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The Salmon of Wisdom (Life Sciences)
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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It turns out, eating fish may make men more civilized.

Clayton Cramer's BLOG wrote:
The UK prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%. Although no one is suggesting that poor diet alone can account for complex social problems, the former chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham says that he is now "absolutely convinced that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad diet causes bad behaviour and that good diet prevents it."
...
The Dutch government is currently conducting a large trial to see if nutritional supplements have the same effect on its prison population. And this week, new claims were made that fish oil had improved behaviour and reduced aggression among children with some of the most severe behavioural difficulties in the UK
.


Read the whole thing here.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Today, I came across something that I think illustrates phenomena for which no reasonable scientific explanation yet exists.: marine mammal beachings.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/11/28/dolphins.beached.ap/index.html

No one truly understands why whales and porpoises appear to -- for all intents and purposes -- commit suicide (sometimes en masse) by beaching themselves. Various explanations are offered but ultimately, no one knows why it happens.

I wonder if it might even have something to do with land being where it did not used to be. That's a far-fetched notion but something that plays in my mind.

On a possibly related subject, perhaps we ought to wonder why salmon swim so far upstream to spawn? Is there no place at a more reasonable location in which they could get the job done?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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On a possibly related subject, perhaps we ought to wonder why salmon swim so far upstream to spawn?

"Because they can" I'd have thought was the short answer. The farther up stream the more of a head-start the hatchlings get before encountering more and more hazards and predators. It's not a method to be recommended for everyone: after all, they do die trying.

Anyway, the thing that interests me is what the salmon were supposed to have been doing when their rivers were supposed to be covered by ice sheets (and how poor a grasp of Ice Age ecology/geophysiology will be revealed in answering this question).
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Ray



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the thing that interests me is what the salmon were supposed to have been doing when their rivers were supposed to be covered by ice sheets (and how poor a grasp of Ice Age ecology/geophysiology will be revealed in answering this question).

You've got to remember that they'd encounter the same degree of difficulty if the poles shifted. One way or another ice has a tendency to come and go.

I also wonder how migrating birds deal with changing conditions, but since neither migrating birds, nor salmon, nor eels have died out yet I presume that their instinctive response is flexible enough to allow them to seek out new routes and destinations when necessary.

Re beaching: I would say that bumping into land that wasn't there before is not the most likely explanation. All cetaceans have big brains and highly efficient sonar, so of all the marine fauna why would they be the only ones to make this sort of mistake?

It has been suggested that man-made noise somehow fouls up their navigational equipment, but apart from their sonar I don't know how they do navigate. Or if anyone does.
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Keimpe


In: Leeuwarden, Frisia
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Here's a possible explanation:

http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=31670

It says sonar causes whales to get disoriented.

And here's a very unreadable website with a large record of beachings and their possible cause (sonar):

Posible Explanation: http://www.hypography.com/article.cfm?id=31670

It says sonar causes whales to get disoriented.

And here's a very unreadable website with a large record of beachings and their possible cause (sonar):

http://www.earthportals.com/beachedwhales.html
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Bronwyn



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Re beaching: I would say that bumping into land that wasn't there before is not the most likely explanation. All cetaceans have big brains and highly efficient sonar, so of all the marine fauna why would they be the only ones to make this sort of mistake?

I was reading a news story about the genetic blending of human DNA into various animals for research. The author wondered if pig blood that now contains 80% human elements would lead to a canibalistic ethic situation if slaughtered for human consumption.
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Komorikid


In: Gold Coast, Australia
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Anyway, the thing that interests me is what the salmon were supposed to have been doing when their rivers were supposed to be covered by ice sheets (and how poor a grasp of Ice Age ecology/geophysiology will be revealed in answering this question).

This is of course assuming that the Ice Ages, as they are perceived by orthodoxy and some members of this Quest, ever existed or were as extensive as postulated. The salmon seem to be contradicting the geologists, but who listens to salmon anyway?
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Jenny


In: Central Victoria, Australia.
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Bronwyn, Your post about the pigs. I've long wondered whether the "sudden" emergence of domesticated animals might have had something to do with human DNA being introduced into feral animals. (even if it was 10,000 years ago.) Obviously Enoch's "Watchers" (which I prefer to call Seers as I think the translations were stuffed up) were proficient at grafting plants, why couldn't they also have the nouse to fiddle with DNA? I don't know nuffink about salmon though. Maybe they were originally fresh water fish and instinct just takes them back to spawn where they were born.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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I've long wondered whether the "sudden" emergence of domesticated animals might have had something to do with human DNA being introduced into feral animals. (Even if it was 10,000 years ago.)

An amazing idea! I myself have wondered if repeated cross-species intercourse might occasionally result in a hybrid. It sounds impossible but what's with all the ancient mythology concerning humans mating with bulls (and even swans!)? And dogs may be called "Man's best friend" but it's the other sex that has the capacity to appreciate them more ..

I may be totally insane on this one.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Well all this prion-exchange stuff with kuru and cannibalism and cross-species Mad Cow Disease spread tells us that stray bits of nearly-genome (I hope that's right) can get transferred. And of course we should remember that, early doors, cooking wasn't always completely up-to-scratch.

I agree with Ishmael. A brand new Dawn of Man story, and one to put beside the "fact" that ingesting magic mushrooms produced intelligence.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Well all this prion-exchange stuff with kuru and cannibalism and cross-species Mad Cow Disease spread tells us that stray bits of nearly-genome (I hope that's right) can get transferred. And of course we should remember that, early doors, cooking wasn't always completly up-to-scratch.

Don't forget viral transfer! That's always gotten my vote as the most likely means of moving genes between species. Modern day genetic engineers actually use viruses to do this job now.

I keep wondering why, with all this work on the human genome and all, no one seems to be interested in creating an "evolutionary tree" based purely on genetic commonalities.

Makes me suspect that the reason it's never been done is that it actually can't be done. The facts will not square with the paradigm of "common descent."
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I keep wondering why, with all this work on the human genome and all, no one seems to be interested in creating an "evolutionary tree" based purely on genetic commonalities.

I point this out in THOBR. The problem of course is that the Life Sciences are now a congeries of petty fiefdoms, all of which can be securely defended so long as the status quo is a matter of peer-reviewed subjective analyses based solely on what looks like what.

But if everything were thrown back into the melting-pot and ONLY number-crunching by DNA were permitted for species-relationship classification, it would mean everybody in the Life Sciences would have to go back to school, and they wouldn't necessarily have a job, the same job, when they got back out.

What is puzzling though is that EVERY Life Scientist is genuinely interested to know and would (with the non-mortgage-paying part of their brain) absolutely love the voyage of discovery that would occupy the rest of their lives.

PS This would however be a blow to me personally because I would no longer be able to win money off Life Scientists with my famous "Name two species alive today that are directly related" challenge. The DNA evidence would speedily uncover the several hundred thousand that undoubtedly exist.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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BTW -- I'm now ready to win that lottery. Apparently, the Polar Bear is currently believed to be a descendent of the Grizzly.

However, I suspect this belief persists only due to the inattention of life scientists. Should the descent of Polar Bears ever become a matter important enough to need a definitive answer, I'm certain an extinct and unidentified common ancestor will soon be introduced into the model.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Changing the subject briefly: this website http://www.the-river-thames.co.uk/environ.htm says

"...in 1974 salmon returned to the Thames - the first for 150 years!"

How can that be if, as everyone says, salmon return to the very river in which they were themselves spawned?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The theory is that salmon recognise (presumably via olfactory memory or somesuch) the river they left as bairns and swim up it. But occasionally someone makes a mistake and swims up a new one (actually it would have to be two salmon, wouldn't it?) but their fry would memorise the new river and hence it would get colonised. Though the Thames is a hellova mistake to make coming in north around Scotland. My dark guess is that Thames Water have been quietly seeding the Thames with smolts since the great clean-up started in the sixties. Come to think of it they've probably been slipping adult ringers in. This is probably why, pound for pound, smoked salmon is actually cheaper than tap water in the London area.
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