a page of objections to evolution on Wikipedia as long as the evidence for page, which only proves that there are many opinions on the subject.

I call Blake's Law. (I know technically it's calling someone a fundamentalist atheist, but the problem is this guy claims he's an atheist, and says scientists are the fundamentalists. So I think it counts.) Do I win now?

WTF?

Okay, after the last atheist denier of evolution turned out to be a hoax, I'm just hoping that this one is the same. Zenbullets accuses Dawkins of giving atheists a bad name, and states:

Richard Dawkins writes upon this subject in his most recent book, The God Delusion. He correctly points out that the human mind is vulnerable to certain types of memetic viruses, those that play on our fear of death, the unknown, and our arrogance as a species. Religions are the most sophisticated and resilient of these memes. But there is hypocrisy to his message, because while he writes eloquently of atheism, he doesn’t acknowledge that he has his own belief system, one that he clings to as desperately, and espouses as vocally, as any evangelical Christian.

Richard Dawkins has been the loudest prophet of Darwinism the world has ever known. He is Saul level. He has been perhaps the most significant single influence in the current popularity of the Theory of Evolution since Darwin himself. He calls Evolution a science, but this is a common misconception. It is a faith.

Eh? Please tell me this is a joke. And if it's not, direct him to talk origins, pronto.

UPDATE: I've just realised I share a blog roll with this person! Zenbullets is on the Atheist Blogroll. While I realise it is logically possible to be an atheist and not believe in evolution, I feel being a member of the atheist blogroll should preclude being a science denying loon. But maybe that's just me.

UPDATE: He said scientists are fundamentalists! I call Blake's Law and win. Ha.

Daddy longlegs: door to the past?

Okay, if you're anything like me, this post at Catalogue of Organisms will clear up a lot of confusion over daddy longlegs - it turns out it refers to no less than three separate organisms! I really need to stop treating crane-flies with such respect - I've always thought that they were one of the most poisonous creatures in existence, but their fangs were too small to pierce human skin (Hey, what if they bit you on a cut, okay?). It turns out that not only is this not true, it referred to a different animal in the first place. Anyway, once you've cleared up that confusion, go read Carl Zimmer's post on what daddy longlegs can tell us about the past. Toddle along now.

Slime-Snake-Monkey-People!

Okay, I'm somewhat late to the party on this one, but creationist Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. has a website where he insists that ancient Greek art portrays biblical characters as historical figures, and advocates name-calling as a prime method of argument:

It's a simple matter of name-calling—accurate name-calling. Forget the euphemistic terms Darwinist, naturalist, and evolutionist. Call them what they imagine they are: Mutants and Slime-Snake-Monkey-People. Sooner or later, with many of them, the idiotic and unscientific nature of Slime-Snake-Monkeyism will sink in. If they object to being called by these names, all we have to do is ask them why.

Classy. But what really gets me is this paragraph, where he portrays possibly the least ability to see things from the other person's point of view ever:

Did ancient Greek architects, sculptors, painters, and laborers toil for 15 years elevating those magnificent sculptures on the Parthenon, believing all the while that the artistic themes represented nothing more than "myths"? Is that our rationale for building monuments today? Elevating "myths"? Only a moron would answer these questions in the affirmative. And yet the academic and scientific worlds today, abetted by mainstream journalists, continue to assert categorically that ancient sculptors and vase-artists spent their entire working lives portraying nothing more than "myths." Why do they believe this?

No wait. He's right. No-one would do that.

(Hat-tip: Stranger Fruit and Pharyngula)

Okay, this is cool

The BBC reports that an outbreak of virtual disease in World of Warcraft could be used to study how people react to outbreaks of infectious disease. If only I hadn't canceled my account, I could be online right now getting some phat lewtz doing some serious research!