Okay, I’m just throwing this out here. Does this seem fair to you?
The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it — fertilization of eggs inside a female — took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday.
Scientists from Australia and Britain studying 380 million-year-old fossils of the armored placoderm fish, or Incisoscutum richiei, said they were initially confused when they realized that the two fish were carrying embryos. They originally thought the fish laid their eggs before fertilization.
“Once we found embryos in this group, we knew they had internal fertilization. But how the hell are they doing it?” said John Long, the head of sciences at the Museum Victoria in Melbourne who wrote a paper on the discovery that appeared in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
The answer came when the scientists re-examined the pelvis of the male placoderm, armed with the new information about fertilization. After looking at specimens at the Natural History Museum in London and the Museum Victoria, they realized the pelvis had a fin not seen on the female fish, and surmised it was likely used to grip its mate during fertilization, much as sharks do.
“These fish have an extra large bone that attaches to the pelvic bone,” he said. “It had been overlooked and hadn’t been identified. So in a nutshell, we have reinterpreted the structure of the pelvic bone in these placoderms to show they had a method for copulation.”
Zerina Johanson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum who also took part in the study along with the University of Western Australia’s Kate Trinajstic, said findings of internal fertilization showed that “sex started a lot sooner than we thought.”
“We expected these early fishes would show a more primitive type of reproduction, where sperm and eggs combine in the water and embryos develop outside fish,” Johanson said in a statement.
Call me a fairist, but it just doesn’t seem right to me. And since he and his crew never link here, I’m sure they won’t mind my saying so.
Comment by B Moe on 2/25 @ 9:41 pm #
“Once we found embryos in this group, we knew they had internal fertilization. But how the hell are they doing it?â€
How much are we paying these people?
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/25 @ 9:43 pm #
I don’t know, B Moe. My wife won’t let me buy the How to Pleasure Your Placiderm Partner videos.
Comment by Benedick on 2/25 @ 9:47 pm #
Mesozoic Appletinis.
Comment by happyfeet on 2/25 @ 10:00 pm #
oh. This changes everything.
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/25 @ 10:05 pm #
Damned right it does. I wonder what Benedict has to say about this.
Also, I’m really mad at Jeff for putting this song in my head.
Comment by harrison on 2/25 @ 10:05 pm #
“Once we found embryos in this group, we knew they had internal fertilization. But how the hell are they doing it?â€
Oh, I don’t know. Fucking?
Why is it I have the feeling this was paid for with tax money.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 2/25 @ 10:06 pm #
But where do you attach the nipple clips?
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/25 @ 10:07 pm #
Bwahaha, that’s the spirit!
Comment by Benedick on 2/25 @ 10:18 pm #
If you were indeed a “fairist” the sexual procreation might well not make sense to you, Dan.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/25 @ 10:20 pm #
Maybe they were listening to Caramelldansen. Personally, though, I prefer this version.
Comment by ThomasD on 2/25 @ 10:39 pm #
Those poor Placoderms, being punished with those little ones.
Comment by Sdferr on 2/25 @ 10:42 pm #
So Clinton’s definition has been operative for 380 million years already? And there I was thinking he was bullshitting us.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 2/26 @ 7:15 am #
Devonian, eh?
Try this page:
http://www.devoniantimes.org/index.html
The link to the Red Hill site is fascinating. I did some fossil hunting there last summer, found a tooth from a lobed fish that is at least 1 1/2 inches long.
Comment by serr8d on 2/26 @ 7:16 am #
I’ve heard this place gives ‘em a headache.
Morons, and all of that.
Comment by serr8d on 2/26 @ 7:19 am #
Closer to home, we can hold out hope for thor.
Well, maybe not..
Comment by BumperStickerist on 2/26 @ 7:27 am #
as blog-commenter crosspollinator, it’s not that ace and his crew don’t *link* here. I think it’s more a case that ace doesn’t read his own blog, hiw own comment section, let alone the blogs and comment sections of others.
ace is more a “tips” guy, an email/IM/pick-up-the-phone-guy – one of those people who’s in the know, behind-the-scenes, stalking hobos.
I hear he’s getting himself fitted for a hat.
Not a Drudge hat either, more like a Kolchak the Night Stalker job.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/26 @ 7:29 am #
In that case he also needs a seersucker suit.
Can you even still buy those?
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/26 @ 7:30 am #
There’s got to be a television series in there, somewhere.
Comment by serr8d on 2/26 @ 7:34 am #
I read Ace in my g00gle reader, sometimes. But his comments sections, not so much. Here, there’s more sharp tacks and sharpshooters. Not meant to be demeaning, now, just to clarify.
I don’t think there’s a better comments venue anywhere than here, really. Even with the occasional thorbuncle.
Comment by serr8d on 2/26 @ 7:39 am #
The Zen of Comment Spam:
Ahh, another classic I missed.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/26 @ 7:39 am #
Can you even still buy those?
Si, si puedo.
Comment by BumperStickerist on 2/26 @ 8:03 am #
There’s got to be a television series in there, somewhere.
Some options:
Ace: The Late-Morning, Maybe “If I Feel Like It” Stalker
Synopsis: An average, if hirsute, schmuck wakes up, puts on a robe, pads over to the kitchen table where his computer is, checks email and blogs.
Hoist the Black Panties
A TV talkshow featuring Ace, his cohost Jeff “Bam!” Goldstein with a bevy of lasses. The Man Show meets Firing Line.
SteamPunk: The Series
Ripped from the pages of the interweb, by an anonymous commenter on the internet, for the benefit of an anonymous blogger on the internet and the guy he ignores, “SteamPunk” puts a blogger back in time to an alternate, SteamPunkian universe. Hilarity ensues, along with life lessons learned, as Ace and Jeff, if he’s available, adjust to their new SteamPunk surroundings while trying to figure out how to get back to the ones that might miss them eventually. Think: American Yankee in King Arthur’s Court meets Sherlock Holmes by way of Beakman.
-
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/26 @ 8:06 am #
That first one sounds like a rip-off of Oblomov.
I like the last one.
Comment by BumperStickerist on 2/26 @ 8:13 am #
My motto is “Always Original, Occasionally Unique” –
I’d never heard of the book. Though, if it’s Russian, it must be good!
Comment by happyfeet on 2/26 @ 9:02 am #
This is interesting but I can’t link cause there’s a registration thingy. AdAge today.
This is what happens when you are retarded.
Comment by William Young on 2/26 @ 9:26 am #
Really? REALLY?!?!?! Have these so-called scientists never heard of Occam’s Razor? These highly-trained scholars actually sat around pondering how a species mated and didn’t think: SEX? Never occurred to them that the male fish might have a dealie he used with the female fish’s opportunity zone?
And this anointed class of humans wants us to believe that humans emit poisonous gas and alter the planet’s temperature by living on it?
It’s astounding to realize that some theoretically highly-educated specialists in a particular field of science could look at a “problem” and not come up with the easiest answer, first, and instead tried to figure out more complex rationales to explain how the facts were the facts.
Did none of these loser douchebags ever get laid?
Comment by Dan Collins on 2/26 @ 10:15 am #
I don’t know, William, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that maybe some of their parents did. SCIENCE!
Comment by Joe on 2/26 @ 11:01 am #
If only Allah, Ace and Goldstein were the future of the conservative movement! Real change only starts with getting Ace laid.
Comment by Russ from Winterset on 2/27 @ 1:18 pm #
Seems to me that criticizing Ace for not blogging on his own site should be done on a site where the proprietor actually…….posts some content?
I keed, I keed. Big fan of (and contributor to one of them) both sites.
The “Ace as Kolchack” meme? Spot freaking on. Well, I don’t remember the episode where Kolchack spent his whole paycheck on Val-U-Rite Discount Vodka and Thai tranny hookers before going off on a weekend spree of debauchery and hobo slaughter, but I’d be willing to bet that an episode along those lines was at least considered by the producers.