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Smaller Things Even Less Worthy of a Thread of Their Own


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I was reading this website by Chris Langdon (I think he has the second highest tested IQ of anyone known, or one of the highest known) and he answered the "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" He said it was the egg, since other creatures (like reptiles) were laying hard shell eggs before chickens came along. I was like, "ohhh." 

 

 

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48 minutes ago, Ben Dover said:

I was reading this website by Chris Langdon (I think he has the second highest tested IQ of anyone known, or one of the highest known) and he answered the "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" He said it was the egg, since other creatures (like reptiles) were laying hard shell eggs before chickens came along. I was like, "ohhh." 

 

 

Don't believe all that stuff about who has the highest IQ. Most of it is bullshit. I used to belong to Mensa, after passing the test they administered. 

I finished the test in half the allotted time and got a perfect score. A perfect score is 140. Do I claim that my IQ is 280 now? 

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There's three answers to the question, depending on exactly what you mean. If you mean eggs in general it is indeed the egg. If you mean the chicken egg, it is once again the egg. Though you will have to put an arbitrary distinction between chicken and non-chicken. And if you mean the modern chicken egg, then it's the chicken. Because the modern chicken egg has a specific protein that didn't exist in more primitive chickens. So there would have been a chicken born from a non-modern chicken egg that had the mutation to create the protein in it's own eggs.

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5 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Don't wake the dragon!

The dragon is scary.

The dragon is ferocious.

The dragon is very grumpy.

 

But like all dragons, it's also magnificent to see flying.

Sometimes it's worth it to get singed a little for tradition.

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On 3/12/2018 at 4:23 AM, TrueMetis said:

There's three answers to the question, depending on exactly what you mean. If you mean eggs in general it is indeed the egg. If you mean the chicken egg, it is once again the egg. Though you will have to put an arbitrary distinction between chicken and non-chicken. And if you mean the modern chicken egg, then it's the chicken. Because the modern chicken egg has a specific protein that didn't exist in more primitive chickens. So there would have been a chicken born from a non-modern chicken egg that had the mutation to create the protein in it's own eggs.

To look at it another way: Eggs were an adaptation of sexual reproduction that existed long after organisms had used other means of reproducing. If you think of "chicken" and "egg" as metaphors for "animals that come from eggs" and "animals that are hatched from eggs" then the chicken came first.

In a quirk of fate, and this is absolutely astounding, all organisms that have eggs - and I include animals with internal eggs, like humans - share a common ancestor. As in one ancestor. There was one organism that first laid an egg which led to offspring. Just one. And all egg-laying organisms, and sexually reproducing organisms with eggs, came from that one.

Food for thought, @Ben Dover. ;)

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53 minutes ago, Yukle said:

There was one organism that first laid an egg which led to offspring.

 Not to quibble*, but I’m not sure that follows.  I mean, it could have worked that way, but not necessarily, no?  Couldn’t it also have been that one non-egg laying organism produced a bunch of egg-laying offspring that all interbred?  This would still mean one common ancestor, just once removed from your proposed first egglayer.  But it could also be that the mutation that produced egg-laying offspring happened in several instances, and then all egglayers are eventually descended from many individuals?

 

*I have only a dim recollection of high school biology

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Things that happen that you've made names for-

For example, my brother and I call this the "Thanks, John Candy".  It's when you've set your coffee down somewhere and due to distraction, work, or whatever you forget about it.  The moment you remember it and then drink it and exult in its Glory is called the "Thanks, John Candy".

It gets it's name from my brother sitting around stoned one monring, and he'd made some coffee while watching the movie Uncle Buck.  In the buzz of of his cannabinoid high he'd forgotten about the coffee until, in the movie, John Candy's character says "who wants some coffee?". 

My brother exclaimed aloud "Thanks, John Candy!"

He related this to me several days later when I first neglected and then rediscovered my coffee at work, and ever since we've called this phenomenon "The Thanks John Candy.". 

Anyone else have something like this?

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10 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Public beheading.

I'm not doing that to my brother! It was so damn funny. We were in this small Scandinavian themed town in the mountains outside of L.A. There was only one public bathroom and I let him go first because he's a germaphobe and I knew he'd clean the stall before and after. Well he must have used too much toilet paper because he emerged with the thing overflowing like crazy and the water wouldn't stop running and he's screaming, "It's not my fault!!!!" 

We ran.

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This probably deserves it's own thread, but it won't get any burn:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/africa/last-male-white-rhino-dies-intl/index.html

Sad story to hear. Sounds like they might try and Jurassic Park the white rhino though. 

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On 3/16/2018 at 9:55 AM, The Mance said:

 Not to quibble*, but I’m not sure that follows.  I mean, it could have worked that way, but not necessarily, no?  Couldn’t it also have been that one non-egg laying organism produced a bunch of egg-laying offspring that all interbred?  This would still mean one common ancestor, just once removed from your proposed first egglayer.  But it could also be that the mutation that produced egg-laying offspring happened in several instances, and then all egglayers are eventually descended from many individuals?

 

*I have only a dim recollection of high school biology

As insane as it is, current evidence apparently suggests not. Kind of like how animals developing by consuming separate organisms that became the mitochondria has happened - as far as we know - just once.

That's based on the current thinking, at least.

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So I met Prince Charles today and you know what he was a genuinely lovely bloke - he came to my museum and seemed genuinely interested in everything & I had a couple nice conversations with him? I honestly didn't expect to meet him at all but he took the time to talk and connect to everyone and I randomly blurted about my Masters degree and have was lovely ??

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2 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

So I met Prince Charles today and you know what he was a genuinely lovely bloke - he came to my museum and seemed genuinely interested in everything & I had a couple nice conversations with him? I honestly didn't expect to meet him at all but he took the time to talk and connect to everyone and I randomly blurted about my Masters degree and have was lovely ??

Woah! That's kind of incredible! :) Bet you left him dazzled. ;) 

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11 hours ago, Yukle said:

Woah! That's kind of incredible! :) Bet you left him dazzled. ;) 

He was really great at making eye contact and connecting to people and making little jokes and asides to make people feel more comfortable.  

I was there as a volunteer trained with curatorial skills because my project team had uncovered some interesting stuff connecting my tiny county to a particular province in China and when he asked if any of us were specialising in anything I blurted put I was doing my Masters in Celtic Studies and then he seemed genuinely interested and asked if it was distance learning and how amazing it was that I seemed to be doing so many different things ! 

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On 3/22/2018 at 6:55 PM, Theda Baratheon said:

So I met Prince Charles today and you know what he was a genuinely lovely bloke - he came to my museum and seemed genuinely interested in everything & I had a couple nice conversations with him? I honestly didn't expect to meet him at all but he took the time to talk and connect to everyone and I randomly blurted about my Masters degree and have was lovely ??

Did you go and get a green-tea frappe afterwards?

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