http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-07-17T030544Z_01_N16192796_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-CHINA-ELEPHANTS-DC.XML
"Chinese elephants are evolving into an increasingly tuskless breed because poaching is changing the gene pool, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Five to 10 percent of Asian elephants in China now had a gene that prevented the development of tusks, up from the usual 2 to 5 percent, the China Daily said, quoting research from Beijing Normal University."
"Since only male elephants have tusks, there were now four female elephants for each male in China, up from the ideal ratio of two, the paper said.
Similar changes in elephant tusk development and sex ratios have been reported in Africa and India."
This is kinda cool. Hopefully it'll save them from being hunted into extinction.
Unfortunately, I seem to remember there being drawbacks from this - those things aren't just there to be made into piano keys.
The Chinese will end up making Tigers penisless and Turtles shell-less, at this rate.
Don't forget making Bears paw-less and Rhinos horn-less.
And sturgeons babyless.
>And sturgeons babyless.
I wish nature had the capacity to make sturgeons evolve into reproducing by some kind of strange massively parallel cell division.
Also, they'd laugh loud enough that anyone close to the caspian sea could hear it. ; )
>>7
A better strategy would be for them to evolve roe that isn't so yummy.
As for the Chinese love of exotic remedies, a practical solution would be to offer cheap Viagra in vending machines there.
This isn't evolution, just inbreeding. If tusks are useful to an elephant (mating choices, digging tools, etc.) and all tusked elephants die out (through poaching), the less survival traited tuskless elephants become the dominant elephant species because no one is poaching them for their ivory, and their genes spread by not giving females any other biological choice. In a few million years when the tuskless elephants have been dominant long enough, the tusked elephant gene may leave their genome entirely or become 'junk' dna. In the meantime, the tusks may be re-introduced through selective breeding in captivity.
>>9
how is this not evolution?
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Division By Zero, Defined by Anonymous
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As we have all learned in our highschool math classes. Divisiion by zero is undefined. This makes many people quesy, why would something be "underfined" in something as formal as mathematics. I personally felt the world spin out of control and my death looming close by when I first heard this. Until today, when I figured out why it is "undefined".
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SOME REAL IMPORTANT STUFF
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To understand this, you have to understand positional number systems. The one that is most commonly used is Decimal. Decimal is also called base 10.Fuck the what does base 10 mean? It means there are 10 symbols available to use for counting in each position of the digit. Each position is valued exponentially. blah blah I dont feel like explaining this part look it up on wiki or something.
Base 10 commonly uses the numerals: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
"It is not important what the symbols are, just that there are 10 unique symbols"
Base2 commonly uses the symbol: 1 IE: 1001010
Just a side not here, you will notice that shifting the positions left or right is equivelent to dividing/multiplying by the base in decimal.
#Example#
Base 10:
100/10 = 10
100 shifted right 1 position = 10
100*10 = 1000
100 shifted right 1 = 1000
Base 2
Decimal equivelent: 4/2 = 2
Binary: 100{4} shifted right 1 position = 10(2)
More: 1000{8} shifted right 1 position = 100(4)
So now that you understand bit shifting you can understand why division by zero is not scary at all.Dividing by zero is the same thing as bit shifting in base 0.So what the fuck is base 0???
Base 0 is a number system with no symbols, and that my friends is utterly useless. So division by zero is really just boring and useless. Thats why the ancient math mystics didn't define it.
This is also interesting:
Base 1 commonly uses the symbol 1 or 0 or anything really because it is just basic counting:
0:
1:1
2:11
3:111
4:1111
5:11111
6:111111
7:1111111
Does my definition of division as bitshifting hold for all radix? Lets hear some debate.
Delete from here oops sorry for posting in your elephant tusk thread