Reptilian Rants

Okay, I know all I am doing is fueling the perpetuation of this kind of crap on TV.

That said, I was bored, and one of the few cool things about The History Channel is that it allows folks to watch their shows online.

The latest one was called: Bloodiest Battle; the story of the Cleveland Lloyd Quarry.

Well, the JFC version of what happens.

Anyway, there were, as usual, a host of annoying offenses in the show. Besides the ever annoying “loud dinosaurs” (i.e. all the dinosaurs couldn’t stop roaring), there was also the requisite rampant speculation on the social life of Allosaurus, the ecological relationship between Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus, and various anatomical flubs that continue to send out the message that The History Channel only hires the “talking heads” so they can appear scientifically legitimate.

Anyway, the only reason I am bringing this one up is because the most egregious error in the entire program (in my mind, at least) was the absolute statement from “Dinosaur George” Blasing that “all the evidence points to these animals being warm-blooded.”

That is bull-shit with a capital B.

Er…Bull-Shit.

There is no, I reiterate NO consensus on the thermophysiology of dinosaurs. That is true for all dinosaurs. All the evidence used so far has been ambiguous at best.

Furthermore, a “cold-blooded” Allosaurus is going to have the same overheating problem as a “warm-blooded” Allosaurus.

The problem has nothing to do with thermophysiology. It has to do with big animals over-exerting themselves in a hot environment. Dinosaurs were reptiles, and like all reptiles, they had a very limited means of removing heat. No sweat glands, and no real bare skin.

One thing that Allosaurus and other saurischian dinosaurs may have used to keep cool is their air sac system. Air sacs in birds do not lead to their high aerobic capacity. That is accomplished through the flow through system that the air sacs created, where oxygen is sent only one way (vs. the dead end bellows way that mammals and reptiles use). The perfusion of extra air sacs all over the body does nothing to add to endurance in birds. What it does do, though, is lighten the body and provide a spot for heat to dump from deep in the body. It is honestly quite likely that this is was the main impetus for air sac evolution in dinosaurs, and its consequent exploitation by their avian descendants.

This explanation would certainly have been a more scientific answer to how Allosaurus kept cool instead of pulling that antorbital fenestra radiator idea out of wherever “Dinosaur George” found it.

I don’t like absolutism in science programs anyway, but this type of absolutism is what lead to the general public thinking, erroneously, that scientists have discovered dinosaurs to have been warm-blooded. All this winds up doing is creating a false concept of dinosaurs that winds up getting shot down when new students enter the field and find that dinosaurs weren’t the super hot-blooded beasts they thought they were.

Plus, it’s just annoying when some fanboy says that being “warm-blooded” is one of the fundamental differences between dinosaurs and other reptiles.

Okay, I’m done venting.

Next episode involves some mythical beast called a “megalodon” (they must mean Carcharocles/Carcharodon megalodon). I hear that, at 15 meters (50ft) in length, it was the size of a jumbo jet and had to eat a tonne of meat a day to keep going.

Yeah, definitely sounds like something worth missing!

Still outgassing

~Jura

Tyrannosaurus rex vs. Nanotyrannus lancensis

A few weeks ago the History Channel aired their first in a twelve part series on prehistoric creatures.

Now, being the History Channel - a subsidiary of Discovery Channel A&E Networks - one would expect this series to detail some aspect of prehistoric life. Well that it does…sort of.

The series is called: Jurassic Fight Club. Many of you have probably already watched the first three, or four episodes, but for the uninitiated the premise is as follows:

Imagine all 4.6 billion years of prehistory as being one planet wide cage match somewhat akin to Primal Rage. Each week two animals (usually dinosaurs, but there are the occasional mammals) are pitted against one another.

Each hour long show is supposedly based off of a real fossil site. For instance the first episode was about a Majungasaurus skeleton that was found with bite marks of another Majungasaurus (erroneously referred to as “Majungatholus” despite paleo-consultant disapproval). One of the recent ones involved the infamous Tenontosaurus tilletti / Deinonychus antirrhopus fossils (a find with one large, dead T.tilletti and a few dead D.antirrhopus nearby. One of the first bits of evidence in favour of pack hunting behaviour in some theropods).

The show sets the “battle premise” and then seeks to justify its reasoning by cutting to various paleontologists for their take. The paleo crew is fairly diverse and include: Dr. Thomas Holtz Jr. Dr. Larry Witmer and Dr. Phillip J. Currie.

Okay, so maybe all that doesn’t sound so bad to some of you, but what may seem okay in theory has turned into an utter failure in execution.

Let me state up front that I immediately left this series for suck back when I first heard the title. It sounded like just another useless “documentary” that is little more than an excuse to watch two CG animals fight each other in order to satisfy some sophomoric need to watch things fight.

Still, there were proponents of the series (namely the paleo folks that worked on it) that urged the most skeptical of us to give the show a shot. As such, I refrained from commenting on it until now.

Four episodes in and now even the scientists who helped on it are starting to back away.

Honestly who could blame them. The show uses minimal information from the actual scientists. The shot of Dr. Witmer comparing theropod maxillae is continuously reused, and I could swear the show spends more time on the non-professional guys than they do the actual scientists.

This is a problem because it is the non-professional crowd (one fellow in particular) who really bring the show down.

The show features the likeness of one Dinosaur George Blasing. A quick perusal of his qualifications finds him to be little more than a particularly successful dinosaur fanboy. He apparently makes his living by talking about how cool dinosaurs are, to elementary school children. In effect, he is little different from Dinosaur Don Lessem, who writes books about dinosaurs for children.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being an amateur, or a big, but non-professional, dinosaur fan. The problem I have is with History Channel essentially letting the fanboys run the show. This is supposed to be an educational program. History Channel is supposed to be the repository for all things historical. As such, it should be held to a higher standard than, say ABC, or Fox. Yet, here we get to witness the production of another terrible program that only seeks to snatch eyeballs. It offers practically no educational value.

Frankly that just ticks me off. Jurassic Fight Club is about as terrible as Animal Face Off was (another Discovery Channel property that not only embarrassed the subject matter, but also the scientists involved with it, by forcing them to give trash talk to one another).

The question that shows like JFC leave me asking is: what audience is it meant for? By seeking out professional paleontologists for their input, one would assume that the makers were looking for scientific accuracy. This, in turn, suggests that the goal is to pass knowledge on to their viewers. Yet, if one can slog through the first episode they will find themselves assaulted with absolutes left and right, tonnes of MTV style quick takes and replays, and a metric tonne of speculation. Each episode ends with Dinosaur George giving “his take” on how the whole story unfolded (complete with the CG animation). Now this sounds like nothing more than Godzilla style popcorn entertainment.

So which is it? Is JFC trying to be a documentary, or a popcorn flick?

By trying to do double duty, it comes off as more of mockumentary. A documentary that seeks to mock the subject material in which it presents. When done right, mockumentaries can be great (e.g. This is Spinal Tap), but in cases like this, where the parody does not appear intentional, the result is more of a slap in the face to those of us who do work in the field. To ask for professional advice and then completely ignore it, is a huge insult to both professions. The History Channel people should know better.

One question that is left from all this is: must we sacrifice scientific accuracy for entertainment, in order to get the knowledge across to the viewers?

As one person had mentioned on another forum: if scientists were to get the documentary that they wanted, no one would watch it.

Pardon me if I decide to call bullshit on this one. If one wants to see a documentary that is designed in a way respectful of the subject matter, one need only look at PBS’s NOVA series. Rarely does NOVA falter in their presentation style. Because of this consistent high quality the series tends to be lauded by many in the fields of science.

Okay, so maybe NOVA is a fluke. Besides, it’s on PBS and we all know how small and concentrated the PBS demographic tends to be. Are there any other examples?

Plenty.

David Attenborough - King of great documentaries

If one really wants to see how to make a series of successful and scientifically sound documentaries, one need only to look over to the UK, and the BBC. In the realm of documentaries, the David Attenborough docs reside in the upper echelon of quality. Not only are Attenborough’s documentaries well done, and accurate, but they are also popular. Planet Earth, one of the latest Attenborough docs, was the most watched cable show of all time. Discovery Channel pulled in 100 million viewers when it first aired in the United States. That is huge for a majour network, much less a cable network (Discovery’s average prime time ratings are around 5 million viewers).

So not only does a scientifically sound documentary bring in the audience, but it can bring them in droves. When BBC released “Life in Cold Blood,” it was an event in England, bringing in more viewers that the average drama.

If we head back to the states, we can look at an old staple of children growing up in the 1990s; Bill Nye the Science Guy was a show that garnered a large and devoted fan following. Bill Nye was not only a great presenter and funny comedian, but he was/is also a real scientist. Though the show did its best to avoid using large words (for its young demographic), the show repeatedly and successfully showed off how awesome science was and how amazing the real world is.

Bill Nye - Champion of science education

You know why I think these shows did as well as they did? Because they didn’t dumb stuff down. There was no push to show the flashy stuff in order to maintain audience attention (equivalent to showing something shiny to distract a cat). The BBC documentaries, Bill Nye and NOVA all respected the intelligence of their audience, and the audience reciprocated by showing up in droves. People from all walks of life enjoy a good challenge. Today’s current documentarians would benefit from remembering this.

So for all those scientists who are asked to participate in the next big Sci Fi/Discovery Channel/ABC show/ whatever documentary; I say don’t fear speaking your mind on the importance of keeping the science up to snuff. If the filmmakers start bitching about having to “keep things simple” or removing the science for the sake of “the story,” just tell them:

That’s not how David Attenborough would do it.

~ Jura - who will probably never get a consulting job on one of these shows.

Photo from Nature.com

A new paper in Nature has discovered that at least one known virus strain can get sick.

The virus in question has been dubbed: mamavirus. The name stems from the giant size of the virus. Mamavirus is bigger than some of the smallest bacteria, with more than 900 genes. The neat thing, though, was not so much its large size, but the presence of a smaller “satellite” virus deemed Sputnik. Under “normal” circumstances when a mamavirus infects a cell it uses the proteins its genes encode, to hijack the cell’s metabolism and thus create more viruses. When Sputnik is around, though, the rules change. Sputnik hijacks the hijacked machinery, resulting in malformed versions of the mamavirus.

In human world terms, Sputnik gets mamavirus sick. Sputnik is, thus, the first example of a virophage - a virus that infects other viruses.

All in all a fascinating find; but what of the broader implications of the article. If mamavirus can get sick, then does it qualify for life?

There are, or used to be (more on that later) five criteria for life. They were:

1. Movement (internal, and/or external)
2. Reproduction
3. Growth
4. Metabolism
5. Adaptation

In order to be alive, a candidate must satisfy all five criteria. So plants, animals, fungi, protists and bacteria all passed with flying colours. Rocks fail, as they neither metabolize, adapt, or reproduce (they can grow and do evolve though).

Biochemists in the crowd might point to prions. They do reproduce, but they don’t grow, adapt (resist, but not adapt), metabolize or do anything else like life. For the most part, prions are just malformed proteins. They reproduce by infecting nearby proteins; a case more similar to limb rot, free radicals, or erosion than true reproduction.

Viruses, on the other hand, get real close. They reproduce, grow, move and adapt. The one thing that they don’t do, is metabolize. In order to metabolize, a virus must steal the metabolic “machinery” of another living organism. Because viruses lack this fundamental requisite, many biologists and biology textbooks place them just outside of life.

Think about this though. A virus acts just like other living things. It just needs a little help to do some parts. Viruses are not self sufficient, but that shouldn’t relegate them from the status of alive. There are lots of animals today that must steal the resources of others in order to survive. We call them parasites. One of the evolutionary hallmarks of parasitism is a streamlined genome. Depending on the degree of parasitism going on, a parasite could remove limbs, sensory organs, digestive processes, and even some reproductive material. In effect, a highly evolved parasite can easily be mistaken for a primitive relic.

Tapeworms: primitive, or advanced?

So too with viruses. What if they were cells that reduced their extraneous evolutionary baggage so much that they now fall outside of the traditional criteria for life? There is currently no way of knowing if this is true, but at the very least it would seem that viruses should warrant an honourary placement within the realm of life.

The argument oscillates back and forth between life and non-life. This is good as it forces us to look harder at the criteria for life.

However, there is another group out there that tends to poo poo all this semantic talk. They are the same group that thinks the arguments over Pluto’s status as a planet are useless (because they think the concept of planet is useless), or that species are a pointless arbitration. In this case the argument is that the criteria for life are all arbitrarily chosen. That life is a continuum from non-living to living, with no real demarcation, and thus no real value in being defined.

I disagree wholeheartedly. There is an obvious turning point between what is alive and what is not. If viruses are skating the edge of this line then all the better for us. Defining what constitutes life is extremely important. If we don’t know where this line lies, then we are unable to determine what makes something alive to begin with. What is it about a cell that is so unique compared to a small rock? What is so special about this particular chemical makeup?

From a deep philosophical view, the definition of life would seem all the more important. If one wants to find out what makes humans unique, then it would help to know what it is that determines their life in the first place. For bioengineers, knowing the criteria for life, gives one a chance to actually create life. Abiogenesis scientists (those who study the origin of life) would be lost without some kind of definition for what it means to be alive.

I just don’t understand how some scientists, of all people, can make these arguments about the uselessness of arbitrary definitions. How do they expect people to talk about these things if there is no way to name, or categorize them? Conceptual terms might come with baggage, but the instant definitions and criteria that they come with, more than make up for it.

Take the planet example. If two astronomers were talking about finding some new planet, I would immediately be thinking of a massive celestial body orbiting a star, and being large enough to be round. If, on the other hand, they were talking about finding some new dwarf planet, then I would imagine a smaller object that may, or may not be completely round and is probably not orbiting a star (at least not very close). Having a definition in place already, removes the necessity of figuring out how big, or how erratic the orbit will be. If the goal is to look for life, I can probably skip the dwarf planets and focus on the real planets.

From: Mike Keefe’s Denver Post comic

If we removed the term planet altogether, then what would astronomers talk about finding? They found an object. How big is it? What kind of orbit does it have? Is there an atmosphere, or a star? Many of these questions can be answered quicker by having the definitions that we currently have.

All the more reason why this urge to purge useful arbitrary definitions from the scientific lexicon, is disturbing. I would like to know what proponents of these ideas suggest we use in place of these names. To date I have heard no alternative brought forth.

~Jura