Organic Matter - Blogging the environment

Dinosaur Penises: Tyrannosaurus sex

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:26:44 -0800

If that title doesn't get hits, nothing will.

In celebration of President's Day (which I have off work), Valentine's Day (which I do not have off work), and Charles Darwin's birthday (which isn't even a holiday), Olivia Judson has written a brilliant article on the mating habits and physiology of Tyrannosaurus rex at her New York Times blog, The Wild Side.

Now if we stipulate that:

All little boys love dinosaurs.
- T. rex is the coolest dinosaur.
- Some little girls love dinosaurs too.
All big boys love sex.
- Again, some big girls too (probably a great many more than loved dinosaurs when they were little).
- Okay, I think we can agree that everybody loves sex.

We clearly see that Judson's choice of topic was well-calculated genius. Distilled by this genius is a terribly interesting look at both the evolutionary biology and natural history of dinosaurs and their closest living relatives...

So what can we say about dinosaurs? My guess is that the males had members — but it’s an educated guess. It’s based on an analysis of dinosaur relations.

Two living groups are most closely related to dinosaurs. One is the crocodiles. Male crocodiles have a penis — just one — which, most of the time, they keep tucked inside their cloacae. (In most species of crocodile, it’s hard to determine the sex of living animals without an intimate exam, never mind dead ones.) Compared with the mammalian penis, the crocodile’s has an oddity: sperm is transported along an external groove, rather than through an internal tube.

The other group related to dinosaurs is the birds. Indeed, to be strict about it, birds are dinosaurs. If you look at a family tree of dinosaurs, birds, and other reptiles, you see that the lineage that evolved into dinosaurs split off from the lineage that evolved into crocodiles. Birds, in contrast, evolved directly from a dinosaur lineage. Birds are more closely related to T. rex than they are to any living form.

Birds themselves divide into two main groups, formally known as the palaeognathous and the neognathous. The palaeos comprises the big flightless birds such as ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries, as well as kiwis and an obscure (but flying) group of south American birds, the tinamous; the neos covers everything else. The palaeos have penises; like crocodiles, they keep them tucked into their cloacae. Again like crocodiles, the organ has an external groove for sperm. What’s more, the lineage leading to the other endowed birds, the ducks, geese, and swans, appears to have split off from that of the other neos relatively early.

This strongly suggests that the ancestor of all birds had a penis, and that at some point early in the evolution of the neognathous birds, the penis got lost. Since crocodiles have one, and ancestral birds almost certainly did, and since the two groups have such similar genital morphology, I think it’s a safe bet that the lineages between crocodiles and birds — that is, dinosaurs — had one, too.

Now, the next question — what did it look like? Was it large or small? Fancy or plain? I wouldn’t like to guess. The blue-billed duck (Oxyura australis) is just a little fellow — he weighs less than one kilogram (two pounds) — but his penis measures 28.5 centimeters (11 inches), and it’s covered with knobs. In contrast, the mighty ostrich (Struthio camelus), which can weigh as much as 160 kilograms (350 pounds), has a penis that’s a mere 20 centimeters (8 inches) long. But at least it’s bright red.

Happy Valentine's Day.

No T.V. and no Beer Make Homer Go...

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:52:05 -0800

...something something...

Once again I've become complacent about posting, and here we are a week after Supermegacrazy Tuesday and I return with nothing to report. I'm trying not to write extensively about the Democratic primaries, due to the fact that the current body of online writing about the subject is increasing at a Leporidaean rate (go ahead and try to look that word up). The fact is that most of my non-work-related analytical energy is being applied to a subject about which no one is interested in listening to me preach.

In fact, do you know what is far more interesting than my thoughts on the Presidential race? Television. And like a crystal ball, that apparently innocuous link will part the mists which separate present from future, and reveal to you the fortunes of your beloved, your adored, your precious... television series.

Unless you enjoy Zach Braff. Like this guy, for example, who must be pissed.

Soup or Tuesday?

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:36:33 -0800

I guess I should write something about my new job, or my new town, since the last time I wrote I was about to start work, and here I am three weeks into it. Also, it has recently come to my attention that I have old friends (who may or may not read this blog on the rare occasion that I write something) who weren't aware that I have moved and that I am again a productive member of society.

Anyway, I just watched the first ten minutes of Live With Dan Abrams not because I particularly enjoy Dan Abrams, but because I had just finished watching Keith Olbermann (who I often do enjoy quite a bit), and was too lazy to change the channel. Abrams’ entire first secment was a prediction that failing a total blowout by Hillary Clinton in tomorrow’s twenty-four state primary, the media will spin the day as a victory for Barack Obama. His claim was based on a claim that the media doesn’t like Clinton. Abrams based this claim on a number of things that I think are obvious and irrelevant to my central point, but his argument was largely predicated on a statistic: over 80% of the media coverage of Obama has been positive, while only about 50% of Clinton’s coverage has been positive.

Let’s assume for a second that this statistic is accurate – that we all agree on what constitutes “positive” and “negative” coverage, and that the numbers are based on an accurate sampling of “the media.” For ten minutes Abrams and a few other talking heads tossed around questions of media bias, whether the pursuit of “the story” frees media outlets from focusing on the raw voter tallies. What kills me is that at no point during this piece did Abrams or any of his guests question the obvious central assumption of these numbers: the difference in positive media coverage must represent a media bias because the candidates each deserve equal positive coverage.

But Chris, how could it be that they don’t deserve equal consideration? Do you hate women? Would you allow the liberal reverse discrimination that is affirmative action to influence even the presidency? I’m not saying there isn’t a media bias; in fact, I suspect that there are all kinds of media biases. But before I accept the proposition that this statistic is the result of media hatred for Clinton or love for Obama, I’d like to see the following statistic: what percentage of statements made by the candidates (and perhaps their surrogates) have been positive? I have a sneaking suspicion that we would see a startling parallel.

Tigers and Bears; Lions Not So Much

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:00:48 -0800

I’ve seen so much stuff I’d love to write about that it’s actually overwhelming. This happens from time to time, and the result is ironic in that I end up writing nothing. I’ve been tempted to just post a shitload of links to all of the things I’ve found interesting lately, but for a couple of the articles in question, the shotgun effect just won’t do them justice. I’ve been tempted to write about zoos before, and indeed I wondered whether or not I had, but the search function suggests that I have not. This cannot stand.

Like most kids, I loved going to the zoo. What isn’t cool about lions, tigers, and bears? It wasn’t until I was about thirteen or fourteen that I became aware that the animals at the Los Angeles Zoo were noticeably less excited about the cross-species experience than I was. They seemed bored at best, maybe even depressed. I’m sure anyone who’s made it to this particular corner of the Internet has noticed this about confined animals. And as we all know, teenagers aren’t very well attuned to moral ambiguity – I was no different – so I decided that zoos were bad, mmmkay? Undebatably, absolutely, unequivocally, evil.

Obviously my understanding of what zoos can and do accomplish has developed since then, and while I’m still a little uncomfortable visiting them (which is why I’m unable to illustrate this post with a photo of some captive exotic species), I appreciate that they work to conserve threatened species, and introduce the public to majestic, charismatic creatures.

Obviously, the zoo news of the day is the escape of Tatiana, one of the San Francisco zoo’s Siberian tigers (Panthera tigris altaica). Her escape and subsequent killing suggests that for some species, the good work done by zoos may not always outweigh the harm.

Life in a zoo isn't necessarily oppressive for all animals. Most animals didn't evolve to explore as much space as tigers. But tigers in most zoos are like people spending their lives locked in an empty living room. They are confined to tiny spaces, with nothing to do. Life is intensely boring, year after year. Some animal observers say zoo life may also be stressful. Tigers, who like to lurk, skulk and hide, are on display, with groups of strangers staring at them. Freedom is absent, and so are choice and control.

[…]

Roberts […] has no patience with the defense of zoos, either for their genetic storage programs or their ambassador roles. "The tiger is a perfect example of the way that zoos are missing the point about conservation," he says. Money spent on zoo tigers should be spent on protecting habitat for wild tigers. "There's an expenditure of millions if not tens of millions of dollars on captive tigers. If we really want tigers and not just a shell of the beast we call the tiger, the real emphasis needs to be first and foremost in the field."

Of course, with tigers more than perhaps any other animal, protecting habitat is more complicated than simply throwing money at the problem. Like many other exotic species, tigers are sought for specific parts of their anatomy, including their bones, organs, eyes, and even their penises, all of which are thought by some medicinal traditions to have curative properties. But cultural relativism is a sensitive issue, and not at all what I sat down to write about. What actually spurred me to write about zoos was an article from Time about a different species that is raising questions about how animals live in captivity:

Earlier this week [Germany]'s tabloid press agonized over the deaths of two tiny Eisbär cubs in a Nuremberg zoo, who were presumably eaten by their inexperienced mother, Vilma, after zookeepers decided not to intervene. Then on Wednesday, a fresh round of photographs and videos revealed that a third cub at the same zoo had been "rescued" by zookeepers after another mother, Vera, showed signs of rejecting her offspring.

Much in the same way that tigers can’t behave instinctively in captivity, captive polar bears seem to have trouble properly raising cubs. And if the ‘rescued’ cub is raised by zoo employees it is deprived of the change to learn the behaviors of its species from the mother. Still, alive is better than dead, right? Or does practice make perfect’ for mother bears that need to learn how to care for their young in captivity? Is the purpose of the zoo to keep these animals alive at any cost, or is there a point at which we’ve only saved an empty husk of the beast that once was?

In other news, tomorrow is my first day at my new job. Wish me luck.

A Letter to Hippies

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:07:09 -0800

I'm listening to Music that Matters, the weekly podcast of Seattle-area radio station KEXP, and I just heard the track quoted below the fold. This guy's indignation at the self-righteous among us is as massive as it is hilarious. Hopefully his post doesn't constitute biting the hand that feeds me.

A Real Primary Post (Kind Of)

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:24:11 -0800

This is something that I’m writing more for myself than for anyone else, because it’s been on my mind as I follow the democratic primaries. I don’t mean to endorse any particular candidate, because I’d still call myself [kind of] undecided. Now that it’s quickly becoming clear that the California primary might actually influence whom the democratic candidate is, I feel obligated to consider my options seriously. But I’m not prepared (or even interested) in going over the details of each of their platforms here and now. What I’m trying to figure out tonight is whether a candidate even needs to have a point-by-point plan for dealing with every aspect of American foreign and domestic policy.

Everybody had his or her issue. Mine is the obviously the environment. In fact, I’m very nearly a single-issue voter, which I think distinguishes me somewhat from most of the American electorate. None of the candidates have what I would call I perfect environmental platform. But, perhaps surprisingly, I’m not that bothered. The way I see it, it’s more important to have a candidate with an appropriate attitude and worldview for the commander in chief. This is a lot more difficult to get wonkish over than whether so-and-so supports a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. I guess I just find it more illuminating to know about a candidate’s general views on regulation than the specifics of their regulatory policies.

Don’t get me wrong, nitty-gritty policy details can be hugely important when it comes to executing policy, and if you can’t get anything done then you can talk about hope and change all you want (if you get my drift). The thing is, I just don’t expect anyone to be an expert about everything. If presidents were supposed to know everything, they wouldn’t need to appoint a cabinet or expert advisors. But if I identify with a candidate’s zeitgeist, I’m inclined to trust him or her to select smart advisors, to ask them for advise when necessary (which should happen frequently), and to trust the advice they offer.

So what do you think? Do you lean toward the candidate who has pretty good policies with dotted ‘i’s and crossed ‘t’s, or the candidate who agrees with you 100% about the issues that need attention and is energized about finding solutions. What’s your risk/reward calculus?

Of course, most of the readers I used to have left for greener pastures when I vanished for two years, so I’ll be lucky to get any feedback on this one. But none of this is rhetorical. I’ve presented a view that I’m sympathetic to, but my certitude is – shall we say - limited. If you’re out there, dear readers, and you think I’m right, then validate my whimsy and say so. If you think I’m wrong you’re job is slightly (but not much) more complex: show me the error of my ways. Bring me to the light. If California is up for grabs, then so is this author’s vote. Hell, I could even be persuaded to make a donation to one campaign or the other. Or the other*. But don’t go all Dennis Kucinich on me – he’s got a great personality, but I just don’t think he’s my type.

*And for real, if you can’t figure out how these views correspond to particular candidates, then you’re probably not following the race closely enough to persuade me either way. But feel free to go ahead and try**.

**Michael Shellenberger, if you're still out there, please note item 1 on the first of those three links!

In Which I Only Vaguely Allude To The Iowa Caucuses

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:51:31 -0800

If you crave news today that is not about Iowa, be sure to read Jared Diamond’s article from yesterday’s NYT.

Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce.

[…]

If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up [with the consumption rates of the United States], world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.

The whole article is not so disheartening. After all, I believe that gloom-and-doom is a poor motivator. But Diamond offers some compelling evidence that our rates of consumption are not tied to our standard of living, and argues that by meeting the third world halfway the Earth can sustainably support more people at a higher standard of living. He ends with an optimistic note that the political will for sustainable consumption has been increasing of late, especially in Australia and the United States, which have so far stalled the development of an international agreement on climate change. I won’t draw the obvious connections to the current election cycle; you’re smart enough to do that on your own.

A New Category of Failure

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:40:50 -0800

Since I started blogging again, I've tried to revive Organic Matter without the wonkiness that used to characterize the site. So far, if success were salsa, mine would best be described as 'mild.' I even forgot to include a photo in my last post, not that I have one to illustrate any of the ideas I was writing about. If YouTube, philosophy, and climate change have one thing in common, it's that they aren't very photogenic. Anyway, I've created a whole new category to describe the deepest fathoms of my failure. And I intend to plumb these depths with fervor.

This all happened because of a letter which I was compelled to write in response to an op-ed in my parents' hometown newspaper, the Redding Record Searchlight. In his piece, Keith Ritter cites Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger's new book, Breakthrough, to restate and reargue the tired canard that "technology will save us." His argument could very well be a corruption of Nordhaus and Shellenberger's these - I haven't read the book myself, and I'm hesitant to let Ritter put words in their mouths. Like most of his ilk, he ignores economic realities, including entrenched subsidies for carbon-based fuels, and an utter lack of public funding for renewable energy development. The point is, his piece so infuriated me that I couldn't keep myself from writing to the paper. And having been published, I likewise cannot keep myself from tooting my own horn on the Internet. The text of my letter is after the fold, which is after a completely unrelated photograph.

Some YouTube Guy's Wager

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:34:02 -0800

This is a pretty interesting video (I can't figure out how to embed in Drupal) featuring an examination of the risks/rewards of action on climate change. Some of you will feel a nostalgic tingling when he busts out the grid on the whiteboard. That's because his analysis is an adaptation Pascal's wager, which you probably heard of back in your college philosophy class.

I think that the idea of choosing between columns rather than gambling on rows is valuable, but the author's wager is hardly any more bulletproof than Pascal's. Probably the biggest problem is actually mathematical: he does not (and I would contend cannot) attribute values to the four cells, or to the probability of each row being true. It seems obvious to me that a skeptic would assign very different values to each of these variables than I would, and that any final calculus will probably only back up each individual's pre-exisitng opinion.

But what do I know? Watch it and let me know what you think.

Divorce is the New Global Warming?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:32:11 -0800

How do you not click on this headline?

WANT TO GO GREEN? STAY MARRIED
Divorced Households Have Negative Impact on Environment, Study Finds

[…]

The reason is simple — it's all about efficiency, says Jianguo Liu, lead author of the study who has the Rachel Carson chair in ecological sustainability at the university's department of fisheries and wildlife.

"In the divorced households, the number of people is smaller than in married households," Liu told ABCNEWS.com. "The resource efficiency used per person is much lower than in married households."

Finally Microsoft Has Found Some Bugs It Can Fix*

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:03:10 -0800

This article by Bill Gates was published over a month ago, which might make me seem lazy, but I prefer to think of it as a testimonial to my commitment to filing away any little bit of information that might make an interesting post. Even if it takes me a month to actually bring these ideas to fruition. On to the article:

This week in Seattle, an extraordinary group of people -- scientists, policymakers, and advocates - came together for three days to discuss what can be done to stop malaria. Melinda and I issued a challenge to those attending the meeting. We asked them to begin charting a course to eradicate malaria - not just to control or reduce it, but to work toward a time when no one on earth is infected with malaria, and no mosquitoes carry the disease.

It’s interesting to see Bill Gates so involved with a philanthropic effort. I’m not saying that it hasn’t happened before, just that I’ve never heard about him doing anything similar to this. I’m sure that there’s a great deal to be said about dealing with malaria, but what really caught my attention was this comment, buried about halfway down the thread:

Erdicate [sic] Malaria? What about bio-diversity? Let's hope that if a new virus comes from outer space, our only hope for a cure does not reside in Malaria...

Photoblogging

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:56:24 -0800

Point of order: now that I am once again a blogger, one of my goals will be to feature some sort of imagery in each post, largely inspired by the format that Christopher has been using to great effect at Hungry Hyaena. To this end I’ve set up a Flickr site. I’ve already uploaded a bunch of photos, including a large number of plant and animal photos (all of which are further tagged with taxonomic information or as “unidentified;” help is appreciated on the latter) and a few photos that I intend to use at some point on OM (tagged with “organic matter”). Most of them will never see the front page of OM, but if you like what you see here be sure to check out the rest of my photo album there, post comments if you like, and add me to your contacts.

Learning to be a Bug

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:17:20 -0800

Well, it’s been more than two months since I promised more content here. I’ve told myself repeatedly that I’ll do it as soon as I finish moving, as soon as I sort out my career, or simply whenever the muse hits. None of those things have happened yet, but I’m sick of making excuses. Also, I don’t have anything better to do while I wait for my crème bruleé to set.

There are a ton of things I’d love to write about, but I won’t ever get to most of them, and you’ll never know what you missed. C’est la vie. Organic Matter used to be about slinging science around in the name of analyzing news and advocating for people and their relationship with ecosystems. I’ve been thinking much more lately about my relationship with the world than about telling people how they should relate to it. I’m not sure how many readers will be interested in me writing about that, but I’m much less worried about readership than I used to be. So tonight, for the first real content that this site has seen in almost two years, I decided to just write about what I did yesterday*. I went fly fishing. Kind of.

It's Been a While

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 22:17:35 -0700

Hi. As the title says, it's been a while. Close to two years, in fact. My life has changed considerably in the intervening period, including finishing my graduate program, a healthy dose of soul-searching, a cross-country move, and nearly eighteen months without writing. Well, I wrote, but I didn't really write, if you take my meaning.

I'm not sure if anyone still checks this space, but if they do, I promise that they will be rewarded in the foreseeable future. I've been working very hard lately to get back in the habit of putting my thoughts into words, and I expect to be doing so again here at Organic Matter pretty soon. I'm planning a proper post to ring in the new era of content here, but that's probably still a few weeks off at best, and whimsy suggested that I get something new at the top of the page so that people know it's still active.

There will also be some changes to the site itself. I have a personal blog in addition to OM - the address of which I don't intend to post here - and I'm hoping to merge the two. I'm not sure yet what the result will look like, but I'd like to incorporate a some of the personal things that I write about there into what I do here, while still keeping the content focused on environmental issues. All of the old content will stay here, with the exception of the user blogs, which we're going to disable. Despite the efforts of a few people, that feature never did much for the site, and I hope to simplify things overall.

Anyway, that's the plan. It might take a couple months to really get going, depending on a number of extraneous factors related to my employment and living situation, but it'll happen. Stay tuned.

Sabbatical

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 09:50:24 -0700

I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. I’d like to blame it on being busy, but I’ve posted much more frequently at time when life was much more hectic. The truth is that I’m a little burnt out on blogging right now. Between Katrina, SCOTUS shenanigans, and the rest of the day-to-day, trying to keep up with everything in order to write about it thoughtfully has been a bit much.

I expect that blogging will be sporadic at best for the foreseeable future, but I do promise to check in regularly and promote (and probably comment on) any user blog entries that are posted on Organic Matter.