January 6, 2006
ELEVEN MLLION YEARS WITHOUT A SPECIATION TO SHOW FOR IT:
DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution (NICHOLAS WADE, 1/06/06, NY Times)
Researchers have gained a major insight into the evolution of cats by showing how they migrated to new continents and developed new species as sea levels rose and fell.About nine million years ago - two million years after the cat family first appeared in Asia - these successful predators invaded North America by crossing the Beringian land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, a team of geneticists writes in the journal Science today.
Later, several American cat lineages returned to Asia. With each migration, evolutionary forces morphed the pantherlike patriarch of all cats into a rainbow of species, from ocelots and lynxes to leopards, lions and the lineage that led to the most successful cat of all, even though it has mostly forsaken its predatory heritage: the cat that has induced people to pay for its board and lodging in return for frugal displays of affection.
Tiger Mates With Lion, Gives Birth to “Liger” Cub in Siberian Zoo (MosNews, 06.12.2004)
In what local zoologists are calling a miracle, a Bengalese tiger has given birth to a healthy tiger-lion cub at a Novosibirsk zoo.
The cub is a cross between the female Bengalese tiger and an African lion. The animal resembled a lion cub except that it had stripes, and has been dubbed a “liger”, the Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.
“This was not the result of a scientific experiment,” Novosti quoted zoo director Rostislav Shilo as saying. “It’s just that the lion and the tiger live in neighboring caves in the Novosibirsk zoo, and got used to each other.
Tough Love: Norris Fans Board the Chuck Wagon (Paul Farhi, 1/02/06, Washington Post)
Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2006 4:51 PMChuck Norris frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just not his own.
Chuck Norris does not fade away. By all rights he should have, by now. "Walker, Texas Ranger," his butt-kicking law-and-order TV series, finished its run on CBS in May 2001, after eight years and 203 episodes. And that should have been that for the great Stoneface, outside of the endless cable reruns, the Total Gym infomercials and the occasional late-night rebroadcast of one of his '80s-era chop-socky movies ("Lone Wolf McQuade," "Missing in Action," etc.).
But Chuck Norris, or maybe just Chuck Mania, endures.
At the moment, the 65-year-old martial-arts master is the object of a kind of sardonic cult veneration. Conan O'Brien, on his late-night show, has been airing vintage "Walker" clips for months. http://Collegehumor.com , a Web site popular among the dorm set, regularly links to all things Norris on the Internet (recent entry: a rare photo of Norris sans beard). Norris popped up in a cameo in "Dodgeball" two summers ago, and in a two-hour "Walker" movie in October, which drew respectable ratings.
Most intriguing, and certainly most amusing, has been the grass-fire spread of Chuck Norris "facts," a series of Paul Bunyanesque exaggerations riffing on (and amplifying) the Legend of Chuck. Such as:
Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
Wilt Chamberlain claims to have slept with more than 20,000 women in his lifetime. Chuck Norris calls this "a slow Tuesday."
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
If you crossbreed a lion, a tiger, and Chuck Norris what do you get?
Posted by: Gideon at January 6, 2006 5:08 PMDenials from Darwinists.
Posted by: oj at January 6, 2006 5:16 PMWe've become addicted to the ranger. Simplistic, but somehow satisfying. The bad guys get the dickens kicked and punched out of them and the good guys win each and every time. Very refreshing.
The shows also deal lightly with social issues and the whole thing seems to work.
Posted by: erp at January 6, 2006 5:54 PMIt's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.
Posted by: napoleon toe at January 6, 2006 6:18 PMI think a run-down Russian zoo that was low on cash trimmed a lion's mane and painted stripes on him in order to draw a crowd.
Posted by: Carter at January 6, 2006 6:28 PMCarter:
No, that's the zoo next door with Piltdown Men and Peppered Moths....
Posted by: oj at January 6, 2006 6:33 PMGoing on autopilot, are we, creeper?
Posted by: Peter B at January 6, 2006 6:58 PMI too got the Chuck Norris email. Here are a few others:
The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
A blind man once stepped on Chuck Norris' shoe. Chuck replied, "Don't you know who I am? I'm Chuck Norris!" The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Chuck Norris.
If you look in a mirror and say "Chuck Norris" three times, he will appear and kill your entire family... but at least you get to see Chuck Norris.
A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a f***ing Indian.
Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at January 6, 2006 7:20 PMLiger, liger, consult with Feiger!
Posted by: obc at January 6, 2006 9:19 PMI liked: "If you paint one painting, that doesn't make you a painter. However, Chuck Norris baked one cake and now holds the record as The World's Greatest Baker."
Posted by: mike beversluis at January 6, 2006 10:07 PMAlso, these facts about Vin Diesel:
1. Vin Diesel can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.Posted by: Mike Beversluis at January 6, 2006 10:12 PM
2. It takes 14 puppeteers to make Vin Diesel smile, but only 2 to make him destroy an orphanage.
3. When Vin Diesel does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.
Definition of Chuck Wagon:
Old version: vehicle that would bring food in.
New version: vehicle that brings dead bodies out.
Posted by: AllenS at January 7, 2006 4:17 AMThis account of the evolution of the DNA of felines is a total evolutionary non-sequitur. In attempting to reconcile DNA with the fossil record, it is necessary to invoke "at leaast 10" transits of the major continents. Why would cheetahs originate in North America, pass to Asia, and end in Africa, but become extinct every where else? How many other species made so many transits of the bridge between America and Asia?
Posted by: jd watson![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 7, 2006 4:22 AM
Peter,
I don't know how many of my posts you saw before Orrin deleted them.
Doesn't his habit of deleting or editing other people's posts make you think he's tired of me not ever offering scientific support for my faith?
Posted by: creeper at January 7, 2006 4:26 AMcreeper:
Try to see it as Orrin's notion of an act of love.
Posted by: Peter B at January 7, 2006 6:56 AMjd:
Remember all the extra little motions they used to add to planetary motioon in order to keep the orbits perfectly circular?
Posted by: oj at January 7, 2006 7:43 AMAnd the lion shall lay down with the tiger. If Chuck lets them.
ps: Your comments are not being altered; they're evolving.
Posted by: Noel at January 7, 2006 8:23 AMcreeper, it's his blog and you need to conform to the few rules regarding posting here. no one likes their posts deleted so just figure out how to get your point across without crossing the line. in any event, you always say the same thing and never answer challenges to your ideology, so it's really no loss to the rest of us.
Posted by: toeski at January 7, 2006 11:47 AMJust wondering...
1. Which rules regarding posting did I violate?
2. Which supposed challenges to my ideology did I neglect to answer?
Posted by: creeper at January 8, 2006 5:03 AMcreeper:
The rule that say debates never get anywhere when one side refuses to defend its position with argument and evidence and just keeps charging bad faith or wilful stupidity and asks the same questions over and over again irrespective of the answers it gets.
Darn, you just did it again.
Posted by: Peter B at January 8, 2006 5:53 AM