Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 4679 4680 [4681] 4682 4683 ... 10970

Author Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O  (Read 12952371 times)

Bohandas

  • Bay Watcher
  • Discordia Vobis Com Et Cum Spiritum
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70200 on: February 19, 2015, 08:22:04 pm »

I'd argue that natural lifespans are absolutely arbitrary. Not in the sense that "We don't know how long things will live, it's completely arbitrary!" but rather "Why do groups of animals which exhibit this or that sort of behavior die at this age rather than that age? Why do human bodies stop maintaining themselves at 60-70 years old, rather than 30-40 or 120-130?" We have a good understanding of the how, less so of the why.
Why would there be a why?


Presumably it probably has at least something to do with the likelihood of dying from mishap, disease, or predation. Selection pressure can't act to preserve the genes that allow for longer natural lifespans if enough individuals don't survive to near the end of that lifespan to begin with

EDIT:

And the longer an individual lives the more opportunities they have to fall pff a cliff or get the plagie or be eaten by a bear or whatever. So hypothetically it'll eventually reach a tipping point.

EDIT:
Everything falls apart, one way or another.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 08:26:01 pm by Bohandas »
Logged
NEW Petition to stop the anti-consumer, anti-worker, Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement
What is TPP
----------------------
Remember, no one can tell you who you are except an emotionally unattached outside observer making quantifiable measurements.
----------------------
Έπαινος Ερις

ArKFallen

  • Bay Watcher
  • Bohandean Desserter
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70201 on: February 19, 2015, 08:24:45 pm »

I'd argue that natural lifespans are absolutely arbitrary. Not in the sense that "We don't know how long things will live, it's completely arbitrary!" but rather "Why do groups of animals which exhibit this or that sort of behavior die at this age rather than that age? Why do human bodies stop maintaining themselves at 60-70 years old, rather than 30-40 or 120-130?" We have a good understanding of the how, less so of the why.
Why would there be a why?
Because there's always gonna be a small child that just won't stop asking questions.
Not knowing is a good reason to keep asking.
Quote
Why do human bodies stop maintaining themselves at 60-70 years old
This is present ubiquitously in youth. The body slowly loses it and production of it lessens. It is used in tissue repairs and heightened levels can be used to detect certain types of cancer. Its presence has been repeatedly linked with smooth skin (not getting age wrinkles) and injections of it have been shown/linked through experiments to repair surrounding tissues.

I also heard on the radio that they are trying to use a simpler version of the compound to get the human body to create it natively.
Logged
Hm, have you considered murder?  It's either that or letting it go.
SigText
I logged back on ;_;

scrdest

  • Bay Watcher
  • Girlcat?/o_ o
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70202 on: February 19, 2015, 08:36:16 pm »

You see? Provided you're not a believer of some faith or another, there's no apparent reason for why a given type of animal tends to live as long as it does (in absolute terms, rather than relative to other species). Thus, arbitrary lifespan.
I'm... faintly confused by what you mean by "why", here. We know fairly well both the mechanism (various bits of biology) and the reason they're like that (evolution, if not an exact mapping of the history). It's... not arbitrary. Lifespans are a direct results of the species history. The why is "that's what their surroundings made of them"... more or less.
That we know why is that, I agree, it's fairly well described. But...

We do not know the mechanism at all. There's approximately a zillion theories, several of which don't even claim to be mutually exclusive as to the cause of limited lifespans. New discoveries are made every other day.

If anything, the situation is more like our knowledge on, say, autism: we know several different *factors* that influence it, but we've only got the pieces of the puzzle, not the big picture.

This is present ubiquitously in youth. The body slowly loses it and production of it lessens. It is used in tissue repairs and heightened levels can be used to detect certain types of cancer. Its presence has been repeatedly linked with smooth skin (not getting age wrinkles) and injections of it have been shown/linked through experiments to repair surrounding tissues.

I also heard on the radio that they are trying to use a simpler version of the compound to get the human body to create it natively.
You're cherrypicking the descriptions, probably unwittingly and/or second-hand. It's a skin component (among others); it repairs surrounding tissues, but only some particular tissues - not adding this criterion is misleading.

That the production of various enzymes and proteins drops is no news - in fact, the reason for hair greying is a drop in the production of, I don't recall off the top of my head, peroxidase? Either way, a Reactive Oxygen Species-degrading enzyme, making hair essentially bleach itself from within due to the - normally suppressed - ROS not being suppressed as effectively. But it doesn't answer the underlying question.
Logged
We are doomed. It's just that whatever is going to kill us all just happens to be, from a scientific standpoint, pretty frickin' awesome.

KingofstarrySkies

  • Bay Watcher
  • It's been a long time...
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70203 on: February 19, 2015, 08:40:20 pm »

Mother, why oh why oh why have you not paid the Netflix bill yet GOD DAMMIT I HAVE THINGS TO WATCH AAAAAA
Logged
Sigtextastic
Vereor Nox.
There'll be another King, another sky, and a billion more stars...

Furtuka

  • Bay Watcher
  • High Priest of Mecha
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70204 on: February 19, 2015, 08:41:46 pm »

I go to the dining hall for lunch. Theres chinese food and decorations everywhere to celebrate chinese new year. There are literally no vegetarian dishes other than at the sandwhich stand and the salad bar. *eye twitches*

I am seriously considering lodging a complaint.

Update on this. I went back for dinner and found that there actually was a vegetarian entree I had missed. It was just that they had only labeled it as a stir fry without specifying what was in it so you couldn't tell it was vegetarian unless you looked real close. So I feel better now.
Logged
It's FEF, not FEOF

Redzephyr01

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ferrum Cor
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70205 on: February 19, 2015, 09:29:54 pm »

I just saw someone unironically call Twitch Plays Pokemon racist. Somehow.
Logged

Furtuka

  • Bay Watcher
  • High Priest of Mecha
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70206 on: February 19, 2015, 09:30:57 pm »

They recently got a Flareon who's name starts with kkk. That might have something to do with it.
Logged
It's FEF, not FEOF

Redzephyr01

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ferrum Cor
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70207 on: February 19, 2015, 09:32:18 pm »

Oh. That's still stupid, considering the fact that all the pokemon in Twitch Plays Pokemon are named through button mashing.
EDIT: and they just renamed the flareon to Aaaaaaaaaaa.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 09:39:05 pm by Redzephyr01 »
Logged

Dutchling

  • Bay Watcher
  • Ridin' with Biden
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70208 on: February 19, 2015, 09:39:01 pm »

what

is it opposite day?
Logged

hops

  • Bay Watcher
  • Secretary of Antifa
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70209 on: February 19, 2015, 09:39:52 pm »

Wat
Aren't they supposed to disconnect if you're male?

Dammit Omegle misogynists, you're doing it wrong.
Logged
she/her. (Pronouns vary over time.) The artist formerly known as Objective/Cinder.

One True Polycule with flame99 <3

Avatar by makowka

Furtuka

  • Bay Watcher
  • High Priest of Mecha
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70210 on: February 19, 2015, 09:39:59 pm »

Oh. That's still stupid, considering the fact that all the pokemon in Twitch Plays Pokemon are named through button mashing.
They might have been offended by some of the fanart of it wearing the hood. It's irrelevant now anyways since they managed to take it to the Name Ratera few minutes ago. Now it's AAAAAAAaaa
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 09:47:14 pm by Furtuka »
Logged
It's FEF, not FEOF

Lightningfalcon

  • Bay Watcher
  • Target locked. Firing main cannon.
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70211 on: February 19, 2015, 09:41:31 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
They are disconnecting because she is asking why, so she is obviously not interested in omegling
Logged
Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum circo vincendarum
W-we just... wanted our...
Actually most of the people here explicitly wanted chaos and tragedy. So. Uh.

Frumple

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Prettiest Kyuuki
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70212 on: February 19, 2015, 09:42:24 pm »

... if folks actually managed to fight the twitch chat into renaming it from an accidentally racist name, then that has to make twitch plays pokemon some kind of concentrated anti-racism...
Logged
Ask not!
What your country can hump for you.
Ask!
What you can hump for your country.

Orange Wizard

  • Bay Watcher
  • mou ii yo
    • View Profile
    • S M U G
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70213 on: February 19, 2015, 09:44:44 pm »

I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to get off with an F-16.
Logged
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

RedKing

  • Bay Watcher
  • hoo hoo motherfucker
    • View Profile
Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #70214 on: February 19, 2015, 09:45:47 pm »

Might be too much in the...Danger Zone.  8)



(yes, I know those were F-14s. Bite me.)
Logged

Remember, knowledge is power. The power to make other people feel stupid.
Quote from: Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.
Pages: 1 ... 4679 4680 [4681] 4682 4683 ... 10970