These look a lot harder than they are—the terms are really scary, but they give you a lot of examples, and the test of each unit is 4-5 questions which you have been prepped for. I didn’t get to finish my marine evolution course—nearly did, but time ran out on me, just a schedule problem. But they’ll repeat it and I can start where I left off, which was the last unit in the course. You can learn suffixes like -ine, -oid, and such, prefixes like meso-, di-, a-, and syn- that will make the big names ever so much easier.
The REASON for the big names is not to confuse outsiders to the field, but to (in one package) give an adept reader a pretty good picture of the critter’s skeleton or relation to other critters without even seeing it. In other words, it’s clan and tribe and family wrapped up in a bundle of prefixes, suffixes and core.
So once you get onto that, life becomes a lot easier. You can practically visualize where your critter fits on the tree of life.
The one I didn’t get to complete is Early Vertebrate Evolution. They currently are’t offering that, but may in a month or so. And the last one I completed is Dino 101, which is very broad and a lot of fun. Early Vertebrates is a little more dense, but because I know a lot about fishes, it was very illuminating, too…like our inner ear and a fish’s lateral line are related.
Ooh, these sound really intriguing, especially if they come in relatively small chunks of topics and size of course. I’m way busy and over-scheduled, especially with my working a day job and teaching at night… But would love to add some more “hard” science leaning to my life, especially if it is well organized and I can then draw on it for my own teaching of courses that I don’t have an otherwise strong, formal background in.
I would think prehistoric mammals and birds would be really interesting.
I also wonder where we might be headed, with mammals and birds, into the future of evolution. Gliding and flying, semi-aquatic and fully aquatic, all sorts of things.
But the really amazing thing is that we have no way of knowing what might be beyond what we have now in evolutionary terms. Some new classes of creatures might be out there. There might be other intelligent lifeforms that could develop.
Or what about lower on the evolutionary scale? Presumably, evolution still operates there just as much as at the supposedly more advanced levels. So would we be likely to see other classes develop from invertebrates or lower chordates?
Or for that matter, what happens with humans, apes, and monkeys? While at present, it seems very iffy that any of the (other) apes might make it, on the other hand, monkeys are still pretty common, even aggressively adapting to human cities, smart little bandits that they are. And human development may be stymied by our own intelligence, or it might be that we can’t really stop evolution of our own species.
So there’s all sorts of room in there for speculative future lifeforms, even though we have no real way (probably) of knowing what will develop.
Then again, there’s the possibility that humans will meddle with things before we really know nearly enough about what does what and what might grow out of that. Not that that is likely to stop it from being tried at some point. Or maybe we won’t go that route, at least until we have some better idea of what is involved. — In that, I’m being neutral. There are great possibilities for benefit as well as harm, or simply other outcomes. It’s easy to think up dystopias, but the reality is usually more ambivalent or sometimes positive, and either can have simultaneously running threads of good and bad effects, or maybe just effects.
(Yes, that “sense of wonder” is a thing.)
Marine reptiles, so ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, other critters? Cousins that might be the unproven Loch Ness and Lake Champlaign creatures, if they exist? Or if they’re marine dinosaurs, either. (I mean, who said they have to be dinosaurs? For all we know, they could be mammalian or avian forms.)
Interesting stuff. The hominids might be really something. Or history. Or darn near anything.
I still seem to be stuck on watching videos (films and TV series) rather than back to my old reading rates. I still can’t figure out what the blockage is or how to break that and get back into reading near my old rate. But this weekend, I’m likely to read some, so maybe there will be some chipping away at it. I need to do some housework, but likely going to wait until Monday. Kinda need a break from my routine, and my sleep/wake schedule is back near some flip-flop point, maybe.
Archelons all the way down?
A Cherryh fan from the Shejidan forum, StarExplorer, has recently started a.YouTube channel for topics of interest on various subjects. He’s a current professor (astronomy, I believe), but doesn’t visit the blog here despite avid interest in CJ’s books.
His channel is called Shouting From The Rooftops, and does not yet have a dedicated URL, which requires a minimum of subscribers. He’s said he’s very new to video editing and after his first five videos, he feels he’s getting a little better. Each so far has been under about 7 minutes. He’s still exploring ways to include content for further information, time per video, how in-depth to get, and style/format.
So far, he has three videos up and plans to post weekly.
His channel is at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFFXVLyMSMwBiAAKd5N8qPg
Ancient Reptiles – prehistoric or merely very old?
Those would be the geriatric reptiles in the next enclosure. But it’s hard to tell if they’ve croaked. 😉
Only if they’re frogs or toads. 😀
eta: oops, my bad, those are amphibians.
Unless, of course, it’s a horny toad, which is actually a kind of lizard with “horns.” 😉
Rare Good News for the Day: — All 12 boys and their coach rescued from that Thai cave, after two weeks, each one going over 2.5 miles, mostly underwater, to get to safety before the monsoon season floods the whole cave system. Very good news. I finally heard their team name is the Wild Boars (or presumably it’s that in translation). Apparently, they’re all healthy. So glad it’s good news.
( Edited To Add: ) Google Translate claims that “wild boar; wild boars;” translates to Thai as: “H̄mūp̀ā; h̄mūp̀ā;” Under magnification, that first letter is an H with a macron either above or as a crossbar.
Further Good News: — On being a practical hero
CNN had a follow-up article. One of the 12 boys acted as a translator between his team and the British divers helping them. His teachers were interviewed and say this is no surprise; the young man is a top student and good athlete, and speaks four languages. This, despite that he is from Myanmar (Burmese, IIRC) and so is an immigrant, a foreign national, not yet a Thai citizen. Not only that, but he has no parents and no official home at present. So he was only being practical, being a helper. But this simple action helped his entire team survive and helped the divers and the team act more quickly and better informed.
I hope he’ll get a good home and family, even if he has to make his own family by choice. I hope he’ll get to be a Thai citizen. I hope he’ll get to go to university and get a good job and a good life out in the real world. He and his friends have already proven themselves in a way most of us rarely do. Good for him. This is the sort of person we all need, whether he goes into a very everyday career or becomes someone to reckon with in his field. Whether it’s translation or something else, good for him. I hope that bright talent doesn’t go to waste or get trampled on by the negatives in life. He sounds like a great kid.
And — back when I was in high school, maybe a junior or senior, there was a young Thai guy, outgoing, friendly, personable, an active tennis player, good-looking, the kind of guy you like right away and who seems like he’s really going places. This was my impression already of this young guy who would be graduating soon. There are two brief conversations I remember with him.
One, I saw him or he saw me in the school cafeteria as I was putting up my tray from the school lunch. So I went over to say hi to him and the guys he was eating with, also Asians. I remember seeing he had food from home or from a restaurant, a rice dish wrapped in aluminum foil, with vegetables and herbs and whatever else. I don’t know what the dish was and wish I’d asked. My immediate thought was that that looked way better, tastier, and more healthy than what I’d just had. Of course, I wasn’t going to ask to sample it, that was his lunch and not a whole lot of it. I think all I said was a very honest remark, that looked way better than what I had. He was pleased, we just talked a little, exchanging greetings, and I went on my way. The memory has stuck with me to this day.
The other was a conversation while I was waiting after school for my mom to pick me up. I think I’d had an activity. I was out there waiting, and he came over from having played tennis, a short gold choker necklace and all. He sat down and we talked, and at some point he said something about girls, girlfriends, and said something to the effect of whether I had a girlfriend, there being pretty girls, or however he phrased it. Young teenage me, my guard went up a little and yet didn’t want it to. My instinct at the time was to be on guard about my (hidden) gay feelings, and I believed him to be confirmedly straight, very much so; and I had no idea how that would be perceived by a young Thai guy, or how to begin to approach the subject. I don’t recall if I had alarm bells going off about whether he might be asking me why I didn’t have a girlfriend or if I was gay. I also wondered if he maybe had the idea of setting me up with a girlfriend, or if he was just being friendly, saying he thought I’d like some girl. Whatever it was, he was being general and friendly and concerned, not prying, and he was, yes, being a typical guy. (And I took it, a typical straight guy.) I got a little uncomfortable and didn’t want to be. We moved on in the conversation and it was OK. (I’m also sure he was perceptive.) This also stuck with me as one of those times I didn’t feel I quite fit in, and didn’t know how to approach the topic, or if I could bring it up. (I still don’t know; my understanding is, opinions vary among Thai people, about being gay, but that it’s viewed in a somewhat different way culturally than it is here. I had no idea of that back then.) But my impression of him was that he was being a friend in this. (I think I was also a little confused over whether that could be any kind of way of him broaching the topic, but it didn’t go anywhere.)
My overal impression was that this was a guy I wish I’d known better while in high school or after. — I don’t remember his name anymore. We didn’t get to see each other too often, and he wasn’t in any of my classes; he was just one of the many students around school who was friendly to people. His English had a medium to strong Thai accent, but there was nothing wrong with his comprehension. He was mostly fluent and getting more so. He is probably somewhere out there these days, doing whatever he ended up doing. He made a good, strong impression in the little that I got to know him, and that has remained throughout. — I think it was known that I liked foreign / immigrant students and so I was lucky to have a few friends among the various kids who were fluent or not so fluent.
(And because of that dashing personality, when I read about Jik and Goldtooth, I was reminded of him. I don’t recall what he planned to do after graduation, whether it was aviation or trade or what it might have been. But somehow, his personality goes into my mental picture of Jik and Goldtooth.)
Seeing the news coverage of the Thai soccer team kids reminded me again of him, the one Thai person I’ve known in life.
It is for reasons like this that I will never understand the prejudice that leads people to hate and fear immigrants or “foreigners.” Oh, sure, there can be bad people from other countries, but there can be bad people here too. My experience has been that far more often, if you just give people a chance, they’re at least OK or they can be really great, and overall, my experience with immigrants and foreign visitors has been really positive. I would not take for those chances to know just a tiny bit more about how other people live, how they think. That’s just as refreshing as that rice dish probably was. The people who want to fear and hate that, who think that will endanger our way of life? Why is it they have so little understanding of other people, that their reaction would be such unfounded fears? And all right, if contact with other people, countries, ideas, does change us some, perhaps that would be a good and necessary thing, a thing which could make us all better. Sure, there’s a lot of bad news out there, but when you meet people whom you’d be glad to know better, to call friends and neighbors, that shows the good out there to be had. I would rather have that than isolationism and xenophobia and racism.
So…I am sure that Thai friend from high school has no idea that he made such a good impression on me. But I hope life has been good to him. Very possibly, he’s blessed with grandkids by now, haha.
And, for the young man who acted as a translator and helped his teammates and the divers and other rescuers, I’d hope for the same. He sounds like a great kid with a bright future, despite his rough circumstances now. Bravo, kid, good job.
Off-Topic: We’ll see how Kroger’s Delivery goes. Yes, both delivery and pickup are available in my area, and there’s a caveat about ordering Deli items, such as chicken, before 11:00am. I ordered just about everything per usual, though with some wandering around on the site. (And, hmm, is my password what I think it is? I may have to change it.) Hoping the delivery will go OK, as hey, I’m out of a lot and there’s frozen and fresh food in the order, of course.
Looks like delivery will be tomorrow, as I don’t want after the mgmt. ofc. for the apts. closes.
A glitch in their form meant I had to go in elsewhere and enter my card, then go back to the order, but it looks proper now. So, tomorrow afternoon, and oh, I’d better not miss the phone. (No place to put an entry code, either.) :-/ Crossed fingers and toes.
A carpet cleaner is in the offing, later in the month. I _think_ this is the model I looked at a week or two ago.
After the latest round with the old vacuum cleaner appeared to move dust and cat hair around, rather than vacuum it up, and after, as far as I can tell, it isn’t clogged, I have ordered a new one, a Bissell no-bag model, cheap by today’s prices. Er, so I also ordered a “portable” pet hair/etc. vac., though their definition of small and portable appears to differ from mine. 😉 — If the thing is useful at all, it will pay for itself.
Oh, wonder, oh, miracles! 😀 (Seriously, these days, I’m extra glad if something works like it should.)
Groceries were delivered safe and sound, still hot and cold as desired, right to my door. Oh, luxury, having food in the place is a very good thing, it is. All but one onion arrived safe and sound. Where said onion went astray, I know not, but I am satisfied. Perhaps the onion is better needed wherever it may roam. (?! 😀 )
Instead of being out of pretty much everything fresh and most frozen necessities (meat in particular), now I have the opposite problem. for a bit there, I was concerned I might have overdone it, but no, I’m good, and by the end of next week, space won’t be at a premium n the freezer again.
So my most basic need is assured now, as long as I can get the deliveries. The extra bit of cost for delivery is cheaper than cab fare back nd forth and the time it would take me to shop, rather than the high convenience of them doing it. So I am happy with this.
I had to dip into savings again sooner than expected, which means I need to increase my productivity on font work and anything else, in order to avoid a crisis in a few years. I am not sure if I should scale back my ambitions on that, as what I see for nearly everything in font sales now are an overabundance of weights, except for display-only styles. Even then, there is a trend now to throw in everything and the kitchen sink too. So it looks like if I create some display-only fonts regularly, that could give me the leeway to work more long-term on larger font-families. I am still frustrated in several ways on this, with myself with documentation, and in general, but, well, this is the world we live with.
I still have fond ambitions on my font work, and there’s room out there for what I/m doing. So, soldiering on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/health/gene-editing-cancer.html
All I have to do is live long enough.
That what we would like for you too!
Would you settle for a semi-aquatic raptor dinosaur?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNL15AT1bEA
According to the link, such a Dino has newly been discovered.
Life finds a way. Maybe it’s a puffin?