This is a multituberculate. They were a big branch early on the mammalian tree, they had some really wonky teeth, and now they're all dead - which is a sob story shared by most of life on earth. They were named after the many bumps (tubercules) on their teeth, and there is (currently!) no evidence that multituberculates were obsessed with rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, yams, or potatoes.
The following are not real animals. They are good* puns.
Manytuberculate
Monotuberculate
Zerotuberculate
*actually, let's be real - they're pretty great puns.
All drawings made with mechanical pencils and outlined uni super ink pens. First drawing colored in withArtist Loft's watercolor pencils.
This is a classic example of disappointing sparkle-hand science - something which occurs a lot when a scientist gets into the rut of trying to prove the reasoning behind an evolutionary direction. The actual methodology behind the article doesn't come across too poorly, and had some interesting conclusions: they had people punch bags with their fists, then with open palms, then with fists using the thumbs as a support structure, and found no difference in strike force only in the levels of flexation. The actual science concludes that performing the five point palm exploding heart technique is more likely to break your fingers, but you can put just as much force behind it, which is a pretty valuable piece of information that kung fu movies should take note of.
Unfortunately when dealing with our own evolution human beings become overly-involved in their theories, particularly ones that aren't testable (which this one isn't - it's very much testable, at least to a certain degree, which is the WORST BIT). The real struggle of this article is when it starts traipsing blithely down the path of Denying the Antecedent, with an extended sideways jaunt into Unrelated, Dear God What a Stretch road.
Meaghan has a huge, throbbing science boner for one of Dr. Carrier's earlier theories, so she really, really wanted to like this article. Instead, she let a little bit of her soul die while reading through the series of unproven, untestable, and frankly unrelated hypotheses that made fists still mightier than the bitch-slap that her idol then didn't bother to test. If you want us to believe that the sexual dimorphism of arm length in men versus women has anything, goddamn it anything to do with the evolution of hands, you need to test that, not vomit pseudoscientific glitter on a discussion section and hope that your wool-gathering is impressively deluded enough to slip past further scrutiny. Instead the authors blithely and prolifically cite things as support that actually have very little to do with the topic, like a paper that says that men and women differ in the lengths of their middle and pinky fingers when their whole article is about thumbs versus other fingers.
Listen, guys, if your introduction has the defense that babies make
fists and therefore it's the natural posture of anger, you might want to
check yourself cuz it's likely you're about to head down the path of
soft science into the realm of Nuh-Uh land. After all, babies also suck
on their thumbs, but that doesn't mean that human thumbs are their
natural food group. Plus, they poop their pants on a very regular basis, and taking candy from them is ridiculously easy -
using them as an expert in any situation is probably a bad idea, unless
you're discussing the validity of the aftermath of a baby food hurricane as an
art form.
The whole thing reads like a drunken Thanksgiving argument: it's
mostly that one uncle preaching dramatically after consuming too many hot-toddies, tossing out a few tidbits you think are
probably true and may have to google later, and wrapping them all up in a big blanket of bullshit suppositions. However, even this hot mess of a scientific article is better than Self-Proclaimed Hand-and-Banana Morphology Expert, Ray Comfort.
Ahh, bananas. Nature's perfectly packaged, delicious, seedless - OMG WHAT IS THAT NIGHTMARE FRUIT? Oh, that's a wild banana? And the glorious yellow laxative we pick up for cheapsies in the grocery store is actually a highly refined, genetically modified monster? Interesting - and probably great for the banana. While we like to put a lot of emphasis on the difference between artificial and natural selection, the truth is that the delineation between the two is rooted in anthropocentric thinking. Today, the domesticated banana grows in over a hundred countries, on six continents. Yes, that success is due to humans cultivation and spread - which we never would have done if the banana hadn't been so delicious, especially the new hybridized species that was selected for by human consumption. If that's not the definition of success by the banana's standard, what is? The banana isn't the Atheist's nightmare, it's a botanical evolutionary powerhouse - it's a model of what selection can achieve.
Now, if the above "science" hasn't yet turned you off the topic yet and you're looking for a mental palate cleanser for all the stupidity we made you endure, we recommend checking out "the spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme," by Gould & Lewontin. It discusses the pervasive scientific problem of focusing on the why, rather than the how of evolution... but instead of making you want to tear your own eyeballs out and stomp them into oblivion, it'll probably make you point emphatically at the screen and shout "yes, yes, that's exactly what I thought!" And what could make a weekend better than having the same thought process as Stephen Jay Gould?
Life at the Vengeance Team household is always exciting and thrilling, but every once in a while it is punctuated by a moment that rises above the others. Recently, Meaghan entered her house to find the following beauties sitting out on a counter as if someone had ritually sacrificed a My Little Pony to the glitter gods. While she was briefly worried that a BeDazzler-wielding serial killer had left a tribute on her kitchen counter, the array of Mod Podge and Glitter Glue spread around it like a Tunguska event clearly indicated it was just a regular Friday living with Amy.
Below are Amy's sparkle-drizzled lovelies in all their splendor. Enjoy!
Bones were collected during field work in Dillon, Montana and decorated with Stickles and Liquid Pearls line of Rangers glitter glue. Presumed identifications include Marmot (skull and jaw bone) and Mule Deer (Toe and Astragalus).
Both of these organisms suffer from diminishing habitats as global temperatures rise and the ice melts away. Both of them are the subject of conservation science, but only one of them is the face of Conservation Funding. Can you guess which one?
Sorry Mr. Stonefly, I guess that you hit every ugly branch on your fall along the phylogenetic tree. Maybe it's the feelers, maybe it's the glossy smooth carapace, or maybe it's the fact that that you ditch unwanted exoskeletons on rocks and rafts overnight, scarring Amy on her childhood rafting adventures. Regardless, while the noble polar bear gets funding simply by being fuzzy and well able to hide in a snowstorm, it looks like you're gonna have to go a little further to get some money to unmelt your glaciers. Sure, you're in line to be the first species listed as Endangered due to climate change, but have you considered selling your children to jewelry factories like your less-disgusting cousin the caddisfly? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.
Big pimpin' in the L.A.K.E.
But honestly, it's not the stonefly's fault. Humans are attracted to giving money to certain things, and top on the list is not anything scaly, slimy, or otherwise crunchy. No, humans tend to appreciate forward-facing eyes, big furry halos, and impressive sizes. When a charity wants to get in on the endangered species money pool, they hit us where it's so cute it hurts, even if the animal they're using doesn't actually make a lot of sense. For example, check out the collection of stuffed animals for sale by the Canadian version of the World Wildlife Fund. Half these animals are actually not "at risk" so much as they are listed by the IUCN Redlist as being of least concern! Perhaps the WWF thinks that the oh-so-gullible Canadians will be fooled by fuzzy faces that aren't endangered; maybe Meaghan's status as a half-breed prevents her from being overwhelmed by adorableness.
This phenomenon is known as using a "Flagship Species" to draw in funding. Genuine research has gone into understanding what draws funding for an animal. Being a mammal is big points in its favor, but if it's an amphibian it's gotta be weird. The conservation of the animal can't be a threat to humans in the area. Being big is a bonus: shrews and possums had better watch their disgusting little steps, because they aren't big enough to warrant public interest. A 2009 study showed that those animals with plenty of research on their conservation status recieved more funding than those without... but that research was typically skewed towards those animals that received more funding: a viciuous, self-feeding cycle that ignored the ugly and small in favor of the big and well-known.
Now to be fair, many charities distribute the funds they receive amongst the less-phenotypically-fortunate organisms, but many don't. In fact, in some cases it seems as though using flagship species actually draws funding away from the organisms that need it the most, as policy is often influenced by the same factors that determine the funding flow in the first place.
What makes an organism or an ecosystem worth saving is a topic for a whole series of other blog posts, but it is the Christmas season: time to donate to the less fortunate, to pay attention to the needy and the less blessed. In the Christmas spirit, Amy and Meaghan have trotted forth several visually-unfortunate animals that are in need of your help. To fund any of the following of Mother Nature's taxonomical Mod Podges, please click on the hyperlink of its name!
For some unknown reason, this poor creature has long been considered a poor omen in Madagascar where it is often killed on sight. Sure, it looks like the lovechild of a rabid chihuahua and an electrocuted bat with a balding patch of possum fur, and it was the inspiration for a particularly creepy episode of Primeval, but the gentle Aye-Aye is an imaginative lover (they mate upside-down!) and resourceful food gatherer! The Aye Aye has a single elongated demon finger that it uses to tap out mad beats on tree trunks and echolocate for its food! Having developed the evolutionary equivalent of a pipe-cleaner on its hand, the Aye-Aye is equally good at digging grubs out of trees, spooning out coconut guts, and flipping everyone around it the bird. Who doesn't love an animal that's physiologically forced to constantly re-enact E.T.?
The tree was shuddering in horror the whole photo shoot.
The Pangolin is one of the few organisms to be entirely covered in fingernails, which when we started writing this sentence seemed like points in its favor. Um... well, it does mean that the Pangolin is officially the most cost-effective organism at a nail salon - 15$ to get its whole body painted, what a deal! And if crazy, claw-wielding ladies like Flojo can be considered beautiful, then Pangolins must be too.
Excess keratin is beautiful, guys.
Unlike Flojo, Pangolins are barred from the Olympics, which is a total shame because they are amazing gymnasts. Baby pangolins cling to their mothers even when Mama Pangolin decides to climb on the ceiling like the girl from the Exorcist. They're like scale-covered burrs! But when you think about amazingly talented and bendy animals you think of primates and Biscuit because despite their incredible climbing ability, pangolins are discriminated against because of their looks. Also possibly because they smell like skunks. But neither skunks nor Flojo can dig straight through cement, now can they?
The Malayan Pangolin: A Fun Hybrid of Animals You Don't Like!
Tastes like chicken, with a nice sprinkling of volcanic ash and mutating fungus.
Since the only reason people like to fund amphibians is when they're frickin' weird, we thought we'd pick one that honestly is pretty standard. The most interesting thing about this frog is its name, which is directly related to why it's endangered: it is big and tasty. This frog suffers from a terrible middle ground: it is just delicious enough to eat, but not delicious enough to commercially breed. It also lives in the Caribbean, where its habitat is being restricted by volcanic eruptions. On top of that, this long-time native, first-time endangered frog is afflicted by the chytrid fungus which strikes the dual death blow of killing the frogs and making them even grosser to think about.
Check out the legs on this one! Mmm mmm delicious.
Leader-Williams, N. "Animal Conservation, Carbon and Sustainability." Philosophical Transactions: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 360.1797 (2002): 1787-1806.
Sitas, N, J. E Baillie, and N. J Isaac. "What Are We Saving? Developing a Standardized Approach for Conservation Action." Animal Conservation, 12.3 (2009): 231-237.
Smith, Robert, Diogo Verissimo, Nicholas J.B Isaac, and Kate Jones.
"Identifying Cinderella Species: Uncovering Mammals with Conservation
Flagship Appeal." Conservation Letters, 5.3 (2012): 205-212.
Amy and Meaghan have recently come to the conclusion that all journalists are failed detectives. It's the same general job concept: both professions enjoy exposing crimes and scandals, wearing trench coats, and smoking pipes. However, when detectives get something wrong they lose their job, while when a journalist gets something wrong, they sometimes print a retraction. When a detective blows something out of proportion in order to generate some controversy, people think said detective is an idiot. When a journalist does the same thing, they get hired by Fox News as a sensationalist.
Exhibit A.
Recently Meaghan and Amy have been encountering the sour bouquet of incompetence that is science in the media on a more-regular-than-is-pleasant basis. From students asking when dinosaurs are going to be cloned, to their parents warning that the Yellowstone Supervolcano is about to erupt, the Vengeance Team are tired of explaining away the stupidity of their friends' and families' news sources. In order to avoid giving themselves ulcers or concussions from rage blackouts, Amy and Meaghan have compiled a short list of things to keep in mind when reading any non-peer-reviewed article on science.
1) What you're reading is coming through a filter.
Do not ever assume that the reporter knows what they're talking about. Reporters like all of us, are human... which means that a substantial proportion of them are intensely stupid. We're talking like full on, manatee squash levels of stupid: unable to interpret what is exactly in front of their faces because it may not meet their preconceived notions or doesn't match whatever will the article a green light of approval (see #2). Sometimes, this stupidity is apparent if you're more cynical than the reporter; sometimes it's only clearly wrong if you're not.
Take the example of the second linked article, a scathing report on the discovery of a "Unicorn Lair" in North Korea. While hilarious, the article is written from the perspective of someone biased to consider North Koreans as hopelessly gullible peons searching to support their beliefs that Kim Jong-un is amazing and super awesome and rides mythical beasts. That level of filter and bias caused the author to stop at Exit Ridiculous and not explore much further; the next day the website posted a follow up after looking at some more of the details. The discovery of this cave, of which "Unicorn Lair" is a very loose translation, is actually more the equivalent of finding out that a legend used a name of a real place, person, or occurrence. That doesn't lend the legend more credibility - it's just finding a bit more of the root story at the bottom of a game of historical Telephone.
Sadly, this was photoshopped. See #5 for details
2) The reporter is inevitably writing for people even stupider than they are.
Yes, just like all the employees at the DMV, reporters expect you to register somewhere between pretty damn to holy shit amounts of stupid.
So the knowledge that they put into their articles is not only filtered by their own stupidity, but is then boiled down so it would make sense to a mildly literate slime mold. Metaphors are a well-loved tool for explaining difficult concepts, but sometimes they get used because the reporter didn't really understand what the scientist was talking about. This happens in education as well; sometimes using a metaphor imparts a totally different message than you anticipated.
3) Being interesting sells better than being accurate.
News articles must be sensational, unique and capable of attracting the population that also thinks Jersey Shore is classic prime time entertainment. That means that journalists tend to use words, ideas and general untruths to pull viewers into their venus fly trap of pretty pictures. This is most obvious when looking at headlines, which are simultaneously incredibly oversimplified and exceptionally over dramatic. Now, the Vengeance Team is no stranger to Drama and Dramatic Oversimplification (see any of our posts ever)... we just get all rageface when we see it's not obviously separated from science.
After all, which of the following titles would you be most inclined to click on?
4) "Expert" is a word without credentials. One of the things that sells is controversy, even if that controversy is pretty much not accepted by the scientific community at large. The fact that popular media often capitalizes on controversy ends up with flawed or outright false information being listed with equal weight to genuinely researched information. They often do this by employing both Experts and "Experts" and pitting them against one another in a fight to the verbal death.
Expert is a very slippery term, one which is often self-ascribed. In the news, you don't have to have a degree or a work background to be an expert... you just have to have an ego and a mouth that spills out big words, particularly if those words are contradictory to common perception or common sense. Since journalists refuse to perform background checks on morons, you're going to have to do it yourself.
Recently, CNN invited a "pair of experts" to duke it out on TV over climate change. Their experts were Bill Nye the Science Guy, who holds 3 honorary PhDs and a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and Marc Morano, who has a B.A. in political science, has never published a scientific article, and is funded by organizations who receive huge amounts of money from gas and oil companies.
Just kidding! NEITHER OF THESE THINGS BELONG, because NEITHER OF THEM are Climate Experts. There are reasons why both of them were picked: Marc Morano is one of the few Climate Denialists, and he's wealthy and persuasive enough to avoid showing up covered in rotten tomato stains. Bill Nye is famous, super awesome, and coined the term "Science!" This makes them appealing for a 10 minute rambling debate, but it doesn't actually make them experts: they were chosen because they could draw people in, not because they were the best at what they were talking about.
5) Those pictures aren't always related.
We know we're about to mess with your view of all that is good and true in the world, but it's time to pull the bandaid off and just tell you: sometimes Google isn't right. We know, we know - we gave you the red pill when you wanted to keep taking the blue, but it's time. To prove this to yourself, go ahead and pick an animal that you know a lot about. For example, sloths. Put that into google images search, and scroll down a few pages... are all of those sloths?
Now imagine you're a journalist suffering from the affliction mentioned in point #1, doing research on some sort of fossil animal you've never even heard of. You put your fossil name into google images and come up with some skeletons! That's how you get an article that's about dinosaurs that has a picture of a horse skeleton with glued on fangs. It's also how the two bits below were woven together, when having a elementary school student on staff would probably pick up the mistake:
6) Consider your source. A peer-reviewed article means that people who are theoretically just as intelligent and qualified as you are read your article, made you rewrite it a time or two, and then said it was good enough to publish. An article from a website or a newspaper typically goes through at least one editor's hands, who is unlikely to be any more familiar with the content than the journalist was, and who looks to make sure there aren't any half sentences. Blogs often aren't looked at by anybody: case in point, if they were, do you think there would be so many damn curse words in ours? (SORRY MAMA) The process of editing and reviewing papers or articles is important. Scientific journals rely on their integrity to be published, so when they mess up and somehow, somehow-dear-lord-HOW, manage to publish press releases named "could “advanced” dinosaurs rule other planets," they are quickly humiliated into retracting them. This particular example also relates back to #3: the original article was mostly about how molecules on Prebiotic Earth shared similar structure, but the press release focused on and amplified the crazier bits.
In Summary Hulking out about science in the media is not good for the Vengeance Team. While Amy does seem to live on a refined fuel of Top Ramen and Pure Rage, Meaghan is trying desperately to coax her to swap in some vegetables. Meaghan herself is already at her limit of apoplectic fits because all the Olds in Eugene are much faster bicyclers than her, so she can't handle the additional strain on her tiny, china-doll heart. Please, for the sake of Meaghan and Amy's health, consider your sources, consider your authors, examine their motivations, and don't ever assume Google Images is telling you the truth.
If you are a journalist or journalism student reading this, and you are offended and have works of your own that defy these trends, please email us! We want to reward good journalists who do their jobs, understand the scientific process, and don't contribute to our burgeoning ulcer problems. We know you're out there... we're just not sure where.
To understand this blog, there are three people that you
have to be introduced to: Meaghan Emery, Amy Atwater, and Mary Anning. Let’s
start with the ones that aren’t dead, because they’re the most exciting.
Amy Atwater and Meaghan Emery have known each other since
before anyone admitted that Amy was just never going to grow into her nose. At
the time, Amy was a camper at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s
Science Camps, while Meaghan was a counselor, sneaking off to get into trouble with Amy’s
brother (who also sports the family beak).
Without the hair cuts, differentiating them is nearly impossible.
Meaghan later provided Amy with a snake she had raised
from the egg, and their friendship fate has been sealed ever since that snake
slithered into Amy’s possession (and promptly into her step-mother’s care,
where it is now used to make house guests feel uncomfortable). Please note,
both Amy and the snake’s bodies will be donated to science. Meaghan plans on
never dying, so that’s a moot point.
Amy grew up a bit, while Meaghan came to terms with the
fact that she never would and promptly began lying on all of her driver’s
licenses. Today, they live together. They found each other once more at the
University of Oregon where they learn about fossils and rocks. Meaghan is a
first-year masters student while Amy is a senior doing original research on the
cutest fossil mammals, Omomyids. Meaghan unfortunately has chosen the
paleontological cow-patty minefield that is Oreodont taxonomy and diversity.
Mary Anning, meanwhile, is still dead. Hopefully, if
things go well, she’s fossilizing as we speak. In the early 1800’s Mary Anning
found the first complete plesiosaur, the first British pterosaur, and she and her brother found the type specimen for ichthyosaurs.
She was one of the most prolific paleontological collectors in history, and she
spent most of her life on the beach scouring it for fossils to sell. She was an expert
in the Jurassic Age marine sediments of England, and despite a lack of
education or money produced many compelling pre-Darwinian ideas as to evolution,
ecology and morphology of these organisms. The paleontologists of the day were
wealthy, white men; she was well known amongst them for finding fossils and
understanding their shape and function. Despite this, Mary wasn’t given credit
for much of what she found or described. She was rarely published, and many of
her ideas were stolen by the male paleontologists of the day. It wasn’t until
long after her death that most of her many contributions to paleontology were
recognized.
Things are getting better, but they aren’t yet fair: out
of the 19 professors on staff in the Geology Department at U of O, only 5 are
female, and only 1 of them is a full-time Geology faculty member.
Country-wide, women still make less than men in the same jobs, performing the
same tasks. Sometimes it’s easy to forget this, or to sweep women into binders
without much thought. Our culture doesn’t help - women are told throughout
school that they’re not as good at math, not as good at science; they are told that their voices and opinions aren't as important. Whether these messages are overt or subtle, the sad fact is that it's 2012 and they still exist.
Fortunately ladies, Meaghan and Amy are here. We're intelligent, charismatic and unsurprisingly pretty good at math. More
importantly, we’re very, very noisy. Ask any of our professors: we’ve got a
lot of things to say (and nobody comes to your office hours anyway so that's not an excuse for cutting our post-lecture discussion off before we're finished, ugh!). In a time when male politicians are vomiting their stupidity all over the news, Amy and Meaghan are stepping forward to cough out opinions of their own (obnoxious, amazing, and otherwise).
We are female, we are scientists,
and we refuse to be ignored. We are Mary Anning’s Revenge.
