To the losers go the spoils » « Yummy

Carnivalia, and an open thread

I’m taking a little downtime from the busy con fun-and-games, and catching up with the various carnival announcements.

I’m here in Michigan for several more hours, then I’m off to the airport for the late flight home. Talk among yourselves.

To the losers go the spoils » « Yummy

Comments

  1. Tom says

    Several ID/creationist groups have recently begun to invoke Haldane’s Dilemma as a problem for the standard biological theory of human evolution. Basically, Haldane’s dilemma posits that given a sexually reproducing population, there has been time for only about 1,667 beneficial mutations to be fixed in the human population (for this at least they will conceed that humans and chimps diverged approximately 5 million years ago).
    I think their general point is that surely we must differ from chimps by more than 1,667 naturally selected, beneficial mutations. Keeping in mind that chimps have been evolving away from us at approximately the same speed, this leads to something like a maximum of 3,200 genes that could have been differentially selected between us in the past 5 million years. This is approximately 10% of the genome, which seems like plenty of difference to me. Just one change in 150 million nucleotides in my model organism is enough to completely FUBAR it. Am I missing something, or is this just another case of IDiots being idiots?

  2. says

    I have a hypothesis that I’d like to see researched, at least by a search of the literature on brain function and brain trauma. The observation is that singing makes both halves of the brain work together, one side very roughly supplying the tune and the other the words. Recovery from brain injury sometimes involves the other side of the brain taking over some functions from the side that is damaged. So my question is, do people who sing a lot recover more quickly from strokes or concussions that damage the left side (verbal side) of the brain? If there is such a benefit, does it extend to people who are highly musical but don’t sing, e.g. pianists? What about people who use the right side in other ways, e. g. sculptors?

  3. quork says

    University of Dallas drops bid for W library

    IRVING, Texas – The University of Dallas withdrew its bid for George W. Bush’s presidential library Monday, citing the library site selection committee’s exclusive talks with nearby Southern Methodist University.
    …
    “Our decision to withdraw from the selection process is not a loss for our university; this is not a failure. Instead, we think this is a tremendous success story for us,” President Frank Lazarus said.
    …

    I could agree with that.

  4. David Marjanović says

    I think their general point is that surely we must differ from chimps by more than 1,667 naturally selected, beneficial mutations.

    Being used to their own, they’re misundreshtmatin all the other chimps.

  5. David Marjanović says

    I think their general point is that surely we must differ from chimps by more than 1,667 naturally selected, beneficial mutations.

    Being used to their own, they’re misundreshtmatin all the other chimps.