@ultraspiracle.bsky.social
Studying biology @ UIC
I appreciate that you've made it open access, but is there a PDF available of the book for those who prefer to read offline?
25.10.2025 17:37 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0You want them fund a competing right wing dictatorship?
06.02.2025 02:06 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
"...medicine, balm in some sense. Every philosophy that ranks peace above war, every ethic with a negative definition of happiness, every metaphysics and physics that knows some finale, some final state of some sort, every predominantly aesthetic or religious craving for some Apart, Beyond, Outside, Above, permits the question whether it was not sickness that inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguise of physiological needs under the cloaks of the objective, ideal, purely spiritual goes to frightening lengths-and often I have asked myself whether, taking a large view, philosophy has not been merely an interpretation of the body and a misunderstanding of the body."
from The Gay Science
24.01.2025 00:12 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Saw this guy at the Field a few weeks ago, such a legend. Thank you for doing your part to correct the unjust underrepresentation of the Permian in paleoart
23.01.2025 23:56 β π 5 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Finally, this book really made me want to learn more about specialized mutation systems, like cassette-switching in the vertebrate immune system and CRISPR-Cas. I hadn't known much about this stuff before and it's just unbelievably cool.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0I'm also interested in the philosophical implications of denying Leibniz's claim that "natura non facit saltus". It seems like many models (in bio, physics, econ) that assume continuity have faced difficulties as we've found that the discreteness of the variation in these systems matters.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Though Iβve long been interested in the role developmental bias plays in evolution, I was completely ignorant of the role of mutational biases, and while the math is beyond me, Stoltzfus presents some interesting frameworks for formally exploring the influence of biases on evolution generally.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0whose insights about the importance of mutation in evolution are distorted by neo-Darwinists into outright denials of the importance of selection. With this move, MS apologists are able to superficially claim the findings of the molecular evolutionists without actually altering their models.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0When neutral theory challenged this account, the neo-Darwinists moved the goal posts, redefining their program as a sense of allegiance to a lineage of thinkers who understood selection to be the driving force of evolution, which they counterposed to the early geneticists...
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0I really appreciated that Stoltzfus presents a clear account of "neo-Darwinism", which I've found both defenders and opponents often leave vague. Originally, he argues, neo-Darwinism was a specific theory of evolution in which selection acts on infinitesimal allelic variation in a gene pool.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Cover of Arlin Stoltzfus' Mutation, Randomness, and Evolution. A snowy mountain range with a cluster of arrows in the foreground depicting a biased mutational landscape.
Just finished @evolarlin.bsky.social's Mutation, Randomness, and Evolution. He argues that mutation isnβt βrandomβ in any meaningful sense, but systematically biased, and that βthe course of adaptation may reflect modest quantitative biases in ordinary mutationsβ.
11.01.2025 01:50 β π 2 π 0 π¬ 1 π 1
Plate of light micrographs: Coplanar plumose armatures (filter plates) from the Mount Clark SCF assemblage. Scale bar represents: 100βΞΌm (A, C); 200βΞΌm (B); 50βΞΌm (D); 20βΞΌm (E, F). (Detailed caption doesn't fit, see paper by Harvey and Butterfield)
Plate of SEMs: Arrays of compound pappose setae from the Mount Clark SCF assemblage. Scale bars represent: 50βΞΌm (A, E); 10βΞΌm (B); 5βΞΌm (C, F); 2βΞΌm (D, GβH).
Light micrographs: Hockey-stick armatures from the Mount Clark SCF assemblage. Perhaps part of endites on trunk limbs. Scale bar represents: 150βΞΌm (A, C); 63βΞΌm (B); 50βΞΌm (D)
SEM plate: Arrays with bulb-tipped setae from the Mount Clark SCF assemblage. Scale bars represent: 100βΞΌm (A); 20βΞΌm (B); 10βΞΌm (C); 5βΞΌm (D, E, H, J, L); 2βΞΌm (F, G, K); 50βΞΌm (I).
Maybe obscure, but here's another form of early crustacean fossil for #Crustmas. These stunning fossils detail setae (hairs) on ~509 mya mouthparts and limbs, suggesting complex feeding. Only thing is they are bits, not whole animal. A lot to learn still π§ͺπ¦
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
I'd love a Nagarjuna episode! I was just looking at MMK again last night and realized I'd need an annotated version or some kind of introduction to understand what he's arguing--do you have any recommendations?
20.11.2024 18:56 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
"Our whole discussion insists that lyric poetry is dependent on the spirit of music just as music itself in its absolute sovereignty does not need the image and the concept, but merely endures them as accompaniments. The poems of the lyrist can express nothing that did not already lie hidden in that vast universality and absoluteness in the music that compelled him to figurative speech. Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial pain in the heart of the primal unity, and therefore symbolizes a sphere which is beyond and prior to all phenomena. Rather, all phenomena, compared with it, are merely symbols: hence language, as the organ and symbol of phenomena, can never by any means disclose the innermost heart of music; language, in its attempt to imitate it, can only be in superficial contact with music; while all the eloquence of lyric poetry cannot bring the deepest significance of the latter one step nearer to us."
Feel like Nietzsche would have liked Playboi Carti
14.11.2024 07:48 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0She found that TΓΊngara frogs who've settled in an urban environment, where their predators and pests are less populous, have developed more complex calls than rainforest populations. I'd venture that we've done more or less the same.
13.11.2024 19:15 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Also thinking about how different *forms* of wealth might be more or less protected from eavesdroppers. Two people, one with some acres of wheat and the other with gold, might have the same net worth, but the owner of the farm is much more vulnerable to pests and opportunistic theft.
13.11.2024 19:14 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Being in the entourage of a rich and powerful man might get you some play even if you don't have much going for you otherwise; and he, not you, would end up the victim of redistributive violence.
13.11.2024 19:11 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0One strategy she describes is one in which a male frog will sit next to a calling male in order to intercept females who are attracted by the call without incurring the eavesdropper risk. How do people try to reap the benefits of signaling while letting someone else take on the risk?
13.11.2024 19:10 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Got me thinking about mate signaling in human societies--what risks do men bear in producing flashy mating signals? And how can we increase the salience of those risks?
13.11.2024 19:06 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Signalers in turn might adopt anti-eavesdropping strategies, both plastic--like decreasing the rate or volume of their calls at certain times-- and evolutionary--like switching their mate signaling to an entirely different sensory register.
13.11.2024 19:05 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Went to a very cool seminar yesterday presented by @xebernal.bsky.social. She's studying how TΓΊngara frog mating calls are influenced by "eavesdroppers", predators and parasites who detect these signals in order to locate and feed on their producer. www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...
13.11.2024 19:03 β π 2 π 1 π¬ 2 π 0
Figurine made of fired clay/bone mix from Dolni Vestonice, Czechia. Gravettian, about 30,000 years old. Photo Don Hitchcock.
13.11.2024 12:17 β π 35 π 10 π¬ 1 π 0
Item from a restaurant menu: "Choco Banana-- Takes you back to the home you could sit down in front of the T.V. and eat a Chocolate Covered Banana"
30.09.2023 04:57 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
More new #paleoart at #Patreon: an attempt to show a realistic take on #dinosaur copulation. A lot of what's said about dinosaur mating is pretty ridiculous so, in an essay accompanying the hi-res version of this image, I try to cut to the sensible stuff. www.patreon.com/posts/89965576 #sciart π§ͺ
28.09.2023 12:30 β π 68 π 13 π¬ 2 π 2
