Fins made of straw, easily knocked down

In response to Neil Shubin’s recent paper on the subject, and Carl Zimmer’s summary, the creationist Michael Denton criticizes evolutionary explanations for the vertebrate limb. It’s a bizarre argument.

First, here’s the even shorter summary of the Shubin work. Ray-finned fish have, obviously enough, rays in their fins — rigid bony struts that provide structure. These rays are formed dermally. That is, osteoblasts deposit bone on the surface of a connective tissue matrix to build the rods of bone that prop up the fin. It’s called dermal bone because the classic example is the assembly of bony elements within the dermal layer of the skin.

Another way of making bone is endochondral. You start with a framework of cartilage, and cells within the cartilage (which is what “endochondral” means) gradually replace the cartilaginous tissue with bone. Your limb bones, for instance, are endochondral, starting out as fetal rods of cartilage that were replaced by the action of osteoblasts.

What the researchers in the Shubin lab found is that fish fins, which have dermal bone, and tetrapod limbs, which have endochondral bone, use the same cell signaling pathways and cell movements to build the cellular structure of the limb/fin, but differ in the final steps. Fish switch on the dermal bone pathway, while tetrapods use the endochondral pathway. We have a fundamental similarity than simply uses a different end-product, which ties the assembly of fins/limbs more closely together than we had thought.

Not to Denton, though! He wants to make some strangely saltational argument that these two modes of bone formation are somehow incompatible. I’ll show you his final conclusion, so you can decide to bother with the rest.

In short, my assessment is this: There never were any transitional forms making both dermal bone and endochondral bone. Organisms made one or the other.There never were any transitional forms with fin rays and digits. And I predict that no matter how extensively the fossil record is searched, the phenotypic gap between fins and limbs will remain even as the genetic gap continues to diminish.

That’s an incredibly stupid statement. You make both kinds of bone; your skull, for instance, is largely formed of dermal bone, while your limbs are endochondral. Fish have both endochondral bones (for example, in their vertebrae) and dermal bones (skull and fin rays). The ancestral fish-like form had both kinds of bones. We have fossils of transitional forms with both a central endochondral core and fin rays.

finfossils

We’re done. Denton’s claim has already been addressed and refuted. How can he not know this?

You can just stop now. His whole argument is dead in the water. But you could take a look at the thought processes that led to that stupid conclusion, and they’re kind of weird, too.

[Read more…]

An almost automated fish farm (but not for Minecraft)

I was following @upulie on Twitter, when I saw that she was using this app, Periscope, to give a demo of what she does in the lab. Hey, I thought, I could do that, so I tried it, and gave a tour of my cheapass zebrafish facility (you don’t need the app to watch it). This is not my fish facility.

heustisfacility

That’s the big boys’ and girls’ system at the University of Oregon. So be warned: I just have a single small rack with 8 populated tanks. Also, it’s got nonstop water gurgling and bubbling, so it’s hard to hear me over the pleasant, soothing sounds. My students and I built it out of a plastic rack from Lowe’s, a bunch of PVC pipe, some hydroponics widgets, a big pump, and a cow trough. Our tanks are plastic Kritter Keepers bought from Amazon. The whole thing cost less than $500, and it’s grossly over-engineered. We were basically collecting from two tanks at a time all summer long, and it produced 50-100+ eggs every day, routinely. We’d only need a handful for observations and experiments, and the rest got thrown into an incubator (or down the drain), and the survivors were raised to produce another generation that will be ready to pump out eggs for us next summer. Or I could collect eggs every day during the school year, except that I’m expected to teach, not just play with the fishies.

I should mention that this is also a low-maintenance system. I feed the fish twice a day — you know, the usual sprinkling of a few tasty bits of ground-up invertebrates on the surface — and top off the reservoir and check the water quality once a week. It just keeps going, and would grow and grow if I let it. Zebrafish are so easy.

Periscope is also really easy. I’ll probably try it again later this week; I thought I’d give another tour, this time of my nice Leica scope with epifluorescence and DIC and a Jenoptik cooled CCD camera, which is also a little farther away from the gurgling water system, so maybe I’ll be more audible. Later still maybe I’ll set up some embryos/cells on the scope and give a close-up look at how baby fish are made.

Oh, and if anyone else wants to try some small scale zebrafish production, there are lots of sources. I stole many of the ideas from my pal, Don Kane, who has instructions for a similar little system for zebrafish. Or you can read Lawrence and Mason, who give an overview of basic principles. Kim et al. also published a detailed description of their homebuilt system. Or, if you have lots and lots of money, there are companies that build specialized racks and water systems just for zebrafish, and you don’t even have to get your hands wet or sniff PVC solvent or buy a bunch of interesting valves and widgets that will put you on a DEA list somewhere.

What about the men?

I get asked that question all the time, since I’m at a liberal arts college, and face it, the women are taking over. So here’s an article wondering about those poor suffering men.

“I actually feel like women are taking over the world,” says Ishwar Chhikara, a 36-year-old investment officer at an international development bank, citing statistics showing more women now have college degrees in the US than men. He says this laughing, but with no audible irony.

“I feel bad for men, especially those who don’t go to school, or study. The whole system is changing drastically with the coming of the information age. It’s not about strength anymore, it’s about the brains.”

While muscles at the center of an economy made the physically stronger sex have more power, Chhikara isn’t so convinced with the switch-up.

“It is a positive thing from a woman’s perspective, from a man’s perspective I don’t know.”

The statistics are true, and I consider them kind of inevitable. Here’s my explanation: as we generally improve opportunities, the people who have historically had less than satisfactory outcomes are more eager to improve their situation, and are more likely to take advantage of those opportunities. The groups that have historically had an advantage are slower to recognize that they need to work to keep up, and in fact may resent that they have to jump through a hoop to earn what they used to be simply given. So the current situation is actually a consequence of past inequities and men’s sense of entitlement.

There’s another factor, too: the social stigma of feminization. Look at what happens to occupations associated with “women’s work”, like nursing and teaching. They get paid less, and men actively avoid taking up the occupation. I worry that some of that is happening to universities, as well — we see, for instance, that liberal arts colleges are particularly attractive to women, so why would a man go there? Too many of them are looking at the performance of those manly athletic teams in order to determine where to go.

You find it hard to believe that a winning football season could influence people’s decisions to make an academic commitment? Look up the Flutie Effect, and be horrified.

I guess I’m going to have to believe it now

Some people say we’re all standing on a giant rocky ball, which is spinning around — a ludicrously silly claim. But now I guess I have to accept it, because someone actually made a video recording showing it, by stabilizing the image to the stars. When you do that, you can actually see the earth moving.

You know what else is silly? The idea that I evolved from a rock. LaughingSquid is going to have to meet the creationist standard of evidence and show me a movie of that happening.

I know, this happened a long long time ago, which makes it more difficult, but I still have a VHS tape player, so I’ll even accept that antique medium.

Hey, I think my mother still has my grandfather’s old 8mm movie projector, so I’m willing to go even that far back. Checkmate, evilutionists.

This is getting personal

manlybeard

Now the alt-right/MRAs/neo-Nazis are appropriating…beards.

The subject of masculinity comes up and the White man’s ability to grow a luxurious beard. According to early racial science the original Negro and Chinaman were unable to grow beards and the fact that the White man could, showed that our race was more mature and fully grown than the others. The fact that some Negroes now have beards shows that they are mulattoes. Matt encourages men to grow well-kept beards as a sign of being anti-feminist, as feminists hate them.

I am so confused. Being excessively hairy is now a sign of the white man’s more evolved status? And it’s a measure of greater masculinity, but women hate them? So Nazis are going to grow this symbol of manliness to repel women?

Oh, no. I’m not confused. They are, because none of that makes any sense at all.

The Morris NorthStar once again demonstrates its nonexistent value

Nothing ever changes. The NorthStar, the stupidly conservative campus newspaper, is back. Well, one thing changed: now the editor comes to my office and personally hands me a copy. Yay. I am so special.

So I could at least take a look at it. I opened it to the first article, Why I Love Feminism, and skimmed the first page.

On one hand, I held the firm belief that feminism, hoorah, is about as important as condoms are for Donald Trump. But on the other, this girl is feeling my vibe and I don’t want to mess that up. As a young, overly-serious freshman, I unfortunately would tell the truth, albeit in a gentle way (the worst way if you are trying to score). “Well, I think women should be treated equally, not necessarily granted equal results,” [which is, actually, what feminism is all about, so I don’t know why he would think this uncontroversial statement is a moodkiller] I would say, as my chances of parking the beef bus in tuna town went to donut.[Charming.]

Fellas, you need to learn now from the mistakes I made as a freshman. Remember that feminism, hoorah, is a tool; it can be used for good, not just bad. While often times feminism, hoorah, is used to perpetuate negative gender stereotypes of men as pigs and sex-hungry animals [wait for it…] (one of many examples), you need to realize that it can also be used to your advantage to hook up with the (few attractive) feminists for the purpose of getting your banana peeled. [I think it’s obvious that the negative stereotype isn’t coming from feminists, but is being continually reaffirmed by anti-feminst men themselves]

Glancing ahead, I saw that the primary purpose of the article was to squeeze yet another tacky euphemism for sex in every paragraph, so I did another thing that never changes: I crumpled it up and threw it in the recycling, where it belongs.

I’m sorry, ITT Technical Institutes students

The for-profit vocational education institution has been completely shut down, casting 45,000 students abruptly adrift. It wasn’t quite instantaneous: everyone should have been able to see it coming. First they were told that federal financial aid could no longer apply to ITT; then California told them they could no longer accept any new students.

Since then, ITT Technical Institute posted a new landing page on its website that states, “We are not enrolling new students.” The website also details that credits earned by current students are “unlikely to transfer.”

You might wonder why this happened. Simple answer: total accreditation meltdown.

In blocking new students from enrolling, the Education Department cited the actions of ITT’s accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which determined that ITT “is not in compliance and is unlikely to become in compliance with [ACICS] accreditation criteria.” According to the department, ACICS questioned ITT’s compliance with standards such as financial stability, management, record keeping, admissions, recruitment standards, retention, job placement and institutional integrity, in an Aug. 17 letter sent to the department.

I feel a lot of sympathy for the students who were bilked out of their money at this place, and I would hope that any debt they accumulated their would be wiped clean (although, this is America, so it probably won’t). But I’d also say to any student enrolled in a for-profit college…get out while you can. You are being robbed, and the writing is on the wall.

The righteous protests of Standing Rock

The North Dakota oil pipeline protests turned violent, the news media say! And what’s the first thing they tell us?

Morton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Donnell Preskey said four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured after several hundred protesters confronted construction crews Saturday afternoon at the site just outside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. One of the security officers was taken to a Bismarck hospital for undisclosed injuries. The two guard dogs were taken to a Bismarck veterinary clinic, Preskey said.

Security guards and attack dogs got hurt. Wait…why were there even dogs there, and what were those dogs doing? Don’t the bulldozers tearing up the countryside count as “violent”? What about the pepper spray getting fired into people’s faces?

Then they mention the casualties among the unarmed protesters, which law enforcement tries to pretend didn’t happen.

Tribe spokesman Steve Sitting Bear said protesters reported that six people had been bitten by security dogs, including a young child. At least 30 people were pepper-sprayed, he said. Preskey said law enforcement authorities had no reports of protesters being injured.

I’ll spare you the photo of the Indian child with a face lacerated and bloodied by dogs. Instead, I’ll just recommend that you watch Amy Goodman’s on-the-scene coverage of the protest.

I’ll also show you another scene of unimaginable violence. This is what happened when an oil pipeline ruptured in the Moscow River last year.

Now why wouldn’t the Indians want that kind of spectacular spectacle in their water supply?

Hey, there’s nothing to fear from a pipeline! Except for sudden unexplained explosions and a flame-thrower like geyser of flame that can incinerate people 200 meters away. As happened in New Mexico this weekend, killing 10 people (5 of them children).

The 30-inch pipeline exploded around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, and left a crater about 86 feet long, 46 feet wide and 20 feet deep. Police say the resulting fire probably lasted 30 to 40 minutes. It reportedly was visible about 20 miles to the north in Carlsbad, N.M.

Authorities said one end of the ruptured line became a virtual flame-thrower, showering fire on the victims camped beneath a bridge about 200 yards away.

“The evidence out there at the scene indicates it was horrendously hot,” State Police Capt. John Balderston said. “It incinerated everything in its path. If it burned for as long as we think it burned, that explains the extensive damage to the vehicles and to the property and people.

The pipeline company doesn’t see the problem.

John Somerhalder, president of the pipeline group of El Paso Energy, the parent company of El Paso Natural Gas Co., says his company is cooperating fully with investigators. But he adds he believes the explosion was an accident.

“We saw no indication there was third party damage or foul play,” Somerhalder said. “It is, was a very major tragedy that occurred [Saturday], and it occurred as a result of a rupture of one of our pipelines.”

It was just an accident! No one is at fault! Sure, we occasionally incinerate small children, but you certainly can’t blame El Paso Energy!

Does anyone still wonder why the people of the Standing Rock reservation might be a teensy bit irate at a pipeline being built across their water supply?

This will not be the revolution I wanted

For-profit universities are a pox on the world — these are institutions that take advantage of the ambitious poor, people with aspirations who are trying to get an education, and who believe the lies of the promoters. And these things really are run by capitalists who consider quality last and getting paying bodies in to the often virtual door first.

Laureate Universities are part of the exploitive system, although, to be fair, everyone says “it is not considered among the worst offenders in the for-profit college industry”. Isn’t that reassuring? They also invest a smaller proportion of their revenues on marketing and advertising than Harvard, and their president gets paid less than the head football coach at Notre Dame, facts that are apparently supposed to make us feel better about Laureate but actually leave me disgusted with the priorities of most universities.

Now I learn that Bill Clinton was the honorary chancellor of Laureate Universities. “Honorary” meaning he was not expected to do any real work, but was just endorsing the place and allowing them to slap his face on all their advertising, but he was apparently expecting to get paid. And he did.

Clinton was paid $18 million over 5 years for a few token appearances in promotional visits and brochures.

Eighteen fucking million dollars. $18,000,000. $3.6 million per year. For an honorary position. He got paid as much as 240 minimum wage workers, and didn’t do as much work for it as one malingerer. He did use his influence with the Secretary of State to get Laureate invited to a higher ed policy dinner, though, and seeing the face of the former President of the United States on the advertising probably fooled a lot of rubes into thinking that Laureate was legit, so in a sense he did earn his payola.

But it’s yet another sign of venality and corruption at the highest levels of government, and tells me that, in spite of the mild praise padding every article about them, Laureate is just another well-heeled con job.

I know. Trump University was a worse scandal. That was a cheesy, cheaply gilded “educational” scam befitting a low-rent no-class thug like Donald Trump. Laureate University a tasteful, solid-gold, up-scale scam, which makes it…better?

So once again, another election year, and there’s absolutely no question who I have to vote for in November — there is no question that Donald Trump is a ghastly fascist/racist demagogue and goon, and that we can’t allow the Republican party to hold any power at all. But jebus, why do both candidates have to be so sleazy and unappealing?