Platypus sequenced!

[mrhnau]

Apparently a group in Australia have sequenced the duckbilled platypus!

The platypus sports fur like a mammal, paddles its duck feet like a bird and lays eggs in the manner of a reptile.

Nature's instruction manual for this oddball, it turns out, is just as much of a mishmash.

There are alot of species being worked on these days. Exciting times! I can't wait for the Water Bear to finish sequencing

 

[crushing]

I heard about that on the radio yesterday (they also read the poem below, which I though was cute). The NPR story also made it sound like the results of the sequencing is now challenging some of the ideas about when certain features, such as REM sleep, were introduced to animals.

Is it the survivability in the extremes that makes the water bear interesting to you?

The Platypus by Ogden Nash

I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

 

[mrhnau]

Is it the survivability in the extremes that makes the water bear interesting to you?

Absolutely. I find the topic of extremophiles very interesting, as well as the field of exobiology. I've actually been looking for jobs in that area, but alas, no luck so far From what I can tell, the water bear seems a very good candidate to study for the field of exobiology.

 

[arnisador]

I read the platypus article. Neat!

 

[MA-Caver]

To me, the platypus is God's way of showing he's got a sense of humor.

 

[Big Don]

To me, the platypus is God's way of showing he's got a sense of humor.

To me, the platypus is like an animal version of stew, a little of this, a little of that...

 

[MA-Caver]

To me, the platypus is like an animal version of stew, a little of this, a little of that...

heh, as long as it's the female... the males carry a poisonous spine on their hind foot.

 

[Empty Hands]

...and yet the creationists will still insist there are no transitional animals. Here's one!

 

[Touch Of Death]

...and yet the creationists will still insist there are no transitional animals. Here's one!

Which came first the platypuss or all the other animals?
Sean

 

[FearlessFreep]

Apparently a group in Australia have sequenced the duckbilled platypus!

Well, Yeah and they were pretty talented

When Pus Comes To Shove was pretty good but I was underwhelmed by Ice Cycles

 

[crushing]

heh, as long as it's the female... the males carry a poisonous spine on their hind foot.

When the venomous spine doesn't work. . . is there a pill for Reptile Dysfunction?

 

[mrhnau]

...and yet the creationists will still insist there are no transitional animals. Here's one!

Would you please be so kind as to avoid jabs at creationist?

 

[tellner]

Why avoid jabs at creationists?

They're hostile to logic, sneer at facts and have no understanding whatsoever of science as a concept. Push them far enough and they'll fall back to the position that any evidence that contradicts their prejudices is the result of the Devil arranging everything to fool anyone whose faith isn't as strong as theirs. Their only, I repeat only goal is to make everyone believe that their book of quotations from my anonymous half-savage sheep-shagging barbarian ancestors is a perfect guide to science.

Their right to their beliefs must be reluctantly tolerated. The beliefs themselves and the tortured way they arrive at them deserve no respect whatsoever from thinking people.

In the case of the platypus we see not only a large number of physical traits normally found in reptiles, primitive birds and mammals. We also see genetic evidence that the species is intermediate between all three. It even extends to sex. In reptiles sex is determined developmentally. In birds XX is male and XY is female. In mammals XX is female and XY is male. In platypi there are ten chromosomes. In one configuration you get male. In another you get female.

[Correction: In birds it's ZW]

The creationists can whinge and moan and twist all they want. This is just another example of how intellectually bankrupt their position is.

To answer ToD's question, birds are descended from dinosaurs. The platypus broke off around the time that birds and mammals began to split off from earlier lineages.

 

[Empty Hands]

Would you please be so kind as to avoid jabs at creationist?

No, I don't think so. I get called a god-hating liar for believing that my scientific training is valid. They can take a shot or two from little ol' me.

 

[mrhnau]

No, I don't think so. I get called a god-hating liar for believing that my scientific training is valid. They can take a shot or two from little ol' me.

I understand, but it gets tiresome from this end too. Being called "intellectually bankrupt" based on someones beliefs gets old after the billionth time, especially when that individual has absolutely no clue who they are talking to.

 

[tellner]

No, I don't think so. I get called a god-hating liar for believing that my scientific training is valid. They can take a shot or two from little ol' me.

Actually, they can't. Revealed religion - any revealed religion including my own - is incompatible with science at the most fundamental level. Science places evidence at the center and is willing, eager even, to abandon doctrine when it does not fit the facts. In a revealed religion the conlcusion is never in doubt by definition. Data must be explained in light of dogma and can not be permitted to interfere with the provided conclusion.

Galileo's "It still moves" was the most dangerous statement possible to revealed religion. It represents a radical departure from authority as the source of answers about the world. If the Revealed Truth develops the slightest crack the whole edifice falls and with it the philosophy that supports it. If a particular scientific theory is disproved it's another reason for grad students and junior faculty to get out of bed in the morning. Someone has to survey the new landscape and see what will fit best.

 

[mrhnau]

Admin, can this be split? This has nothing to do w/ the Platypus being sequenced.

 

[jim777]

Would you please be so kind as to avoid jabs at creationist?

"A very popular error - having the courage of one's convictions: Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one's convictions." - Friedrich Nietzsche


Back on topic, if ever an animal was created out of spare parts, it's the platypus They've always been favorites of mine, along with okapis.

 

[mrhnau]

The scientific process is a methodology. It is designed to answer questions about nature and that state of things. Certain things are excluded as they are non-testable. It requires the ability to test and prove/disprove. With regard to spiritual matters it has no place. It can only deal with observables.

This does not make science incompatible with religion. They answer different kinds of questions. Christianity (or any other religion) does not crumble when you realize the Earth is not the center of the universe, any more than my ability to jump up and down is effected by my ability to read a book.

 

[Xue Sheng]

And all these years I have been trying to figure out how a Duck combined with a beaver and NOW you tell me it s part snake too!!!

My brain can’t take much more of this you know

Very interesting article however, thanks for posting it