Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Barreleyed Evolution


Some things are just weird.

The little gem to the left here is the Barreleye Fish, Macropinna microstoma. The green spheres are the eyes. The things that look like Sad Sack eyes are in fact nostrils.

The fish has to watch up to find food and look for predators but, as can be seen, the mouth is below where the eyes can look-- or, below where the could look if the head wasn't transparent. There's an abstract for the mechanism of biological transparency here. The ecology and physiology is discussed here.

Transparency has evolved over an array of organisms, mostly pelagic. Worms, medusae and fish and other groups all have transparent representatives. My own feeling is that though the underlying mechanism may be primitive and thereby available to multiple groups, the selection pressure to propagate transparency is likely vastly different between, say, a comb jelly and a fish.
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Wall of Idiots
Bobby Jindal and here
Stimulus Lies

Political Links
US Funded Family Planning Pays for Itself

Links of Interest
Vibrosaurus and V:Here
V: Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy
The Story of the Match
Cod are Evolving
Stirling Engine Chip Cooler
Vitamin D Aids Immune Response
The Ice Man
Cooking and Human Evolution
Neurophysiology of Esthetics and here
Global Warming -> Harsher Weather
Eyeglasses at $1/Pair
The Amazing See Through Head and here and here
Junk DNA and the Origin of Complexity
Mountains Under the Ice
V: Office Supply Rockets

DIY
Hand Embroidery
Paper Architecture
Chocolate Bowl
Clockwork Piston

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