Fish Raised On Land Give Clues To How Early Animals Left the Seas 62
sciencehabit writes When raised on land, a primitive, air-breathing fish walks much better than its water-raised comrades, according to a new study. The landlubbers even undergo skeletal changes that improve their locomotion. The work may provide clues to how the first swimmers adapted to terrestrial life. The study suggests that the ability of a developing organism to adjust to new conditions—its so-called developmental plasticity—may have played a role in the transition from sea to land.
Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
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Well color me surprised! (Score:1)
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Call me when the fish can do my taxes.
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Yeah, but only 1%ers can afford them.
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I heard that you have to pay them scale.
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Re:Well color me surprised! (Score:5, Interesting)
The conditions may not be so "new" to the species. They might have evolved this developmental plasticity precisely because they've been exposed to this same variety of conditions in their evolutionary past.
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We see some level of this even with humans - a human who grows up lifting heavy objects will develop more muscles for doing so, and one that experiences regular bone stress will develop stronger bones in those areas.
I agree that they were exposed to it in the past, probably on a regular basis. There's a reason these fish are air breathers. The ability to move between various shallow ponds really raises the habitat areas for mudskippers, for example.
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That's Lamarkian evolution. Not quite true(there are some weird things that do work that way).
That would only be true if the offspring of the animal inherited the bigger muscles and such as well. Instead, outside of mutations and such, the offspring will have to develop the muscles the same way it's parents did - through stressing them via work.
Earth's future... (Score:1)
One good meme... (Score:1)
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No, no, no! You have it backwards. Here on Soviet Slashdot, developmental plasticity fish overlords welcome you!
Ironically, it's a revival of Lysenkoism, which has its supportive roots in Soviet era propaganda - making your comment quite apt, given that there was official party support from Stalin, to the point of those opposing the idea being executed. It's gained popularity again due to possible epigenetic mechanisms, but this hasn't really panned out in terms of direct heritability of the induced characteristics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
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It's getting hard to distinguish Lamarckianism, Lysenkoism and epigenetics these days.
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Perhaps it served some other purpose in the shallow swamps where such fish evolved, and it could be co-opted to movement on land.
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by living in periodically shallow waters for perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of generations.
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What the experiment mainly does is demonstrate the endurance of the creatures to stay on land for extended durations. Unsurprisingly these extended stays on land gives the fish get an upper body workout so they get better at moving around.
Seriously? (Score:2)
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Okay, dumbass, let's see you use the scientific method to prove evolutionary theory correct. Surprise!!! You can't do it because it deals with things that can't be absolutely proven.
Still a better story than Twilight... err.. I mean $HolyBookDuJour.
Claiming that creationists don't understand science is ignorant and bigoted, and yet it happens every day.
If they understand it, they wilfully decide to override it with fantasy.
Fuck you and your judgmental, self-serving attitude. Christians do have brains and do have the ability to reason, and your insults don't change the fact.
Have brains, ability to reason, and actively choose to suppress them? Your insults don't change the fact.
Go right ahead and persecute us with your insults, it only makes us stronger.
Maybe science should start playing the persecution card too. It seems very popular and effective. You persecute me because I'm a scientist!
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Go right ahead and persecute us with your insults, it only makes us stronger.
and there we have it! the christians deep desire to be some kind of martyr!
take you creationist bollocks and your desire to be persecuted and bugger off with your nonsense!
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Jason above doesn't appear to be very Christian. I would hope he is not representative, and merely loud.
His reaction appears to be that of one fighting a losing battle, since deep down he doesn't believe the literal account in Genesis. Ironically that unnecessary tension within him will likely ultimately result in the loss of his faith. Leave him be, unless he learns better, it will eventually and sadly run it's course from uninformed christian to uninformed atheist. I am not entirely sure which is worse.
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Okay, dumbass, let's see you use the scientific method to prove evolutionary theory correct. Surprise!!! You can't do it because it deals with things that can't be absolutely proven.
Science never "deals with things that can't be absolutely proven."
Repeat after me: Proofs are for mathematicians.
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I'm guessing there is some interesting science being investigated but there's no way to know from the summary's statement of the obvious.
Very Interesting (Score:1)
This is very interesting, but unfortunately adds itself to the vast body of evidence that supports the Scientific Theory of Evolution, and therefore will be derided and railed against by the usual suspects. Im fully expecting this study to be banned in various States and the study's authors to have their names dragged through the conspiracy mud in Fox News.
Something smells fishy... (Score:3)
These creatures take to land like a fish takes to water.
control versus experiment? (Score:1)
They bought 149 fish and based their experiment on 111 in a terrarium and 38 in the control?
Seriously? Who got to choose the fish that went into the overloaded terrarium ?
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And why 111 vs 38 instead of 75 vs 74?
As Flanders would say "Not on my watch." (Score:2)
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I fail to see the signifigance (Score:2)
I'll explain this (Score:1)
In the beginning, we were all fish swimming around in the water. Then one day a couple of fish had a retard baby, and the retard baby was different so it got to live. So retard fish goes on to make more retard babies. Then one day a retard baby crawls out of the ocean with its mutant fish hands, and it had butt sex with a squirrel or something and made this, retard frog squirrel. Then that had butt sex with a monkey and had a retard baby which was a monkey fish frog, and then that monkey fish frog had butt
Its' not that hard to see (Score:2)
All the creatures have some slight bone changes, due to the absence of water and the effect of gravity.
Over time, those whose genes allow for greater changes breed true, while those whose genes limit these beneficial changes tend to breed less.
Eventually someone gets a mutation that makes it slightly easier to walk and effectively makes it much harder to swim. As they no longer swim, that mutation gets bred into everyone.
Ta da, the 'temporary plasticity
Animals? Or vertebrates? (Score:2)
I've heard the same story as most...fish left the seas to spawn amphibians, reptiles, and other land animals.
Such stories never address invertebrates. If, as the headline suggests, all land animals come from fish who left the water, does this mean insects and other land invertebrates evolved from fish?