Two almost bear patterns from a partial Symocyon of a sesamoid "thumb" 14 Apr 2010 I’m really sorry for that pun. I’ve been waiting for years… Anyway, Laelaps (Brian Switek) has a lovely report on the panda’s “thumb” (actually, the sesamoid wrist bone being independently used by a bear lineage and a lineage closer to racoons than to bears, result in the giant panda and the red panda respectively) being an adaptation to a tree-dwelling lifestyle before the bamboo stripping behaviour later evolved. Evolution Evolution
Administrative Talkorigins.org back up 12 Jan 2009 The website www.talkorigins.org is now back up, although links to the temporary archive www.toarchive.org/ still work for now. The story is roughly this – the company (joker.com) we bought the domain name from reassigned the IP number for the site as part of changing their data centre. They apparently sent… Read More
Book Systematics and Biogeography blog 23 Oct 2007 The estimable Drs David Williams and Malte Ebach have started a blog on Systematics and Biogeography, which supports a recent book they haven’t sent me a free copy of yet. Expect much puncturing of pretensions and orthodoxies. Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Intelligent designoids are unsure about me 27 Jan 2011 Normally I wouldn’t link to these guys, but I’m having a kind of odd week with the ID crowd. On the one hand the ever reliable Casey Luskin has declared I am condescending for suggesting we teach science free of religious overtones to young children (but Kelly Smith is more… Read More
Wow. Dennis Miller thinks that joke was obscure. I, on the other hand, am on the verge of being impressed…as soon as I look up a few words…
Interesting, because, IIRC, the corresponding bone on the panda’s ankle is also elongated, which could be explained in view of this tree dwelling past.