BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas

Subject: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 03:54 PM

When i was young I noticed that our newts in Lincolnshire had unwebbed feet. Whereas down south newts had webbed feet.

I asked my biology teacher why, and he sagely remarked - environmental factors....
And yet...in St Ives they put a dollop of clotted cream on your ice cream. Nowhere else much....
Since coming to Weymouth I have noticed the chip shops all offer you mushy peas in batter, a pea fritter..?
Can it all be just the environment...?
I think God, an all seeing deity has taken a hand....

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 04:06 PM

All things bright and beautiful
Pea fritters, chips and fish
Ice Creams down in Cornwall
Really is delish
Pond life, little, tadpoles
Hands of little newt
Whether webbed or unwebbed
They are very cute.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 05:39 PM

And if you caught a little one and took it home
would it be "my newt"?




I'll get my jam jar...........

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Apr 19 - 05:50 PM

Big Al, Da Vinci looked as closely at nature when he was young as you did. Where I am is the only place in the world that salamanders grow as large as 3 feet. I learned that habitates can be extremely small for some species like the kite building aphid.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 06:43 AM

When I frequented Southampton regularly (my first wife's family lived there) I loved those pea fritters. The best ones I had there were at a chippy in Woolston, across the High Street opposite the Vosper-Thorneycroft shipyard. Can't remember the name of the chippy.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 07:10 AM

"Da Vinci" is comically wrong. He's either Leonardo da Vinci or just Leonardo.

The mushy pea fritter is a thing of beauty. Lamentably, the one chippy in Bude that did them closed down. And the Spam fritter is an even greater gastronomic delight.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 07:16 AM

"The mushy pea fritter is a thing of beauty.....And the Spam fritter is an even greater gastronomic delight."

I second the motion! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 09:15 AM

Steve you are breaking your no contact order

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 01:17 PM

Newts are cool...

When playing in the back yard with Airfix soldiers* they make great dinosaurs...

well.. they did when I was a kid...


[* I had the Tarzan figures set.. even better...]

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 01:26 PM

well if you go foreign parts, I suppose the biodiversity in pea fritter distribution over the earth's surface must seem trivial.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: keberoxu
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 01:55 PM

Oh for bleep's sake, fellows.
He says Leonardo,
and
He says Da Vinci ... give over.

Big Al Whittle,
you are a sight for sore eyes on the Mudcat,
especially in the painful emptiness
left by the departure of Amos amongst others.

Long may you write songs about newts, webbed and unwebbed.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 03:58 PM

A good time to pick up Karel Capek's "The War With the Newts".

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 06:06 AM

Donuel
that link you posted. I read it and they sent a pop-up asking if I wanted a "consultation" - I replied "no contact"

I doubt they got the joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 08:11 AM

Lawyer ads are getting more aggressive. "Did you take Jardience or Farixga and your dick fell off from gangrene? Call the Hoenecker Group, your personal injury lawyers that get $ for you!

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 08:21 AM

Big Al, Steve is a witch, he turned me into a newt ?! ;^/

Has the coloration of newts changed? It has been said UK moths have changed color to match pollution.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 09:43 AM

"It has been said UK moths have changed color to match pollution."

I marked 'A' Level essay papers for twelve years, including plenty of questions on natural selection and evolution. I'd have gleefully struck out a sentence like that one with my big red pen.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 03:27 PM

If; Burns & Allen, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Lewis & Martin were all straight men there would never have been a punch line.
Gender aside (pa dum ching), Steve you've lost your punch.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 03:29 PM

line

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 09:24 PM

And you've lost your scientific credibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 09:41 AM

I'm currently studying the Penrose diagrams. What are you doing?

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 09:55 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution

here is your hint

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 10:14 AM

I think Steve was objecting to your wording (as in, they didn't change color. No chameleon moths.), but honestly, I wish you guys would just get a ruler out and get past the sniping. It's not fun for anyone except you.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 10:35 AM

Donuel, you got better, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 10:50 AM

Not just that, but also "UK moths" and "matching pollution." Very sloppy from a soi-disant scientist I should say.

I have asked him to not address me or refer to me on this forum. He can't help himself and it's extremely annoying.

In fact, the changes in proportions between the two colour variants of the peppered moth are not an example of evolution at all. Before the Industrial Revolution blackened tree bark, etc, the two variants already existed, as they did all through the period of worst smoke pollution and as they do now. All that's changed is the proportions. The origination of two morphs from a common ancestor, or as a favourable mutation from one or the other pre-existing form, IS evolution in action. The environmentally-forced changes in numbers could be seen as natural selection in action. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution but is not evolution itself. We tore our hair out on the examiners' panel as we read hundreds of answers from 'A' Level students who had clearly been misinformed by their biology teachers. One more thing: this "example" of evolution became all the rage in classrooms from the sixties onward largely on the back of fraudulent science. Just thought I'd mention it. Piltdown Man, anybody?

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 11:01 AM

I did A level biology for three months of a two year course before dropping out. i could see which way things were going.

My biology teacher said to me, 'Face it! You're not the sort of person who would enjoy spending a weekend on your tummy sifting through a pond in the hope that you would get some algae named after you, are you?'

'Yes, I would!' I said, but in my heart of hearts I knew I was lying. The he told me to kille the periplanta americana cockroaches i was supposed to be studying, but i wasn't. Because they smelled.'

So i left biology.   i sold my borrodale. or maybe gave it away. left school.

You never got mark my paper Steve. i bet they still haven't got round to asking why they put clotted cream on your Mr Whippy down in St Ives and nowhere else.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 11:06 AM

Only emmets would do that, Al, though a dollop of clotted cream turning all lovely and crusty on top of real ice cream is one of life's greatest pleasures, nearly as good as sex. We have plenty of the good stuff down yer...

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 05:24 PM

Do not tell he who should not be named.
a word to the wise

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 06:14 PM

They haven't "evolved defences." The resistant variant was there all along, then comes to the fore when the non-resistant variant is clobbered by the medicine. The medicine does not encourage or cause the resistant variant to arise, but may afford it selective advantage. Of course, organisms such as the one in the item reproduce quickly, and mutations can arise and proliferate rapidly. Evolution is a fairly complex matter and you need to do a lot more reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 06:16 PM

And I don't know how many times here I've counselled against believing what you read in popular science articles.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Apr 19 - 08:48 PM

Strains of bacteria that are resistant to medicines become that way because people don't finish the entire course of meds. The more susceptible bacteria are killed, but some hardier ones can live on and reproduce.
All species mutate, and if the mutated ones are more viable that the original, they becomes the dominant ones. They don't develop defenses.

As to which came first, the chicken or the egg, the egg might've been laid by something that wasn't quite a chicken, but if it's a chicken egg, (and barring genetic experimentation) it's definitely going to hatch out a chicken.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 08:32 AM

In this case the fungus Candida Aurias is extremely common (grows on most crops) and has become resistant to a common fungicide that is used on an industrial scale.
This poses a universal danger to immature or weakend immune systems. I am reminded of "the meek shall inherit the 'germs in dirt'".

The microbiome never sleeps. All my kids got the E Coli varient 109 this week but while painful it's not life theatening like the thousand Africans currenly with Ebola. Jeri's right that while mutation is an aspect of evolution it is not evolution per se, but it is survival of the fittest germ.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 09:04 AM

No it isn't. Read some Darwin.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 01:45 PM

"survival of the fittest germ"

Germ gyms, aerobic classes, and fad diets... what it is to be a modern germ...???

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 05:37 PM

You know what kills more than infections?
Stress. Despair. Being treated like you don't matter.
Most people abbreviate this overall depression as 'economic'.
But its not economic alone.

Suicide by handgun is higher than homocide.
Suicide by oxy in this country is 50 per day.
Military suicide is higher.

As uncertainty grows larger so does stress.
This data is US born, but the UK I'm sure is not immune.
Isolation and lonliness is a poison to your health.

Thats why mudcat has as its foundation joining in song that
is virtually life saving and stress reducing.

PS I would attend a lecture on Evolution by Steve.
If it was free. :^/

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 05:47 PM

From a Darwinian point of view we are winnowing out a population with low resistance to stress factors on the brain.

As stress goes up empathy goes down in the frontal cortex area.

Altruistic people who help others are more valuable to me than those who are strictly competitive.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 06:23 AM

I agree stress is a terrible thing. the internet is full of wind up criminals. doing as much harm as they can every day.

it could help people with loneliness. isolated people.

instead, its become a playground from screwed up sociopaths.

there seems to be some sort of virus that takes over mens souls and makes them want to evil, rather than use the advances that we make for good.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 08:34 AM

Stress can exaccerbate disease,create inflamation, foment desperate measures and drive a cycle of hate and despair.
This is what I have believed since I was 13

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 09:06 AM

"Behavioral sink"

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 09:31 AM

I recall a retort from a professor 50 years ago, "so according to you an irritating joke can cause inflammation and cancer?!".

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 09:47 AM

The inflamatory nature of the internet has caused lawmakers to want to hold Facebook, Twitter etc., accountable for the dissemination of violence and hate. Facebook wants 12 weeks to access the effect on Free Speach.

It seems to me Congress and Facebook have switched places.
It is a conundrum.

As Calhoun suggested, today the internet is suffering from overpopulation. It has has many factors like suicide from posts/defamation.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 10:59 AM

The internet isn't inflammatory. People on it who bicker, and fight, and try to wind up others are inflammatory, and they've found a place where they can get away with it.

Do it in real life, and you get kicked out and not invited back, and if you won't leave, everybody in the place kicks your ass. Doesn't happen on the internet.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 02:21 PM

Thats an inside the park HR Jeri.

I admit it is clever how the Russe have used the weight of internal ignorance against the USA in the form of inflamming nazism, socialism, the NRA and conservative bot websites and more. Not all Republicans support these Russain efforts but the vocal ones do. At least for now while the Mueller Report is rendered impotent by the Trump appointed Attorny General.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 02:23 PM

sorry I know nothing about mushy peas

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 19 - 02:40 PM

They were ordinary happy normal peas until subjected to unbearable cruel stress...

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 19 - 04:47 PM

I grew up with
squirrels both red and gray.
The red squirrels were the smaller of the two,
and their movements were so jerky and birdlike
that they made me laugh.

Then I spent a little over a year
outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And was startled to encounter squirrels
so dark in fur coloring
that they appeared black.
Never saw black squirrels anyplace else.

Austin, Texas is positively
alive with squirrels,
but they are all greyish-brown.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Apr 19 - 09:46 AM

Some Michigan and Canadian squirrels turn white in the winter.
Mexican squirrels at the border have their babies taken away and placed in grey cages.

Subject: RE: BS: Environmental factors newts/ mushy peas
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Apr 19 - 10:11 AM

Mushy peas are wonderful PM an address and I'll send you a can. Taste better than salamanders , I bet.You eat them on top of chips. having microwaved them hot.

how awful for you - no mushy peas!