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A few years ago, Christopher Hamm was reading up on monarch butterflies when he noticed something peculiar. All of the scientific articles that mentioned the number of the insect's chromosomes—30, it seemed—referenced a 2004 paper, which in turn cited a 1975 paper. But when Hamm, then a postdoc at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, did a genetic analysis of his own, he found that his monarchs only had 28 chromosomes, suggesting that an error has pervaded the literature for more than 40 years. Another twist, however, was just around the corner.
Hamm suspected a mistake when he read the original 1975 paper. The authors, biologists N. Nageswara Rao and A. S. Murty at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India, had studied what they claimed was an Indian monarch butterfly in their work. But there's a problem: Monarchs are nearly exclusively a North American species. "It's implied they just went outside their building and collected some butterflies," Hamm says. "I immediately thought, 'Monarch butterflies in India? Really?'"
[...] Case closed, right? Not quite. A paper published a few days later on bioRxiv by some of Hamm's former colleagues at the University of Kansas claims to have found, like Rao and Murty, 30 chromosomes in monarchs. "Previously, an observation of N=30 chromosomes was reported only for males (Nageswara-Rao and Murty 1975)," the authors write. "Our current analysis confirms the same chromosome number not only in males but also in females." The authors of that paper declined to comment on Hamm's findings.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @05:58PM (5 children)
Can't find the original quote at the moment: "Digging up fossil fuel for energy is like robbing a bank for money"
Obviously, I disagree here. You're not going to gain any value from leaving fossil fuels in the ground. There's not going to be some future society that will have a marvelous use for fossil fuels (not necessarily as an energy source) that's going to outweigh the marvelous uses for fossil fuels today. Meanwhile robbing banks disrupts a community's trade, doesn't produce anything of value, potentially inflicts substantial harm on others for trivial gain, etc. It's not even remotely similar.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @07:53PM (3 children)
Digging up fossil fuel for energy disrupts the environment, doesn't produce anything of value, potentially inflicts substantial harm on others for trivial gain, etc.
Kind of arrogant to assume the best use of fossil fuels is releasing the energy stored therein.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:28PM (2 children)
Digging up fossil fuel for energy disrupts the environment, doesn't produce anything of value, potentially inflicts substantial harm on others for trivial gain, etc.
I won't disagree on the first point. The rest is absurd. Do you think we dug up or drilled a few hundred cubic kilometers of fossil fuels, waste rock, etc just for the sake of it? Instead, that's several centuries worth of attempting to make our lives better with a considerable amount of successful in that regard. Globally, we are much better off than we have ever been.
Kind of arrogant to assume the best use of fossil fuels is releasing the energy stored therein.
Kind of obvious really. They are a good energy source particularly for transportation. We only need so much plastic, pesticides, etc.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday February 28 2017, @10:51PM (1 child)
You think robbing a bank does not stimulate the economy?
The criminals will want to spend it sooner or later.
The banks are fractional reserve anyway. They only need so much cash on hand.
The point of the original analogy is that by burning fossil fuels, we are burning millions of years of accumulated solar energy. It would be better to use "renewable" solar energy if we can. Perhaps reserve kerosene for reaching escape velocity (where power to weight is everything).
If you don't think incident solar radiation is enough, nuclear power is an obvious option. Though the green movement seems to oppose it on general principle.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 28 2017, @11:15PM
You think robbing a bank does not stimulate the economy?
The criminals will want to spend it sooner or later.
Indeed, I do believe that robbing a bank doesn't stimulate the economy. Nor do I believe that stimulating an economy is a desirable activity. Notice in my past comments how I have emphasized the value gained from mining or drilling fossil fuels (such as improving our lot in life or transporting things around), not the stimulation.
The point of the original analogy is that by burning fossil fuels, we are burning millions of years of accumulated solar energy. It would be better to use "renewable" solar energy if we can. Perhaps reserve kerosene for reaching escape velocity (where power to weight is everything).
By all means, hop into that time machine to harvest those millions of years of solar energy in a more sustainable way. But that's energy that we can and have used to make our lives better. Why is it better to not make our lives better? Why is it better to put billions of people into increased (and for a variety of reasons very unsustainable) poverty?
My view on this is that it's easier for wealthy, petroleum-dependent societies to switch to renewables when it makes economic sense to do so than it is poor, renewables-dependent societies to stay on renewables when there are cheap fossil fuels to mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02 2017, @06:12AM
Obviously, I disagree here. You're not going to gain any value from leaving fossil fuels in the ground.
Well, the obvious rebuttal is of course that you are an imbecile! Here, let me explain:
There's not going to be some future society that will have a marvelous use for fossil fuels (not necessarily as an energy source) that's going to outweigh the marvelous uses for fossil fuels today./quote?
Well, obviously, except, not! Are you truly this stupid, khallow? Of course fossil fuels left in the ground are worth more in the future! The only way they are not is if the petrochemical corporations are paying us to post on news sites. . . . say it ain't so, khallow!
For example, and by way of obvious rebuttal: for a long time, mummies from Egypt were dug up and used as fuel for steamships on the Nile, and as raw material for paper. Is this true? Of course, look it up on Wikipedia! Only later did anyone realize that these mummies were far more valuable as archeological evidence. You are making the same mistake, oh mummified khallow, patron god of the Underworld of Crude. Have you heard of Jesus? Especially "Sustainable" Jesus?