mysteries of the natural world (cryptozoology, new species,

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Bamfette
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Post by Bamfette »

Scientists Discover Odd-ball Rodent -- Is It A Squirrel? A Rat? A Guinea Pig? Try None Of The Above

NEW YORK (MAY 11, 2005) -- A team of scientists working in Southeast Asia have discovered a long-whiskered rodent with stubby legs and a tail covered in dense hair. But don't call it a squirrel. Or a rat. Because it's actually more like a guinea pig or chinchilla. But not quite. In fact the new species, found in Laos by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups, is so unique it represents an entire new family of wildlife.


The new species is described in the recent issue of the journal Systematics and Biodiversity by authors from WCS, The Natural History Museum in London, University of Vermont and WWF Thailand.

"It was for sale on a table next to some vegetables. I knew immediately it was something I had never seen before," said Dr. Timmins. Dr Mark Robinson, working with WWF Thailand later discovered other specimens caught by hunters, and also identified bone fragments in an owl pellet. Based on morphological differences in the skull and bone structure, coupled with DNA analysis, the authors estimate that the Kha-Nyou diverged from other rodents millions of years ago.
http://tinyurl.com/caq5j

I just found that interesting. a whole new animal discovered in a bazar being sold as a pet. not merely a new species, but a whole new category of animal. I always find news like this itneresting because it shows how much about our world we don't yet know, and how much we have left to learn, which i find exciting.
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Post by Shadow_Dancer »

Thanks for posting this link Jill,

As a biologist I find this new animal extremely interesting. Scientists are doing quite a bit of basing taxonomy on genetics and DNA similarities rather than just morphology and physiology.

It also appears that this isn't the only odd or previously unidentified species to come out of that same general location recently.

Just goes to show you that there are still unknown things on this planet waiting to be discovered. Look how long the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was thought to be extinct until a competent party finally observed their continued existance.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." Mark Twain

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Bamfette
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Post by Bamfette »

and there's tha small deer like creature found in Vietnam in the 90's the Sau La (sp?) and that's opn the dry land portion of the planet, among other things. imagine what is waiting undiscovered in the ocean where there is (a lot of) territory no one has ever seen.
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Post by Crocodile Hunter »

Originally posted by Bamfette
imagine what is waiting undiscovered in the ocean where there is (a lot of) territory no one has ever seen.
Or in amazon reignforest, for some reason i dont belive that anyone from "civilization" has ever been in the heart of that jungle.
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Post by Bamfette »

... like a tribe of indians no one was (until recently) able to confirm the existence of? i mean... HUMANS.... speaking of which, want to read something incredibly sad?

http://www.periodico26.cu/english_new/w ... 180505.htm

:-/
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Post by Slarti »

It's never terribly surprising to hear of tribes being destroyed, but it's always sad and makes you wonder about "civilization."

As for undiscovered species, I love that sort of stuff, and I'm just waiting for the day Bigfoot or a chupacapra is "discovered."
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Post by Crocodile Hunter »

i like to read zoological and cryptozoological (if thats the right name)
articles and sites from net.. i get great vibes from reading of NJ devil, chubacabra and other unexplained stories :p
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Post by Bamfette »

i think this thread needs to be renamed, becuase it's changed subjects (don't care, it's interesting) but i can't decide to what... anyway....

I LOVE Cryptozoology. some of them, i highly doubt there is a real creature out there. others though.... and, i mean especially with all these animals being discovered.

I saw on the Discovery Channel's daily science show (Canada, i've noticed there isn't one in the US...) a few months ago that a new species of leech (yeah, not exactly as interesting as monkies or weird rodents, but...) was discovered IN A CITY (Boston i think) wether it had evolved due to the city environment, or had been there all along unnoticed was unknown, but it was living right under people's feet the entire time.
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Post by Bamfette »

now THIS is just insanely interesting... soft tissue has been recovered from... get this... a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

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…we demonstrate the retention of pliable soft-tissue blood vessels with contents that are capable of being liberated from the bone matrix, while still retaining their flexibility, resilience, original hollow nature, and three-dimensionality. Additionally, we can isolate three-dimensional osteocytes with internal cellular contents and intact, supple filipodia that float freely in solution. This T. rex also contains flexible and fibrillar bone matrices that retain elasticity. The unusual preservation of the originally organic matrix may be due in part to the dense mineralization of dinosaur bone, because a certain portion of the organic matrix within extant bone is intracrystalline and therefore extremely resistant to degradation. These factors, combined with as yet undetermined geochemical and environmental factors, presumably also contribute to the preservation of soft-tissue vessels. Because they have not been embedded or subjected to other chemical treatments, the cells and vessels are capable of being analyzed further for the persistence of molecular or other chemical information.
http://tinyurl.com/cpljr
http://tinyurl.com/9ddkh

bring in the clones, baby! ;)

speaking of clones, what are your thoughts on the achievements of scientists in Korea and England, cloning human embryos to harvest stem cells? I find it very exciting. I know there are moral objections by some, but I think the medical gians to be had here far oughtweigh them. Alzheimers runs in my family, and if this could provide a solid treatment, it would eliminate many fears for me and my mother if it comes about fast enough (next 20 years or so) My grandmother was lost to Alzheimers, and while she did not suffer (she could not rememebr anything day to day. she was in hospitals for years but though she had been there weeks at most) it was hard to see someone degrade so badly. I would hate to be a burden like that.

and yes, i spend a lot of time browsing news stories related to science, and find a lot of stuff linked to on the Internet Infidel's discussion forums. http://www.iidb.org/vbb/index.php
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Post by Crocodile Hunter »

Originally posted by Bamfette
I saw on the Discovery Channel's daily science show (Canada, i've noticed there isn't one in the US...) a few months ago that a new species of leech (yeah, not exactly as interesting as monkies or weird rodents, but...) was discovered IN A CITY (Boston i think) wether it had evolved due to the city environment, or had been there all along unnoticed was unknown, but it was living right under people's feet the entire time.
The kinds that live on dry ground?
I mean leeches usually live in water.. I think.

http://www.weirdnj.com/home/index.html

there was some really interesting articles.
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Post by Bamfette »

it lived on the ground, yes. they showed a clip of it actually drowning if put in water. it required a damp environment, but it wasn't aquatic. it also didn't suck blood - it ate earthworms.
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Post by Crocodile Hunter »

thats how all of em should be :P
hmm.. just read an interesting article of nj devil, there was a picture taken in the beginning of 1900's, a body of cow hanging in phone wires in height of 8 meters. Interesting. :lick
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Post by Bamfette »

http://tinyurl.com/8le76

somewhast related to the soft tissue from dinosaurs finding, they have determined a possible way to sex dinosaurs by looking at the insides of the bones.... looking for a special type of bone that develops in female birds to prepare them for egg laying.
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Post by Slarti »

Originally posted by Bamfette
now THIS is just insanely interesting... soft tissue has been recovered from... get this... a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Great googlimoogli! Real-life Jurrasic Park anyone?

I love cryptozoology myself and Hubby scared the tar out of me one night back in college by telling me stories about the chupacabra then leaving me alone that night. He rustled around out in the bushes and made unnatural animal noises. *shudders*

Speaking of chupacabra, did anyone else see this:
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.as ... 6F6C31975E

I saw this a few months back and it gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies.

As for stem cell research, I'm all for it. Both my grandparents died of Parkinson's disease and I'd like to avoid that fate for my mother and I too.
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Post by thylacine »

I love cryptozoology. That's why I use "Thylacine" as a name online!!! There is a debate as to whether they are extinct or not -- scientists say there are no more left -- but yet people keep seeing them!!! And some of these people are sober!!!

In around 1987 a park ranger saw one, and they are supposed to be all gone since 1937!

I don't believe in jackalopes, though!
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Post by Crocodile Hunter »

Originally posted by Slarti
Originally posted by Bamfette
now THIS is just insanely interesting... soft tissue has been recovered from... get this... a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Great googlimoogli! Real-life Jurrasic Park anyone?

I love cryptozoology myself and Hubby scared the tar out of me one night back in college by telling me stories about the chupacabra then leaving me alone that night. He rustled around out in the bushes and made unnatural animal noises. *shudders*

Speaking of chupacabra, did anyone else see this:
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.as ... 6F6C31975E
oh man, no bigger pictures? :<
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Post by thylacine »

Plus also if anyone is interested there was discovered a new species of cheetah with stripes instead of spots. It's called a "king cheetah" -- pretty kitty!
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Post by Bamfette »

The King Cheetah is not a new species, just a color variation of regular cheetahs... it's kinda like panthers with Jaguars. they have been born in litters at a zoos, to parents (and litter mates) with the regular spotted coats. It is a mutation on a recessive gene. similar to melanistic coats. it requires both the parents to carry it for it to show in the offspring, but considering Cheetahs have such a small gene pool, and it only expressed in one out of a litter, it must have a small chance of actually expressing even then. though i would imagine if you bred two cheetahs who not only carried the gene, but also expressed the special coat, the chances woud increase dramatically.

http://www.wtv-zone.com/BigCats/cheetah/cheetahs6.html
http://www.wtv-zone.com/BigCats/jaguar/jaguars6.html
http://www.wtv-zone.com/BigCats/tiger/tigers2.html
http://www.wtv-zone.com/BigCats/lion/lionW1.html

all basically the same thing happening...

found this while searching, too...

http://www.junglecats.com/true%20white.htm

some are albino, but others are not (dark eyes, etc. the Ring Tailed Lemur is especially interesting). they must be caused by mutations causing the white color. all the animals are in the wild... you can see what a disadvantage they must face, blending in. I bet in the wild they do not live long, but because they are exotic, humans would breed them if they could capture them or it popped up in a zoo.
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Post by Maelstrom »

Originally posted by Bamfette
C showed me this just now...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15 ... 62,00.html

:eek zombie dogs...!
Oh, COOL! I literally JUST read about that in Scientific American: where they were doing animal testing on suspended animation techniques. They did testing on dogs and found that half of the ones they brought back that way had some neurological damage. But think about it: that means they had a 50% complete success rate, with an experimental proceedure. That's just incredible.

Aside from the "battlefield injury" angle, think of what this could mean for things like organ donations. You have to get a heart to someone within about 6 hours. If you could keep the organ in a suspended state, you could extend that time by half, double, or more.

Of course, if one of those "organ donors" sits up and demands more brains, all bets are off.... :toothy
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into the intake of a jet engine..... :evil
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Post by Saint Kurt »

Wow - canine reanimation...

I'm actually more interested in how the animal "dies" before the proceedure than how they wake it up though the article doesn't really go into much detail there.

It's an interesting idea but given how cold everything has to be - still totally impractical. I'm sure though in the next 10 or 20 years it or a technique like it will be in use some way - especially with the growing success of organ transplantation. Also it occurs to me that for certain surgeries where there is danger of extreme hemorrhage, a technique such as this could solve a lot of problems. You can't bleed to death if you don't have any blood. That is, it would work if you could figure out a way to keep the surgeons from freezing to death as well...

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Post by Bamfette »

there are doctors in Russia and other parts of the world who, lacking some of the technology we have like heart/lung machines, can perform transplants, even heart transplants, by lowering the patient's body temperature extremely low by packing them in ice. so while doctors here aren't accustomed to working in low temperatures, it would certainly be possible if the situation warranted it...

besides. it's not THAT cold. 7C is above freezing. it would be a bit uncomfortable, maybe, but not dangerous or even terribly impractical in any way. (0C is freezing for all you farenheight people. celcius temperature scale is based on the freezing temperature of water as a starting point, and boiling being 100.) it's like... a refrigerator. all a hospital who wished to perform such operations would have to do is build an operating room that was also a refrigerator, it would have to get no colder than a meat locker, so they could even buy everything they need commercially.

anywya. the zombie dogs got me to thinking about another Frankensteinish experiment i had heard about a few years ago... transplanting one monkey's head to another monkey's body... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1263758.stm
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Post by Slarti »

I was just on my way here to post about the zombified pooches. The people on my Halloween lists are going nuts over it. I thought for sure this was a joke until it started popping up everywhere. I too am curious how they killed the dogs.
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Post by DeeJay »

The world is an amazing place.
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