No worries @hungrywing I am usually crusty in February anyway so if I was bristly, I apologize as well.
Nature is wild
- Thread starter The Corinthian
- Start date
this may be the greatest thing I've ever seen What are said problems, in your opinion?
EDIT: noting that under the wiki (lol) for superorganism, it says-
-which I'm sure you checked before you posted in your eagerness to 'be right'. And AGAIN, this is absolutely not a 'pissing contest', at least from this end (for hard-to-explain reasons)...
So, as you can perhaps see, you might have sort of shot yourself in the foot in trying to vehemently 'attack' and put down something. (I don't particularly think so, but apparently wikipedia might) I don't give a rat's ass about that.
What are said problems, in your opinion?
Absolutely, and as one can see from below, DD and I have at least enough 'civility-stock' built up over the years to know that the other is fundamentally nonviolent.
** line break**
You've misquoted there. I (EDIT: or someone like me) would never, ever do that. It's a subtle but crucial distinction. The word 'smarter' was in quotes. Not the phrase 'many objectively smarter people'.
No one ever said it was 'accepted scientific consensus'.
Much appreciated.
Last edited:
It is a useless term. What animal or plant isn't a Holobiont by its definition? Unless you don't consider an individual a discrete ecological unit as then nothing would be a holobiont.
Whatever the issues with that definition it still doesn't make humans a superorganism. We are individuals even if we have various types of symbiotic relationship with other organisms in/on us.
Last edited:
I agree.
Okay, which would also not make them holobionts, which, again, are a subcategory of superorganism. At least per wikipedia.
Again, personally I don't care about anything except would YOU draw the line? 'Individual' genetic sequence, end of story?
But then what about stuff like endogenous retroviruses, right? Embedded in the 'unique' 'individual' sequence of the 'discrete' organism.
There is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer, and anyone who would say 'omg Wibble, last week you said _______ you pussy now you're backtracking and changing your mind' is not worth including in this discussion. Notice I am not doing that but am focusing on the potential overlaps.
It's not really relevant to the thread, but out of curiosity: what did you mean for the quotes to signify then? If these people are not actually smarter, your argument from authority seems to fall through, and you're not really making any point there anymore...?
Wouldn't it be better to care what the actual definition of something is?
Superorganisms are individuals of the same species with individuals having different essential functions that contribute to the functioning of the whole e.g. ants or some corals. Humans therefore plainly aren't a superorganism. Holobiont isn't a sub-category of superorganism unless the definition has recently changed. It describes a host and the organisms in/on/near it as an ecological unit. Defining ecological units is difficult enough at the best of times but trying to apply them to an individual and other surrounding organisms in order to define them as a separate community or population seems to be rather problematic to me.
Given that holobiont is primarily a term of interest to those looking at hologenomic theory, which I currently don't think has much evidence to support it above and beyond known selection pressures, and its lack of firm or consistent definition, it doesn't really interest me as it isn't really very useful. If the evidence changes maybe it will begin to interest me. Symbiotic relationships are obviously important evolutionary considerations and things like microbiomes do influence their hosts to a degree great than previously thought but I don't currently see how trying to shoehorn them into a definition like this helps study them meaningfully.
I have no idea what you are going on about.
What about it?
And what has any of this to do with sharks not evolving much over many millions of years because they fit their ecological niche so well?
Last edited:
I just came in here to see lions eating gazelles and shit like that, but now I'm looking at a bunch of boring cnuts arguing over what pretty much amounts to feck all except which one wiped their arse with word-a-day toilet paper the most this morning. This isn't acceptable and I demand someone do something about it. @Cheimoon; gazelle me.
Lions are frauds. The gazelles get away nearly everytime.
When the gooses attacked Mark Goldbridge.
Hell yeah.
Anyone see the video of the shark eating the man in Sydney. My worst fear. That's why I stay my ass out of the ocean.
Theres a video of it? Fcuk. Of course there is
Yep there's 2 of them on Reddit. One is the first attack. 2nd is the body floating on the water with a missing leg. Then the shark comes back and quickly disappears with the body. Fecking brutal. Also on YouTube I think, If you're curious.
The knowledge of the video existing is disturbing enough for me!
Nature remains undefeated.
They’re in the other video pecking away I think.
Enough internet for you buddy
Worms burrowing into the corpse?
People were back in the water yesterday despite all beaches being closed. It might reduce numbers slightly today but it will be back to normal very soon.
Bloody hell. Surprised they weren’t all drowned by the weight of their massive balls.
Any idea as to how it got so close? I thought there was nets to prevent this? Will they be trying to capture/relocate the shark now?
It wasn't on a beach. He was practicing for an ocean swim in deep water around a headland. And shark nets do feck all other than provide an illusion of safety while killing mainly rays and dolphins. When they do (unnecessarily) kill sharks they are often caught swimming back out to sea.
They might try to find the shark but I doubt it as great white cover great distances and in any case it wasn't targeting humans and likely thought the swimmer in a dark wetsuit was a seal.
Surfers are a special breed (take that any way you choose
)The drive to the beach is far more dangerous.
Nets don't do shit. It's the dumbest thing ever thought up. Going after random sharks is also pretty pointless.
Barbados is the place for you, friend.
Last fatality was in the harbour in the 1960's. The last oceanic fatality was even longer ago. Maybe even 100 years ago. A diver died off Bondi in the 90's and his wetsuit was found with teeth marks but it isn't known if he was killed by sharks or they just fed on the body after death. There was also a navy diver who lost a hand and maybe a leg to a shark in the harbour in the 90's (I think).
Barbados will have sharks and a few Great Whites as well even if attacks are very rare.
Ah okay! I thought for some reason the nets did something and I thought of a shark attacked someone they’d try to locate it, tag it and put it back to deep water for some reason.
Frightening how close to shore Great Whites come, suppose that’s where they can find seals?
Great whites hunt all sorts, not just seals. Rays for instance bring Great Whites real close in. This one was 13ft so not even fully grown. We should hopefully find out if they're in UK waters ( UK is perfect for them, its more a mystery why we don't have them) this year when Osearch research vessel does a proper expedition around our waters.
Last edited:
I hope they don’t kill the shark
They won't even find it.
The nets kill all sea life at random. Sharks, turtles, whales and dolphins. Everything that swims can get caught in them.
If they go looking for a shark, they kill whichever ones they find. Classic human need for vengeance.
Isn’t our waters too cold for them?
There are reports of tigers around some parts of the island (the Atlantic side) but no history of attacks. I think the Caribbean side isn't their cup of tea. I still got a little nervous on the jet ski once I got over the dark water, mind you, but near the beaches I feel perfectly safe.
But white sharks? No, their preferred food sources are no where near there
Global warming bro.
All sorts of marine life ending up in the waters around here that you wouldn’t usually find here.
Having said that, Great Whites don’t mind cold water at all. There’s fecking loads of them round South Africa, where the water temp is absolutely freezing.