Yeti Bears Up Under Scrutiny 104
Rambo Tribble writes "Bryan Sykes of Oxford University has discovered that hairs, ostensibly from the Yeti creature of the Himalayas, were '... genetically identical to polar bear.' What the professor is suggesting is that a rare hybrid of brown and polar bear may be the actual, elusive creature of legend."
Re:How hard can it be? (Score:5, Informative)
What's hard about it is that its in the Hymalyas, and from the sound of things, people that see it in the clear would say, "Oh, that's a bear" and people that have it come out of a snowstorm and try to eat them think its the abominable snowman...
Re:Errr... wat? (Score:5, Informative)
If it's "genetically identical" to a polar bear, well... doesn't that mean it's a polar bear?
So it is a polar bear, just not a modern polar bear.
Re:Hmmmm .... (Score:5, Informative)
Pizzly Bear [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hmmmm .... (Score:4, Informative)
Polar/brown bear hybrids are rare... not undocumented
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly [wikipedia.org]–polar_bear_hybrid
Re:So is anyone shocked? (Score:3, Informative)
How to get modded "Insightful" on Slashdot, tip #56:
Bash religion.
Re:Errr... wat? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm blowing off some mod points to post this. Oh well. This is arguably more important than saying something is +1 Funny.
Homology [wikipedia.org] is a term related to convergent evolution. It means that appearance of structures in different species is similar, even though the genetic history-- the evolution-- is very different. The genetics are different. This study found that the genetics between a candidate yeti and an ancient polar bear were identical. By its very definition, homoplasy is not an applicable term.
Stripping this post of connective verbiage that can be inferred, the take-away from this is that
1. While adding fancy new words to your vocabulary is commendable,
2. It is also necessary to actually learn what the new word means before using it.