Viva la Moa

You severely underestimated how much those bad boys need to be brought back.

They are essentially wingless ostriches the size of giraffes, and if that doesn't sound cool enough to you already, then you, my friend, are a philistine.

But I think the coolest part about Moa are how they became extinct.  They were no indigenous mammals to New Zealand before the Maori showed up, and since the Moa were the BMOCs of the island, they never had any predators.  The Maori soon learned that Moa meat was about the most delicious thing this earthly side of ambrosia and ate their fill of it.  So much so, that when the Moa would herd in low valleys, the entire flock would be exterminated before any of them had the good sense to run away.  More often than not, most of the meat would spoil before the Maori could eat all of it.

Why have I lectured you for so long on the history of the Moa?  Think about it this way - - assume that we now have an infinite supply of Moa.  Remember then, that we currently have places where you can shoot flightless pheasant for a small fee (see also: Dick Cheney shooting a man in the face).

Make the logical jump here...

Pay-per shot Moa hunting!  No one out there can tell me that this isn't a great idea.  Have you ever taken down an 8 foot tall creature before with an elephant gun?  No, you haven't - - stop lying.

Perhaps this is antithetical to the purpose behind bringing back extinct creatures, but I'm a sucker for a cash cow.

Animal Stuff

New Scientist has a pretty sweet article, but at the same time absolutely heartbreaking, about recreating extinct animals through their DNA, and ten species that they think could be brought back.

First, it’s best to get the bad news out of the way: they’re not going to be able to bring back dinosaurs. For it to even be conceivable to bring back extinct animals, you need to be able to completely reconstruct their DNA, like scientists are currently doing with the woolly mammoth. Unfortunately, sunlight and bacteria alter DNA over time, so anything more than 100,000 years old, let alone 60 million years old, like dinosaurs, isn’t possible.

But even though dinosaurs are out, there are still some pretty cool things that can be brought back. Some of these have found their way onto New Scientist’s list, and some pretty questionable choices have too. Anyway, here’s what New Scientist could envision being resurrected, and my comments:

Sabre-toothed Tigers

This is the first animal listed by New Scientist, and definitely one of the coolest. Sabre-toothed tigers are pretty well entrenched in our culture, through shows like the Flintsones and terrible movies like 10,000 BC, and I would love to see them brought back. They’re closely enough related to lions for surrogacy purposes, and they’re similar enough that I would love to watch those two species fight. While scientists estimate that Sabre-toothed tigers could only bite with about a third the force of modern lions, those enormous teeth would be pretty close to an equalizer. But most importantly, sabre-toothed tigers just look really cool, and I want to see one.

Neanderthals

This seems like a terrible idea. Other than satisfying the curiosity of how humans are different from Neanderthals, I can’t think of a good reason to bring them back. We’re only two or three years away from having a decent copy of their genome, but I don’t see any good that could come out of it; there’s way too much room for abuse. For instance, I could absolutely see some country, like China or Russia, trying to create a slave-race of Neanderthals. Would owning a Neanderthal be any different than owning a dog? It’s just such a moral quagmire I think we should leave the whole thing alone.

Short-faced Bear

I have to part ways with Stephen Colbert here, and say that I think it would be awesome to bring back the Short-faced Bear. I recognize that it is an enormous killing machine, and bringing it back would make it the largest carnivore on land, but I think that this is too cool of an opportunity to pass up. Unfortunately, it seems like it would be difficult to bring this animal back, because it’s so much larger than any potential surrogate animal. While I would like to see this animal brought back, I think we would be better served making sure polar bears don’t become extinct.

Tasmanian Tiger

This is an animal that I had never heard of before reading this article, but after reading about it briefly I am all for bringing it back. First of all, it went extinct in 1936, making its extinction probably our fault, so I would say we owe it to them. Second, it seems easy enough, so why not? Even though this isn’t really a tiger, which would be awesome, having more big, carnivorous marsupials wandering around would be pretty sweet.

Glyptodon

Glyptodons, enormous armadillos that were basically the mammalian version of an ankylosaurus, look so cool I can’t think of a single reason not to bring them back. Seriously, they just look hilarious, though probably pretty intimidating in person, despite being herbivores. Again, this is a species that humans probably hunted to extinction, albeit more than 10,000 years ago, but still, if we have the technology to bring them back, I would again say that we owe them. Unfortunately, this might be tricky; because glyptodons are so massively huge, much bigger than modern armadillos, surrogacy would be a pretty difficult hurdle to overcome. Still though, why not give it a shot?

Woolly Rhinoceros

Meh. Honestly, I’ve never been all that big a fan of rhinos, and actually never even knew that woolly rhinos ever existed. However, they do look pretty cool, and bringing them back seems simple enough, compared to most of these other animals, so why not? I wouldn’t have a problem if they resurrected these animals, provided, of course, that we bring regular rhinoceroses back from the brink of extinction.

Dodo

Even though they went extinct as recently as the seventeenth century, there are very few specimens available, making it difficult to pull enough dodo DNA to put together the full sequence. This doesn’t really bother me all that much; I recognize that humans were responsible for their extinction, but for some reason that doesn’t really bother me. The only reason I can think of for bringing back the dodo is that I wouldn’t mind eating one.

Giant Ground Sloth

Much like the glyptodon, this is a pretty cool, huge animal. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a sloth as big as an elephant? Unfortunately, its size, which makes it seem so cool, also makes it one of the most difficult to bring back. While its DNA is readily available, the sloths that are around now are way too small to carry a giant ground sloth to term. Hopefully scientists would be able to figure out a way around this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Moa

This is another animal that I have never heard of, a wingless bird originally native to New Zealand, and hunted to extinction by the Maori. When I went to wikipedia to read about it, though, I saw a picture that made up my mind about whether we should bring this back. We definitely should resurrect the moa, not because I especially want to see one, but so that it can be prey for Haast’s Eagle, which we should also bring back, and which was fucking awesome.

Irish Elk & Giant Beaver

I’m lumping these two animals together, because I basically feel the same way about each of them. They’re basically bigger versions of animals we already have, but those animals aren’t interesting enough for me to want to see a bigger version of it. So while if some scientist decided he wanted to bring one back I wouldn’t be upset, there are others that I would rather see geneticists focus on.

Gorilla

Yeah, gorillas are still alive, but New Scientist makes an interesting point in saying that the first animal to be resurrected is probably still alive today. Gorillas are threatened by extinction, a threat so real that scientists are saving tissue samples now just in case. This is a great idea, and I think that we should be doing this with all species on the verge of extinction.

Book Review of Meg, notes on Boston, and other odds and ends

After writing this, speculating about the continued existence of Megalodons, Gerber recommended the book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, about just that. It’s the story of the aptly named Jonas Taylor, a paleontologist/oceanographer/marine biologist, who believes that megalodon still exist. Everyone thinks he’s crazy, until a 60-foot behemoth, through an unlucky series of circumstances, is able to leave the trench and wreaks havoc throughout the Pacific.

The megalodon is able to rack up an impressive kill count while Taylor and some others are trying to capture it, before a climactic battle takes place between the predator, people trying to capture it, people trying to kill it, the media, and a fleet of curious onlookers. The ending here, and if you know anything about the Old Testament you can probably figure it out, is so absurdly unbelievable, even in a book about an extinct shark, that it is a little bit of a letdown.

The novel did have some great scenes, including an opening battle between a Megalodon and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I would recommend this book based on a person’s reaction to the back cover. In big letters it says, “Two Words: Jurassic Shark.” If you rolled you eyes at that, I would stay away. If that seems pretty awesome, give the book a shot.

Moving on…

A friend and I went up to Boston this weekend to visit a third friend before he goes to spend the semester in Tahiiiiits, and some aspects of the trip were definitely worth passing on. On the drive up we saw a scene straight out of Tommy Boy. As a white pick up truck was heading north on 95, its hood flew up, completely obscuring the driver’s view through the windshield. The guy in the truck handled it like a champ, acting quickly to get to the side of the road. Presumably he then removed the empty oil can.

Saturday night we went out to bars in Plymouth. After an early last call (1 o’clock? Seriously?), we were walking to the car when someone mentioned threw out going to Plymouth Rock. Then an incredible conversation happened; a girl walking behind us blurted out, “You should definitely go to Plymouth Rock, it dances!” The guy walking with her looked at us and said, “No, it doesn’t,” to which she replied, “It does when you’re on acid.” No one raised any further arguments.

On Sunday we went to the Museum of Science, which was pretty sweet. They had a planetarium, and although not everyone managed to stay awake through it, it was still pretty cool. There was also a three D movie about sharks, narrated by a kindly British turtle, which was fun. There was one part, though, that left me completely befuddled. At one point in the movie it looked like a whole school of jellyfish were floating at the audience. Some people decided to reach out to try to touch the jellyfish. Why would anyone do this? First of all, come on, you’re in a 3D theatre, do you think they’re actually there? And second, what if you reach out and are able to grab one? Then you’re just sitting in a dark theatre with a jellyfish in your hands, not a good situation. Finally, there was a presentation about electricity. At one point, the guy running it decided to show what would happen when electricity was passed from a generator to an ungrounded person and then finally to a grounded person. So he had a girl stand on a milk crate and a boy stand on the ground next to her, and started the electricity flowing. When it got going he had them reach their fist towards the other. As the electricity was passed to the boy it gave him a little shock, and he yelped. For most people, that would be the end of the presentation, but there was something clearly wrong with this kid. He reached his hand up again, same result. Ok, maybe he was just trying to put on a good show, and that would be the end. Or maybe not. He kept reaching his hand up, three times, a fourth, yelping each time. Finally, after the ninth time, the guy running the demonstration shut off power to the generator. If he hadn’t, I can only assume that the kid would have kept electrocuting himself.

And one last marine biology note. Here's a professor in Northeastern's Masters program:





And, some other thoughts:

Today Gov. Blagojevich appointed former state Attorney General Roland Burris to fill Obama’s Senate seat. He has yet to announce how Burris compensated him, though it is probably safe to assume it’s some combination of free legal advice and connections within the state Department of Justice.

It really bothers me when football announcers call an end-around a reverse. How difficult can it be to correctly call a reverse? I mean, seriously, the play is described in its title. If the ball is handed one way, then direction is reversed when given to another player, by all means, call it a reverse. But if the quarterback just hands the ball to a wide receiver, it’s just an end around. Stop fucking this up. Also, the Hail Mary is probably my favorite play name ever.

I recently tried to read Black Belt Patriotism, Chuck Norris’ political manifesto, but I could only get through about 25 or so pages. It’s not that Chuck isn’t a passable writer, I read his western novel The Justice Riders cover to cover, but he’s out of his mind. From what I did read, though, Chuck believes there are eight major problems facing America: no national legacy, no control over spending, not enough border control, no moral compass, not enough value for human life, no future for the children, no traditional family values, and no might to fight. There are a lot of right wing buzzwords in there, but I was still willing to persevere through it. I could look past all the name dropping and bragging. I was even willing to ignore that he left out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps not considering them to be big deals. But after what felt like the thirtieth mention of liberal judges legislating from the bench I couldn’t take it anymore. How is it that only liberal judges are said to legislate from the bench? Pretty much any time a judge issues an opinion he’s shaping the common law, in effect legislating from the bench. That’s what judges do. Why is there such a negative connotation? And why is it only attached to liberal, progressive judges? Seriously, this is pretty ridiculous.

Not to be a dick, but why are all these year-end retrospectives including Steve Fosset in with people who died in 2008? He died in 2007; I understand that his remains were found this year, but that’s still cheating.

Jumanji!

I saw this article the other day, and there is so much cool stuff in there something needed to be said about it. (CNN is talking about it too now)

For those who don’t want to read the article, it basically says that in the Greater Mekong, in southeast Asia, new species of plants and animals are being discovered at an absurd pace. In the last decade more than 1000 species have been found, and some of them seem really cool. One of the highlights is a bright pink millipede that excretes cyanide as a defense mechanism. They’ve also found a really big spider, a neon green viper, and a ton of other things.

But the highlight, without a doubt, is the Laotian Rock Rat. Scientists thought it had gone extinct 11 million years ago, but they’re still around. Honestly, the rat itself isn’t so interesting, but the possibilities it represent are awesome. How many other “extinct” animals are around that we just don’t know about? I’m sure that there are areas of, like, Carslbad Caverns that haven’t been explored; for all we know there are like saber-tooth tigers and spinosauri living down there, eating giant chinchillas and Neanderthals and just generally being awesome.

And there are probably even more cool animals in the ocean. Mariana Trench is probably the coolest place in the world, but because it’s so far under water no one knows. Now, I have no scientific evidence to back that up, but I can still say with utter certainty that there are Megalodons swimming around down there, making great white sharks tremble with fear. And yeah, I think that's awesome.

But honestly, it’s probably a good thing that we haven’t found these animals, because, unfortunately, people are really fucking stupid, and we would drive them all to extinction.