Comments on: A Sense of Kinship

By: chas

chas — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:21:56 +0000

Interesting photo of a dragonfly. Here’s a 1971 Fleetwood Mac song I like entitled Dragonfly. According to the youtube notes, the lyrics are based on a poem by W.H. Davies.

By: D

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:00:46 +0000

Mike, that's an awesome idea! We should totally start lobbying to get this taught in schools, and when it's revealed to be nothing but more religious bullshit, we should start imploring the courts to make schools "teach the controversy." And we'll steal all the Creatards & IDiots from their own camps, lining them all up behind the Dumb Designer (who only guides, but does not directly interfere) with development, and then when religion is dead and gone, we do the Big Reveal! The Dumb Designer = The Blind Watchmaker. Turns out it was evolution, all along! That rambunctious little scamp, acting as if it had intelligence while utterly lacking it... wait, are we talking about blind watchmakers or design theorists now? I forget... @ Entomologista: Hoo boy, nature-rape. Whenever people go on about the "uniqueness" of human evils, I just want to educate them so much on how everything we do has been done before. Well, except going to the Moon. But still, it's starting to look like panspermia (and why not panovia?) may not actually be that unreasonable. Single-celled organisms might be able to withstand, say, ejection into space from an impact, if the conditions are right. The Universe being what it is (i.e. "a really big place where rare things happen all the time"), all we have to do is presumably go and actually find it. And then not even space travel will be a homo sapiens original!

By: Entomologista

Entomologista — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:48:00 +0000

That's a great picture. Dragonflies are aerial hunters, which is why they need big eyes. Males actually have a territory they defend from rivals. There is an amazing amount of behavior exhibited by insects, considering how tiny their brains are.

And yes, their mating is weird. And violent. The male grabs the female by the head, often puncturing her exoskeleton. In some damselflies the male holds the female under water until she's forced to release the eggs.

By: Archimedez

Archimedez — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:18:11 +0000

Generally related to the theme of Ebon's post, some of you may be interested in the CBC documentary about Darwin, which is a multi-part series.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/darwin/index.html

By: MikeK

MikeK — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:37:58 +0000

Looking at the photo, nature, the human race, etc., has tempted me to reconsider Intelligent Design. What if the Designer wasn't that swift? Maybe dull-normal at best like most ID'ers. Even stupid! Or with a twisted sense of humor -- Monty Pythoesque maybe. Certainly a Brit sense of humor. Or our Universe was designed by a committee or a celestial congress, sorta like the tax codes. That'd explain a lot.

Dumb Design. DD.

Sorta off topic, just a thought.

By: MissCherryPi

MissCherryPi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:14:44 +0000

So the first single celled organism was at Happy Isles Trail-head in Yosemite? Good to know. ;)

By: Ebonmuse

Ebonmuse — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:05:26 +0000

I didn't realize I was bracing myself for a statement that took for granted that "humans are the pinnacle of evolution!" until I felt the relief wash over me.

I would deserve a verbal flogging if I made a mistake like that, AnonaMiss. :)

I think there is more to the story of this dragonfly...

Sorry to disappoint you, Mike, but longipennis is Latin for "long wings". If your tastes run to dragonfly porn, however, here are some prurient details. (No nymphs or larvae are allowed to click on that link, thanks.)

By: Nioclás

Nioclás — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:05:11 +0000

@mike: The "pennis" in "longipennis" probably means "leaf" (and by meaning extension, "wing"), so "longipennis" probably means "long-wings".

By: Caiphen

Caiphen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:44:02 +0000

To think, I thought I was great in my early 20's when I learnt to programme a Programmable Logic Controller when I did Elec Engineering. I sit back and laugh at myself now.

It's a damn shame that life is so short!

By: D

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:21:58 +0000

I love close-up photos of insects. I spent about a year of my childhood trapping, poisoning, and collecting elephant stag beetles, giant horseflies, praying mantises, spiders, various bees and moths and butterflies, and stuffing them into tiny little boxes with miniature magnifying glasses on top. I never felt kinship until I learned about evolution (which I didn't really learn about until after I graduated high school... stupid American educational stystem...), but I was always fascinated by these "tiny monsters." Great stuff!

By: Alex Weaver

Alex Weaver — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:16:30 +0000

I don't usually like close-up photos of insects - they have an eerie, alien feel that I find disturbing. (I admit it, I'm a mammal chauvinist.) But this one is one of the rare exceptions. Looking at it again, it's hard for me not to feel admiration for this sleek, graceful creature.

Maybe it's just me, but it helps that you can't see its mouthparts. O.o

By: konrad_arflane

konrad_arflane — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:05:01 +0000

Longipennis? I think there is more to the story of this dragonfly...

IIRC, dragonfly reproduction is profoundly weird. Not quite in that sense, though.